Transparent

Hootsuite

Simplify social media management with Hootsuite

Best For : Professionals, Small teams, Small-medium businesses, and Enterprises.

Pricing: $739

Top Features

Hootsuite

Hootsuite

by Hootsuite Media
  • 8.8 Publishing & Scheduling
  • 7.9 Analytics
  • 8.1 Inbox/Listening
  • 8.4 Collaboration
  • 8.0 Support

Other Users Choose

SocialPilot

SocialPilot

4.5 (509)
  • 9.1 Publishing & Scheduling
  • 8.2 Analytics
  • 8.0 Inbox/Listening
  • 8.8 Collaboration
  • 8.9 Support

Overview

Before Facebook came into the picture, there were a few unsuccessful attempts at social media with Friendster and MySpace. But when Facebook arrived, it completely changed the game. It also caught the attention of brands who saw it as a platform to run banner ads that were otherwise ignored.

Around this time, a digital advertising firm named Invoke took note of this. It could see the potential for brands to connect with their customers through social media, and came to the realization that they needed a better way to manage multiple accounts. Invoke’s CEO then assembled a team to build a solution for this, named BrightKit. This solution was released in 2008 and later renamed as Hootsuite.

Today, Hootsuite is one of the popular social media management tools that continues to grow. Over 800 Fortune 1000 companies currently use it to manage their social media efforts. It has attained great success in addressing the challenges of managing multiple brands and social media accounts.

Hootsuite helps with planning, scheduling, and syndicating social media posts across multiple networks from one place. The tool offers key features such as automatic scheduling, social media monitoring, performance reporting, basic task management, and more. With Hootsuite, users can save time on their social media marketing efforts by managing various social networks, including Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok, Twitter, Youtube, Pinterest, Linkedin, Google Business Profile, and Whatsapp (add-on), all from one platform.

Hootsuite’s Streams feature enables users to monitor the different social media channels they are active on and see a constant feed of relevant social media activity. Users can set up Streams to monitor mentions, keywords, hashtags, or posts from specific social media accounts. The Streams feature can also be a great tool for content creation and offers a single platform for monitoring and replying to conversations happening on social media.

Another feature is Hootsuite Analytics, which offers in-depth performance reporting and covers key metrics like fans and followers, posts and tweets, engagement, traffic, and more. Users can schedule reports for automatic distribution via email on a weekly or monthly basis, making the tool well-suited for client reporting.

The platform also allows users to assign items to different team members, making it a critical feature for businesses that provide customer service support on social media.

Hootsuite Rating

Ratings
 
Hootsuite
 
SocialPilot
Meets Requirements
 
8.3
 
8.9
Ease of Use
 
8.4
 
9.1
Ease of Setup
 
8.4
 
9.1
Ease of Admin
 
8.5
 
9.1
Quality of Support
 
7.9
 
8.9
Value for Money
 
8.3
 
9.2
Product Direction
 
7.3
 
9.0

Hootsuite Review

Positive

  • With Hootsuite, you can effortlessly manage and schedule posts on multiple social networks in one place, saving your time and increasing your social media productivity.
  • It has a 30-days free trial for marketers who are getting started and also has a Hootsuite academy that provides all resources about social media management.
  • Hootsuite provides an overview of all social networks in one place, making it easy to manage and track social media interactions and performance.
  • Hootsuite's content planner is extremely easy to use and provides a clear view of the planned content, making it a more user-friendly experience.
  • Hootsuite has an analytics section that allows one to customize how the report looks and has multiple analytical reports for each platform which can be shared with anyone.
  • Hootsuite has a feature that helps you import and schedule reports on a weekly and monthly basis. These reports can be customized as well.
  • Hootsuite has a content approval workflow through which you can share your post with editors, managers, and clients to get approval for the post.

Negative

  • Hootsuite has a limitation of size for uploading, due to which you can't schedule large files such as animations.
  • Hootsuite price is on the higher end, making it an unaffordable software for smaller businesses and digital marketing agencies. Many other social media management softwares are available at lower prices.
  • Hootsuite doesn't provide competitor analysis to keep track of one’s own performance with respect to competitors. This can make it more challenging to gauge one’s standing in the market and make informed decisions for future strategy.
  • While Hootsuite does offer Instagram Business functionality, it does have some limitations, such as needing to open the app in order to complete certain actions. This may cause inconvenience for some users.
  • Though Hootsuite provides a tagging option so that you can tag content, placing it in a specific category. Content that has already been posted can not be tagged. So, if you forget to tag content before it's published, that campaign's insights will be incorrect.
  • The lower plans have limited reporting capabilities, which could greatly impact your ability to effectively monitor and analyze your social media performance.
  • While using Hootsuite for posting images on Facebook and Instagram, there can be instances where non-square images may get cut off, leading to a loss of visual impact. This is a limitation of Hootsuite is a factor to consider when scheduling your posts.

Hootsuite Pricing

The famous social media management tool Hootsuite is an ideal solution for large organizations that manage multiple brands. Hootsuite’s pricing plans cater to companies of varying sizes, from Fortune 1000 corporations to solo operations.

Today, a lot of people and companies commonly face the question of – Is Hootsuite free? Or, how to create a Hootsuite free account? While Hootsuite’s free plan is available, it has limited functionality and is best suited for personal social media usage.

To get a free Hootsuite account, sign up for a 30-day trial of Hootsuite Professional. After 30 days, you can choose to stick to the Professional plan or again switch to free.

To fully comprehend the full range of Hootsuite’s capabilities, most companies would benefit from taking advantage of a paid plan through a free trial. Hootsuite cost is a bit much, but it provides features that compensate for it.

Wondering how much Hootsuite is for or have questions related to Hootsuite’s cost? Here are all Hootsuite pricing plans:

  • Professional: A single user can efficiently handle up to 10 social media accounts with the ability to schedule unlimited posts and manage all incoming and outgoing messages through a centralized inbox. The platform also provides basic analytics and the option to boost posts with an ad spend of up to $500 per month.
  • Team: The team version of Hootsuite plans accommodates up to 3 users and allows them to manage up to 20 social media accounts with unlimited post scheduling and a centralized inbox. The package includes a custom branded and trackable URL, the ability to boost posts with ad spend up to $2,000 per month, customizable reports, and the option to assign tasks to team members.
  • Business: This comprehensive plan caters to up to 5 users and enables them to manage a total of 35 social media accounts with all the features of the previous plan. In addition, it offers 5 custom branded and trackable URLs, a content library, campaign planning, tagging, and reporting. It also offers unlimited boosted ad spend, messaging tagging for analytics, 24/7 priority support, and a 60-minute 1-on-1 training session. As add-on options, there is the ability to have unlimited users, paid and organic ROI reporting, and social listening.
  • Enterprise: This ultimate plan is designed for businesses with 5 or more users and 50 or more social media accounts. It includes all the features of the previous plan with added benefits like single sign-on functionality and employee advocacy, and social selling features. This Hootsuite plan provides everything your business needs to manage its social media presence with ease.

Professional

$99.00

Per Month
  • 1 User
  • 10 Social accounts

Features

  • Unlimited posts
  • Post scheduling
  • Access to messages in one inbox

Team

$249.00

Per Month
  • 3 Users
  • 20 Social accounts

Professional Features +

  • Roles & permissions
  • Assign posts to team members

Business

$739.00

Per Month
  • 5 Users
  • 35 Social accounts

Team Features +

  • Approval workflows
  • Inbound/outbound tagging
  • Content & asset library
  • Hootsuite customer support

Enterprise

Custom

Per Month
  • Starts at 5 users
  • 50 Social accounts

Business Features +

  • Social ads management
  • Social ads analytics & reporting
  • Employee advocacy
  • Team productivity reporting

Price Comparison

When you look at Hootsuite pricing plans, you see that they are on the pricey side. You can get similar or better functionalities at a much lesser cost.

SocialPilot emerge as one of the best Hootsuite alternative that offers a wide range of features needed by small businesses and agencies at a fraction of the Hootsuite’s cost.

Simply put, SocialPilot plans are easy-on-the-pocket as compared to Hootsuite plans. Here’s a more detailed pricing comparison between the plans of both the tools:

Professional

$99/per month

Small Team

$249/per month

Business

$739/per month

Enterprise

Custom

Free trial

available-icon

Available

Professional

$30/per month

Small Team

$50/per month

Agency

$100/per month

Agency+

$200/per month

Free trial

available-icon

Available

Features

1. Social Media Scheduling:

Allows users to schedule and publish posts to multiple social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and more. So, if you are wondering what Hootsuite is used for, you can consider it as one of the best social media scheduling tools</a >.

With Hootsuite, you can easily create new posts, and use its publishing feature to schedule them to a number of social media accounts at the same time. The tool allows you to curate, create, schedule, and publish content, all within a single dashboard. You can check upcoming scheduled content as well.

Also, Hootsuite’s social media scheduler helps you plan your content beforehand, across all the social platforms. This saves a lot of time and lets you remain on top of things. You also have the option to schedule multiple posts with Bulk Composer, all at the same time.

Planner

2. Social Media Monitoring:

Allows users to monitor mentions of their brand, keywords, and competitors across multiple social media platforms.

Users can use Hootsuite to stay abreast with all the latest conversations on important topics and keep a track on brand mentions and post performance. You can also use Hootsuite for competitor analysis. All of this happens within a single dashboard.

Additionally, users can also set up custom streams to check out trends, important topics, and the latest happenings at a glance. The feature of responding in-stream is also available.

Streams

3. Social Media Analytics:

Hootsuite’s analytics feature provides in-depth insights into social media performance, including metrics such as engagement, reach, and audience demographics.

Analytics

Setting performance benchmarks and monitoring improvements become easy with the help of Hootsuite because of the 360-degree view it offers of your results on social platforms.

monitoring

Also, assessing your performance in every social platform helps you save loads of time. With this social media analytics tool, you are also able to create custom reports that showcase the impact on your bottom line and brand in general. Hootsuite’s Analytics provides you with customizable reports showcasing the facts and figures that are valuable to your organization. You even get important information on the best times to post.

4. Team Collaboration:

Allows multiple team members to access and manage the same social media accounts and schedule posts.

Hootsuite allows you to get edits or insights from your team members before a post is published. This can help ensure that the content is on-brand and consistent. In all, Hootsuite is a tool that allows for easy collaboration.

You can also view the name of the post author. This offers easy reference. You can also easily edit, create, and even duplicate drafts. This can help save time in crafting your next campaign.

Apart from this, the Hootsuite Planner helps you fill content gaps and collaborate in real time.

Marketing

5. Social Media Advertising:

Helps users to create, manage, and analyze social media ad campaigns across multiple platforms.

With targeted paid efforts, such as ads and boosted posts, you can get your brand in front of the desired audience at all stages of their customer journey.

Hootsuite enables you to analyze and optimize your efforts, boost posts, and generate reports across Instagram, Facebook, and Linkedin. This saves a lot of time and you can do it all within the Hootsuite dashboard.

In all, while wondering what else is Hootsuite used for, you should know that it makes your advertising efforts easy and impactful by letting you advertise across social media channels seamlessly.

Advertise

6. App Directory:

Allows users to connect with over 150+ apps to extend the functionality of Hootsuite, including apps for analytics, content creation, and customer relationship management. With this feature, your essential social media networks and tools come in one place.

The reason Hootsuite offers access to a plethora of apps is to simplify marketing. These apps include Google My Business, LinkedIn Hashtag Analytics, MailChimp, Hubspot, Canva, Shopview for Shopify, etc.

When you integrate Google My Business, for instance, you can monitor Google My Business reviews and send messages to customers directly.

Dashboard

7. Security & Compliance:

Provides various security features, such as user roles and permissions, and compliance with industry-specific regulations.

Also, Proofpoint, a software tool, offers an extra layer of security. You can integrate it with Hootsuite Enterprise accounts and get automated screening and analysis post or prior to when a post is published.

Member

8. Hootsuite Insights:

A content discovery and curation tool that helps users find and share the

most relevant content for their audience.

Hootsuite Insights offers a real-time overview of millions of conversations taking place on the web. All you need to do is search for a keyword or topic, and use filters such as location, demographics, date, and more. This tool, powered by Brandwatch, also helps you learn about how your brand is perceived in the market. It even helps you recognize thought leaders and receive instant alerts if your mentions witness a spike.

In all, the tool is great to receive real-time audience insights.

Inspiration

9. Hootsuite Impact:

A Hootsuite analytics tool that provides a comprehensive view of the business

impact of social media efforts, including ROI and revenue attribution.

Impact helps you compute the return on your social media investment. It also assists you in demonstrating how social media channels and campaigns drive conversions, leads, and sales. The customizable dashboards consist of tables, readable graphs, and KPI summaries, making it great for stakeholders who are result-oriented. All in all, Impact helps you prove the real business value of social media. It enables you to influence as well as inform business decisions, all thanks to the insights from your organic and paid social media campaigns.

10. Hootsuite Academy:

A learning platform that provides training and certification on social media best practices and strategy. If an individual wishes to learn new skills and take their social media career to the next level, these courses by Hootsuite can help them. To start learning, all you need to do is sign up for the certification courses.

Academy Certification courses include Hootsuite Platform Certification Course, Advanced Social Media Strategy, and Social Marketing Certification Course. These online classes are taught by industry professionals. All in all, these courses help you find success with social media as they help you advance your social media skills.

Certificate

Hootsuite Reviews – Social Media Analytics Software

Features
 
Hootsuite
 
SocialPilot
Social Analytics
 
7.9
 
8.2
Social Publishing
 
8.8
 
9.1
Campaign Optimization
 
8.4
 
8.8
Social Engagement
 
8.5
 
8.2
Campaign Planning
 
7.4
 
8.9

Conclusion

Approximately ten years ago, the idea of a full-time job dedicated specifically to managing a brand’s social media accounts was met with skepticism. However, the rapid advancement of technology and the increasing importance of social media in modern business have led to a shift in perception. Today, social media management is widely recognized as a vital component of successful marketing strategies. Individuals in this role are considered essential members of their organizations, with Hootsuite being a tool that they can consider adding to their arsenal.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Hootsuite used for?

Hootsuite is a tool used for managing your social media posts and ads, all in one place. With Hootsuite, you can create, schedule, and publish your content and see how it's doing in real time. This way, you are able to spend more time on other important aspects of your business.

What is the most popular feature of Hootsuite?

The most popular feature of Hootsuite is that it lets you plan and post content on many social media accounts at once, all from a single screen.

What platforms are supported by Hootsuite?

9 platforms are supported by Hootsuite, namely Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok, Twitter, Youtube, Pinterest, Linkedin, Google Business Profile, and WhatsApp.

How to get Hootsuite for free?

A common question that many face today is – Is Hootsuite free or is there a free version of Hootsuite? What you need to know is that there is a free Hootsuite plan with very limited feature set. For paid plans, Hootsuite’s costs are too high.

To get a free Hootsuite account, sign up for a 30-day trial of Hootsuite Professional. After 30 days, you can choose to stick to the Professional plan or again switch to free.

Is it worth paying for Hootsuite?

Although paid Hootsuite plans offer effective publishing and monitoring of social media content, Hootsuite’s cost is very high. You can get similar or better functionalities at lower costs and a better user interface.

What is better than Hootsuite?

Top Hootsuite alternatives include:

  • SocialPilot
  • Sprout Social
  • Zoho Social
  • Buffer
  • Cloud Campaign
  • Agorapulse
  • Later
  • EClincher

About the Author

Picture of Jimit Bagadiya

Jimit Bagadiya