Hootsuite Software

Reliable and easy social media manager

Hootsuite and Buffer are my go to social media, despite the several other SM Managers that I've tried out. I work with 5 brands and I have to manage their social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn) I've been using Hootsuite (and Buffer) for three years but of the two Hootsuite is my favorite and my safe bet. I have a habit of testing out as many free marketing software's as I can find and in terms of social media marketing Hootsuite is the best. The interface is easy to use, and the tutorial available to each new signup is very helpful. I love being able to tag a Facebook page, Twitter profile or Instagram profile in a post. The android app is also fully functional on my Kindle Fire (Unlike Buffer) which is a plus. The Feedly> Hootsuite integration is a major plus, I've never used the Hootsuite RSS feed option even though I keep planning to, but I like being able to share informative posts from feedly (On my Kindle Fire) to Hootsuite. What I love the best is that the free plan unlike buffer lets you schedule as many posts as you want to 3 social media profiles. This is great because I can schedule a month worth of social media posts in three days unlike the 10 posts per profile restriction on the Buffer's free plan. The analytics reports aren't very detailed and often I rely on Start a Fire as well as a variety of other software's to get in-depth analytics but the brands I work with do not understand or see the need for in-depth analysis so I suppose it's okay. I'm not happy that Hootsuite doesn't support posts with multiple images, I learnt that the awkward way when I made a post with 3 pictures. I recommend Hootsuite for beginners and Individuals who want a simple, straight forward social media manager. Oh, and the Hootsuite academy is very insightful.

Pros

It is one of the simplest Social media managers in the market, the freeplan is great because it provides essential features for beginners and experts at no cost. I also like the mini tutorial for new users, at the right side of the dashboard.

I personally use Tweetdeck for social listening on Twitter but Hootsuite is also great for that.

Cons

I dont like the fact that if i want to schedule a post with multiple images i'll have to schedule it directly on Facebook or on Tweetdeck for twitter.

Manage and schedule your tweets (and posts) for SUITE results

Pros

As a Hootsuite user for 7 years now, it is by far my favorite social media management software. Creating, optimizing, and posting social media for different platforms, etc. takes a lot more time than you would expect. Not only do you have to craft each post to fit each platform you’re posting to… you have to choose the best time, use the right hashtags, shorten URLS, and include something interesting (i.e. picture, video, content). Overall, what many believe will only take them 10 minutes, in reality it can take up 2-5 (or more) hours of your work week; even more when you include the content creation for the actual posting. Hootsuite is the best tool for compiling all your social media efforts into one dashboard you can work from and will definitely knock hours off your work week.

PROS
The best feature of Hootsuite is the time you will gain. Most social media platforms have a scheduling aspect to them but having to manually log in and out of each one, to do so, is not feasible or conducive for speed. Hootsuite provides you with analytics on each of your chosen platforms, located in its dashboard, to help you identify the most optimal time(s) to schedule each post to be sent out; this especially comes in handy for days you know you will be on the go and/or do not have access to technology. You can also scroll through past social media posts, save unfinished drafts, and boost posts for content promos; which will provide you with more insight and/or a better understanding of which of your efforts and/or CTA’s are working best. Hootsuite’s platform has various analytics and reports you can export so your team(s) can measure things like conversion rates, marketing and sales initiatives, and improvements in monthly social capital. One of the neat things about this platform is the option to purchase additional social media management applications for things like YouTube Analytics and video posting, Wordpress blog analytics and posting, Google Analytics, etc. Hootsuite also provides the option to export reports (including customized reports) on any of the platforms connected to your account, to measure competition, areas of improvement, click stats, and which platform is bringing in the largest amount of traffic to your website/content, etc.

Because the company I work for uses another third-party application (Lead Liaison) to track visitors and traffic sources to our website, we use the free version of Hootsuite.

Cons

One of the cons of Hootsuite is its inability to detect whether or not your traffic is originating from an actual human or an automated bot. This can interfere with your data and make it hard to decipher if the data you have access to is valid or not; this is true for Google Analytics as well. To avoid this, we use a third-party application for visitor tracking (Lead Liaison).

You may get notifications that your social network(s) have been disconnected from your dashboard; don’t worry, you simply just have to reconnect them. Although I am not sure why this happens so often, I trust that this has nothing to do the security of my account and I always receive notifications when I sign in to my account from a new device, etc.

Great tool, but feels like it could still do with something extra - better planning, more LinkedIn features

It might feel like it's missing a few extras, but generally its a really useful platform and out social media activity has been much better in terms or both organisation and analytics. There's also a massive community for Hootsuite so you can always find out how other people are using it. We used a Meltwater before and it was so scientific and clunky to set up we never ended up using it. We use Hootsuite daily now and the ability to shorten links is also really helpful.

Pros

Really easy to use and so many resources. The platform is brilliant for scheduling and you don't even have to visit the other social platforms to post and engage with the audience. You can really customise the streams for each user which is great for productivity, and the analytics is really useful.

As a manager, I only have to hop into the publisher section to see what posts are going out, how often we're posting, and what platform we're using most.

Using the streams, I can set up one for all posts to check consistency and monitor engagement, one for competitor research, and one for searches, and then more platform specific streams so I can really dive into the nitty-gritty if I need to.

Cons

It's very Twitter orientated, most of the useful streams like monitoring topical conversations etc are in Twitter (probably by nature of the Twitter platform), but I would like to see more feature on LinkedIn - so far there's only TWO streams; one to monitor Company Updates, and second to monitor scheduled posts (I can see this in the publisher planner anyway).

It would be good to see similar monitoring streams for Hashtag conversations because this feature is applicable in LinkedIn as well as Twitter.

The Publisher also feels like it's just missing something and I think it's the ability to 'plot' in posts rather than drafting out complete posts. For example when we're planning what activity we want to launch, we might not know what the full post is going to look like, but we might just want to plot in ideas which at the moment we have to do on a spreadsheet and then translate over to the Hootsuite publisher. It would be good to see this feature in the planner where we can plot ideas, and then fully draft them out later.

Perfect for individuals, business and agencies alike!

Pros

As a marketeer, I was lucky enough to try a few different social media management platforms. Personally, Hootsuite has always been one of my favorites.
The platform is quite easy to use, and setup. The interface is quite intuitive and on boarding new members normally takes us a few minutes.
We easily managed multiple accounts and switched between them in single clicks. The mini profile icons helped our team differentiate between our different clients, so we had a smaller number of mistakes.
But that's not all!
Team collaboration is superb once you establish a professional account. Content review and approvals that is easy to set up. You can review comments and replies and assign them to other users, and even leaves comments and notes for them. You can review other users performance and get full reports on their work.

Cons

Reporting is weak compared to other tools. And while I enjoy their pre-designed scheduled reports, I normally end up creating my own reports using other analytics tools that are more robust and provide more in-depth insights.
While i enjoy setting up multiple topic columns to monitor, extracting the data is impossible and you will always need a listening tool to create monitoring and listening reports.
I was on an older pricing plan for awhile now, but when I checked recently, they seem to have increased their pricing and are now quite pricey compared to some of the competing platforms, however, I still have a soft spot for them.

Hootsuite is great for individuals and marketing firms alike

My company uses Hootsuite to schedule social media for our clients. If I were trying to post multiple times a day for each client through the individual accounts, I would never do anything else. So, Hootsuite helps me set up a social media and content schedule that is unique to each business while leaving room for me to add content as I go throughout my other daily tasks. It streamlines and automates a task that would otherwise take up all of my time.

Pros

If I had to pick a favorite, I would say that the scheduling feature is extraordinarily helpful. I run a small digital marketing firm and handle the social media for almost all of my clients. I created separate accounts for each client to keep my own costs down, so I will simply schedule out 30 posts at a time and set a memo for myself to post more before the campaign ends.
After that, I love the plugins and tools, especially the ones that allow you to curate content that is relevant to the industry of my clients (Mostly cleaning, software, and daycares). I can set up an RSS feed that posts at regular intervals in case I am late on posting.
Finally, the photo editor - I like this because I post a ton of pictures for my clients, which means that I need the images to fit well on different networks. The photo editor allows me to play with the size right in the app until it fits properly, which takes a lot of guesswork out when trying to edit for size rather than picture quality.

Cons

Honestly, I have used multiple different scheduling software for social media - Hootsuite is by far my favorite because it is so feature rich. If I had one complaint, it would actually be the cost. If you are trying to use one platform for all clients or have more than 3 social accounts per client, Hootsuite can get pretty pricey, especially for a smaller startup without much capital while they are growing.

Easy to use with tons of features and plugins to compliment it

Pros

Hootsuite is one of the most versatile tools out there in the market. Starting from its free package, you will find yourself covering all the essentials you need for your day to day operations when it comes to social media. The columns/tabs interface is what sold the product to our team compared to all the other competitors we tried.
In addition, the ability to connect multiple profiles, create columns to listen to important topics and team communications and messaging (paid feature).

The free plan also allows you to schedule up to 30 posts, and if you need more, upgrading to any of their paid plans is as cheap.
As we had many clients to handle and our team required a lot of collaboration, we were under the team plan. it was easy to setup an automated monthly report that goes to the client, which saved us tons of time, and the team collaboration features allowed us to assign the right roles and exchange messages, assign tasks and customer inquiries (tweets and comments) to one another with ease.

Cons

While Hootsuite covers the essentials you might need for your day to day social media, it lacks much in-depth analysis, listening and reporting features.

In addition, it does not have cross-platform profiling and does not have features to help you setup competitions or gather/mine data easily.

Great for Managing My Nonprofit Social Media Pages!

If you manage multiple social media pages for an organization or business, this is a great tool that will make your life so much easier and save you a lot of time!

Pros

Hootsuite is a great timesaver. I love that as I'm setting up social media posts for the week, I can schedule posts across multiple platforms at the same time, and be able to further tailor them to the character of each platform (Facebook post vs. Twitter post) all from the same site. I also really appreciate how you can add or remove different "streams" from your viewing page for each social media platform. For instance, on my Facebook tab in Hootsuite, I have my page's scheduled posts in one column, our already published posts in the next column, and our inbox messages in another. For Twitter, though, I have my page's tweets in one column, our other newsfeed tweets in another (which I can retweet, reply to, and like all from that column in Hootsuite!), our mentions in a third column, and our direct messages in another.

Cons

Overall, Hootsuite is great, but there are a couple of things that bother me from time to time. When scheduling Facebook posts with multiple photo attachments, I've found that Hootsuite will publish each photo as a separate post, but with the same text each time, instead of including all the images in one post. This means that in these cases, I always have to go to Facebook's page to schedule posts with multiple images instead of being able to do it from Hootsuite. It's not something I have to do very often (typically, I only include one image with a post), but it's annoying nevertheless. I've also occasionally had Hootsuite incorrectly block me from being able to schedule my posts because it's internal clock is off and says that my posts (which I'm trying to schedule for several days away) aren't being scheduled for more than 5 minutes in the future.

Great tool for agencies managing multiple clients

Pros

Benefits of Hootsuite for agencies:
1. Super easy to manage multiple networks for multiple clients, and all in one or two clicks once you've completed set-up
2. Easy to collaborate, which is key for agency happiness; you can assign tasks and monitor the progress of those assignments
3. Viewing scheduled content for single accounts or multiple accounts is possible, even across clients, which is a big plus
4. They do have a content approval process that you can set up at their highest level which is pretty good, not the best out there, but more than most other management platforms offer
5. They have a LOT of plug-ins for their platform, which is awesome, including Slack, Wordpress and several other big ones that agencies might use or find helpful
6. They stay ahead of opportunities and have the first collaborations with the key social networks, like Instagram publishing, they were the first there

Cons

On the negative side:
1. You can only have like 7 streams in each tab, which seems like a lot, but it's not enough. I feel like there should not be a limit within each tab
2. They are expensive, in my opinion; they do compare with Sprout Social and some others, but I think they are all on the pricey side
3. Not their fault, but you now have to go direct to IG and FB for some things like checking private messages or for IG even commenting on others content is no longer available; this makes paying the higher price less desirable because now you are having to go back to managing the channels directly AND managing them via Hootsuite

Great for bloggers, businesses, and brand influencers who need to stay on top of social media posts.

Pros

Being able to measure my or my business's social media stats is super important, naturally. That data is presented to us in a way that helps us to very easily understand not just how many people are engaging with our social media posts and when, but HOW that's happening, period. Which type of posts generate the most site traffic? What time of day or night might our posts be the most or least popular or engaging? How long does it take me or my team to respond to posts? These are important things to know, as they have the potential the build up or break down our brands.

Scheduling content is, of course, a huge plus when you've got 10, 12, 15 different posts across multiple platforms to help keep your audience involved and engaged in what you're doing. It's also super helpful for people and businesses that are very busy outside of their online content, and may not have a dedicated social media team to lighten the load.

Cons

The Android app can be very slow to load at times. It could be just me, but I'm usually on wifi and have a flagship Samsung that hit the market a year ago. It also gives me trouble sometimes when I'm posting to Instagram via Hootsuite and I check my posts via the actual Instagram app, and the Hootsuite Instagram post won't be there. Weird stuff. I should add that in these instances, I am using the 'Post Now' option, and not scheduling posts for a future time. Could be user error, but if it is, I think this may suggest that when it comes to posting to Instagram through Hootsuite, the process isn't as easy or straight-forward as it could or should be.

Our Social Channels Management Simplified!

Social Media presence is important in this millennial age. HootSuite makes managing your social presence (profile, posts, shares, etc) a breeze and streamlined across all major social media channels.

Pros

There are just too many social channels to maintain (company branding, marketing, communications, sales, and support uses). HootSuite simplifies the management of these social channels to save our Social Media Manager (and staff) a lot of time updating the profiles, posts, shares, photos... etc.

Analytics! Numbers to back up any of our social media efforts are crucial for calculating ROI and supporting our request for management funding. The graphs and reporting features are intuitive, with just one glance one can analyze the performance, track customers / clients that need attention, and see which campaigns are doing well (and those that are not).

The Dashboard presents you a complete set of social media tools (all major social media channels supported). This is really worth it in this millennial digital era!

Cons

Don't be too easily swayed by the initial asking price... you'd eventually realize that for additional power-ups/extras you will have to shell out the additional payment (which eventually add up).

Also, just one comment on the UI... it seems pretty outdated in terms of looks which might turn off some users who are aesthetically sensitive (like myself). :)

excellent for marketing in social networks.

With Hootsuite, we can program it and not have to worry about it being published in a timely manner. It is also great to re-analyze the analyzes over time to see what types of content and what times of day work best for our company and the commitment of our audience.

Pros

It is a software that is very easy to use and is useful all the time. I make many publications in real time on various social media platforms and before that I would have to have more than 5 tabs open to access each social media account. It is extremely functional, efficient and changed the way I viewed social networks, so my point of view is much more focused on my own organization and its objectives. Scheduling publications in advance is a great time saver. The report panels are fantastic to show customers the value of the social. I also love the functions to track a hashtag in a separate transmission , Another opinion that I like about the Hootsuite software is an accurate team of reports and analysis and fast customer support.

Cons

Programming my first social publications as the first time counter became instantly difficult because I did not have the opportunity to do any kind of tutorial. The initial stages were really just me guessing how to program things.

Good Product But Could Use Improvements

We've enjoyed Hootsuite for the most part, and it really does take a lot of the pain out of social media management. Being able to schedule posts is by far the best feature, since it saves a lot of time and energy by being able to set up several days' worth of posts all at once. Connectivity is an issue for us, but overall, we would recommend this product for both large and small companies.

Pros

Hootsuite makes social media much easier by pulling all the platforms into one place. Rather than logging in to 5 different platforms, you can log into one, and manage them all from one screen. It also helps you keep track of your users/followers and the activities you're producing. We're also fans of being able to schedule posts for future dates, which means we can schedule a week's worth of activity in one sitting rather than logging in every day and working from scratch.

Cons

We've found some connectivity problems with Hootsuite, which is frustrating since that's the main function of the platform. We're often having to reconnect accounts or finding that a post didn't go through because the account disconnected beforehand. While it still makes it easier than logging in to the platform's individually, it is problematic to have disconnected accounts too frequently.

Hootsuite Social Media Management Tool Review

Hootsuite delivers a very good all-in-one social media platform. The tool is trusted by many individuals and organizations and Hootsuite provides very good resources and training.

Pros

Hootsuite enables users to manage all of their social media channels in one place. Hootsuite was one of the first to offer this functionality and has grown to be one of the top social media publishing integration platforms. Hootsuite is easy to use. Users write messages, select targeted social media channels, and publish. This functionality saves a lot of time by not having to log into each social media account and publish messages individually. Hootsuite also enables you to engage your audience by responding to questions, comments, and likes. Users can also schedule content to be published at certain dates and times. The Hootsuite dashboard can be organized easily by adding tabs for various social accounts and information. Finally, Hootsuite provides analytics that provides valuable insights into the performance of your social media messaging success. Hootsuite provides very good resources and training.

Cons

Hootsuite offers a free plan to get you started that supports three social media accounts. Of course, once you engage social media fully these accounts will grow past three and you will need to purchase one of their professional plans. These plans can get expensive based on the amount of users you require to manage your social media presence. Hootsuite offers a lot of features. You may not need or use them all. There are a number of alternative tools available that offer similar features for less cost.

Great social media marketing tool for novice and experts alike!

Pros

Hootsuite makes creating posts once and sending to multiple social media sites a breeze! Scheduling and attaching files is also easy. I wouldn't do them much justice if I also didn't add that the mobile app is just as easy as the web version! Setting permissions based on other users is a great function for teams where posts need to be approved. The free version may also work great for your needs depending on your limitations. Being able to see all streams from the web makes it easy to view all social media sites and make sure they're up to date. Responding to posts is also easily done from the dashboard. Lastly, there are tons of tools available from the dashboard to add to your account making it a one-stop shop!

Cons

Would like a way to schedule a long post for Facebook and allow a hidden character or combination of characters (maybe like, /&/) to allow a break for Twitter so the user doesn't have to create one long post for Facebook and 2-4 different posts for Twitter. Would like a way to receive an email of sorts when all posts are posted as sometimes (very, very rarely) are some not posted.

The community manager is more effective thanks to this software

Hootsuite is software that I would remember with my eyes closed. Although it is not a perfect software, it is one of the most complete since it combines several social networks in a single interface, propelling the user in an excellent way.

Pros

Hootsuite has been my ideal software for the management of Social Networks. Thanks to this program I can expose quite enough any person who so wishes, complying with excellent quality standards thanks to its benefits that I will mention them below:

-It can add a significant amount of social networks in the software, allowing me to monitor and expose the client quite acceptable.

- Its column system is quite functional to visualize and evaluate profiles of facebook, twitter, instagram, LinkedIn, without losing details when having to alternate between several browser windows.

-Incorporation of comments within a review, retweet, so that the idea you want is better projected

-Programming of automatic messages in the same social network

Cons

One of the problems I find when using Hootsuite is that I can not see the people who retweet my posts or tweets, to solve this, I must have a twitter session open with the Hootsuite. In the same way I think that this detail can be improved by this company.

Easy to use and efficient

Easy to use. Good value. Lots of tools and functions. Allows you to schedule Instagram which is a time saver.

Pros

Hootsuite is incredibly easy to use and even the free package offers a number of highly functional tools. I am able to easily monitor my own pages, upcoming posts and conversations mentioning my brand without or without my handle. I am able to follow other pages that offer content for me to share as well. The content creation and scheduling function is easy to use and allows me to do most everything I want. It is great that you can now post to Twitter.

Cons

It is frustrating that there is no handle drop down function for Instagram. With Twiter you can type the handles directly in the Hootsuite post scheduler and it will give you options to select from in a drop down. With Instagram you must go to Instagram, find the handle and type it perfectly in the message within hootsuite
The good thing is you can test the links in scheduled Instagram posts to ensure it has been typed correctly. I don't like that you cant just retweet without a comment, at least in the free version. While I usually do comment there are some instances where I simply want to retweet. Setting up stream is a bit difficult to get the hang of but once you do it is easy enough. I sometimes find it hard to narrow down on the exact conversation I am looking to track but overall pretty straightforward.

Pretty much the gold standard for social media management

I wish you could schedule to Instagram from the desktop app, but I realize that's a shortcoming with Instagram itself and not Hootsuite.

Pros

Very robust features--ability to search for mentions of your company or any topic to get involved with people and meet new followers, ability to see comments on facebook ads and respond in the app, the ability to respond to anything sent your way on your social media all in one place, bulk scheduling with spreadsheets, ability to manage many platforms at once, and more. I love Hootsuite.

Cons

The main con is that I wish Hootsuite had scheduling features like Buffer. Buffer allows you to setup a schedule rather than having to post everything manually, and it's super easy to recycle posts. For example, Buffer will tell you when the best posting times are either set up a posting schedule for you based on your desired frequency, or allow you to set one up (like post on facebook at 3PM every Tuesday and 10am every Friday etc.). Also, buffer's chrome extension will pull images in addition to the URL, and I wish Hootsuite did the same.

Excellent product - even on the free plan!

I save a lot of time with Hoostuite and it gives me peace of mind.

Pros

I have been using Hootsuite for a few years now. I am on a paid plan, as I have many social media accounts to manage, but I also have a couple of clients who use the free version and I am very impressed with what they are able to do on the free plan. The bulk upload took a bit to get used to how to create the spreadsheet properly, but it has been a lifesaver ever since!

I really like being able to interact with my Twitter accounts right in the Hootsuite dashboard. I have many lists set up on Twitter and Hootsuite makes it very easy for me to interact with them. The calendar view is helpful as I can easily move posts around if I have to.

Cons

I wish the free plan would allow for more social media posts to be scheduled at one time, as I like to plan out and schedule the bulk of my social media posts at the beginning of the month. The limit on scheduled posts has me using other services in conjunction with Hootsuite to get around this.

Best Tool for Managing Social Media Accounts

Hootsuite is a great application for managing social media and helping you stay productive and save time.

Pros

I am so glad I discovered this app. I like Hootsuite because it helps me manage all social media accounts for my company in one dashboard. Instead of logging in to each social media account independently, I only log in to Hootsuite and I can access all the social media accounts. Hootsuite also allows me to mass post on the social networks. Like I can write one post and post to different social media accounts.

Another awesome thing about Hootsuite is the ability to schedule posts ahead of time. I find this feature very useful. This feature helps me plan my future posts in a single sitting ahead of time. I then schedule when I want the posts to go out. This helps me be more productive and keep my social media accounts engaging with fresh content and also helps save time.

Another thing I like about Hootsuite is that the tool is free of charge. Yes, there is a premium version, but if you don't have the budget for that, you can still use the free version which is also pretty awesome.

Cons

A challenge with Hootsuite is that it can be quite overwhelming when you start out. The interface has numerous activities and components which can be overwhelming if you are just starting out with the application.

Another challenge is that Hootsuite can be quite expensive for an organisation if the company has many users. The price increases per user in the premium version of the application.

Create, perform, and organize on social networks

Pros

For nobody is a secret that we live in an era of social networks. Even, 70% of the development of a company or of any person, happens nowadays for the good use of its image. Applications such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or LinkedIn are the main social networks currently used worldwide. But what happens if you need to manage each of them? That is why Hootsuite is the platform that will help you to have almost perfect control of each of them, through the visualization of multiple tabs and columns, with the use of advanced reports.
Its creator needed precisely a tool that would allow him to order each of the most important social networks, and after the creation of Hootsuite, he decided to share his creation with the rest of the world. The result was an excellent application that covers both the use of an organization and that of a natural person who wants to manage its content well.
Without a doubt, it is an indispensable platform that you will need yes or yes to manage in all those media. Do not think about it, buy it without any doubt.

Cons

Currently, Hootsuite has several competitors in the market that have given it a fresher touch than the platform created by the company can have. Therefore, some tools may not be equal to others such as Postcron, BlogsterApp, Metricooly Buffer, which also have the function of creating posts in networks, each with different details, positive or negative, of what is Hootsuite. However, it does not mean that this is a negative point. Competition in the market will always be a positive thing for the improvement and development of these platforms.