I have been a loyal TweetDeck user for quite some time and have finally decided to see what all the rave is about with HootSuite.
So far, there are a few great selling points (other, of course, than it being free). HootSuite is a great tool for managing multiple twitter accounts. You can easily select an account to tweet from with the HootSuite dashboard.
It is also great for measuring influence by seeing how many people have clicked on one of your links and where people were when they clicked (such as facebook or twitter).
The one thing I’ve found a little tricky is working with groups. It doesn’t appear to be a feature (or maybe it’s just one I haven’t figured out yet). The way I’ve been handling groups is by creating a private twitter list and then adding that list into one of my HootSuite columns.
The Hootlet is also a great option for sharing links on twitter. Add it to your browser toolbar. Then, when you find a site you want to share with your twitter followers, you simply click on your Hootlet. It’s a very handy tool.
So, I haven’t completely converted from Tweetdeck. But, I’m getting there!