HootSuite launches new Chrome extension with Google, Yelp, and rich media integration

About seven million social media managers, marketers, and ordinary average people share content from the web to their personal and corporate social media account with HootSuite’s tools.

Today, the company, which is hiring “hundreds” of new people, upgraded their experience with new rich media tools and custom service integrations.

Just like the old version, the new Hootlet extension allows you to share content from any web page to your followers and fans. But unlike the old version, HootSuite now features built-in simple photo and video sharing, simply by mousing over an image or video and selecting “share with HootSuite.” That’s something that previously required several steps and a trip outside your browser.

More interestingly, HootSuite also built in integration with Google Maps and Yelp.

With the new Google Maps feature, HootSuite users can type in an address and see “tweets near here” … tweets that people have published from any specific location recently. That’s particularly interesting for local business owners who might want to see what’s happening and what’s new near their locations, or track a Twitter promotion that’s focused on an in-store experience, but it’s also useful for concert promoters, live event producers, or even media following a news event.

And with the new Yelp integration, the Hootlet extension shows you tweets that either mention that business, or, like the Google Maps feature, were published from near that company’s address. Clearly, this is useful for not just monitoring your own social media efforts, but also for taking the pulse of your competitors’ initiatives.

In addition, the new Hootlet allows users much finer-grained control over what they share — not just in terms of video or images, but also in terms of the exact text shared from the webpage, simply by highlighting the text before sharing.

None of the new functionalities are things that people couldn’t previously do, but what HootSuite is offering with the new functionality is the ability to stay in-stream, stay in your browser, and still access the power and capability of its social media management tools.