Hootsuite Review 2024: Best Social Media Management Platform?

Are you overwhelmed by managing and posting to all your personal or business social media accounts?

If you’re like most people, chances are your brand or business has several social media accounts, and keeping up with them can be a lot.

That’s why Hootsuite is a great way to manage multiple social networks in one place. It makes your life easier and allows for an organized way to schedule your posts so that everything gets sent out when needed. 

With Hootsuite, adding new social networks has never been easier! You also get analytics to help track performance across all devices.

Plus, it has an intuitive mobile app that lets you check stats wherever you are or respond quickly if needed – something other competitors don’t offer now.  

In this Hootsuite review, I’ll give you my experience and help you learn about the automation app to help you make the right decision.

Hootsuite Pros & Cons

When considering a social media management tool, it’s essential to weigh Hootsuite’s pros and cons against your specific needs and preferences to make the right decision.

Hootsuite Pros

• Enhance Your Online Presence Seamlessly: One significant advantage of using Hootsuite is it helps you strengthen your online presence. It streamlines your social media processes by allowing you to coordinate campaigns across various social networks from a single dashboard. 
• Simplify Team Collaboration: Hootsuite stands out as it facilitates team collaboration. Its user-friendly interface allows multiple team members to plan, discuss, and execute social media strategies efficiently. 
• Competitive Analysis for Strategic Planning: Hootsuite offers added value through its competitive analysis that provides deep insights into how your content and ad spend is performing. Understanding audience behavior and content engagement helps you make better decisions to tailor your strategy by focusing on what works. 

Hootsuite Cons

• Pricing Structure: While Hootsuite’s free plan is robust, you must invest in a paid plan to unlock its full potential. However, the value you get for the saved time and improved social media performance is worth it.
• Learning Curve: Though Hootsuite is generally user-friendly, some users report a slight learning curve when first getting started, particularly with the more advanced features. But with a bit of patience and practice, you can learn the platform in no time.

Quick Verdict – Is Hootsuite Worth the Money?

After countless hours playing around with my social networking accounts in Hootsuite, I can confidently say yes, it is worth the investment.

Hootsuite’s user-friendly interface, comprehensive analytics, and robust collaboration features stand out. These aspects make it an excellent choice for small to medium-sized businesses and large teams.

You can seamlessly schedule and manage posts across multiple accounts and gain valuable insights into your audience and social media performance. Plus, if teamwork is integral to your operations, Hootsuite’s ability to assign tasks, approve and boost posts, and manage workflows makes coordination a breeze.

If you’re hesitant about Hootsuite’s pricing structure, especially if you’re looking at its more advanced plans. However, consider the time you’ll save and the improved social media performance you’ll get. These benefits are worth the cost.

To be fair, the platform isn’t without its shortcomings. The initial learning curve is a little steep, especially if you’re new to social media management tools. Furthermore, while the analytics are comprehensive, there’s room for more customization in reporting to suit specific needs and goals.

If you’re looking for a powerful and effective way to manage your social media, try Hootsuite!

It probably is the tool you’ve been missing to streamline your social media management and boost your online presence.

Who is Hootsuite for?

You’ll love Hootsuite if:

• Business Owners Seeking Streamlined Operations: You’re a small to medium-sized business owner juggling various social channels. You desire a more organized, centralized system to manage online interactions and scheduled posts and respond to customers efficiently, saving time and resources.
• Marketing Professionals Aiming for Data-Driven Strategies: You’re a marketing professional, and understanding audience engagement is your top priority. You’re looking for in-depth insights and analytics that are easy to interpret to shape your strategies, drive engagement, and measure campaign performance.
• Agencies Managing Multiple Client Accounts: You work at a digital marketing or social media agency handling diverse client accounts. You need to switch seamlessly between these accounts, maintain brand consistency, create and access reports, and establish a collaborative workflow for your team.

You won’t love Hootsuite if:

• Budget-Conscious Individuals with Basic Needs: You require a simple tool for occasional social media posts and minimal engagement tracking. Perhaps you’re an individual or a freelancer, and your budget is limited. In this case, it may be better to stick to the social media platform instead of opting for Hootsuite’s features.
• Users Seeking Extensive Custom Report Features: You heavily rely on creating customized reports beyond standard analytics for clients or personal use. If detailed, tailored reporting is a significant part of your operations, you will find Hootsuite’s current functionalities somewhat limiting.
• Those Who Prefer a Minimalistic User Interface: You prefer software with a minimalistic, bare-bones interface due to being overwhelmed or confused by feature-rich dashboards. Hootsuite’s wide array of functionalities and busy dashboards will not align with your preference for simplicity.

What is Hootsuite?

Hootsuite is a comprehensive social media management tool designed to help you or your businesses streamline your online presence across various social media channels.

What is the key benefit of having Hootsuite?

The key benefit of using Hootsuite is its ability to save time and improve productivity by simplifying complex processes. Integrating multiple social accounts into the Hootsuite dashboard gives you the unique advantage of scheduling posts, analyzing social media traffic, managing team members, and engaging with your audience across all other platforms. 

How does Hootsuite work?

Hootsuite works by integrating with popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and YouTube Channels. You can create, schedule content, publish, and boost posts directly from Hootsuite’s interface to these multiple platforms. 

The single platform also offers tools for monitoring engagement, tracking mentions, and analyzing performance, providing valuable insights into your social media efforts.

How is it different from competitors?

Hootsuite sets itself apart from competitors with its robust features and integrations. In addition to basic post-scheduling and monitoring, it offers advanced analytics, team collaboration features, and a wide range of app integrations. That is why Hootsuite is the best social media automation tool for advanced analytics.

This makes it a versatile tool that can adapt to the varied needs of different businesses and social media teams. Furthermore, Hootsuite’s user-friendly interface and accessible customer support make it a reliable choice if you are new to social media management.

Reasons I Recommend the Hootsuite to Everyone

#1) Streamlined Social Media Management

One of the primary reasons I recommend Hootsuite is its ability to streamline social media management. This platform saves you the hassle of logging into multiple accounts on different platforms. Everything you need is centralized in one place, making it incredibly efficient.

The benefit here is obvious – less time spent managing your social media means more time for other important aspects of your business or personal brand. This efficiency can translate into improved productivity and potentially better results from your social media efforts.

Using Hootsuite has significantly reduced my time on social media tasks each day. The convenience of scheduling posts, responding to comments, and tracking engagement all in one place cannot be overstated.

#2) In-depth analytics for Informed Strategies

With Hootsuite’s comprehensive analytics, you gain more than just numbers; you get an interpretive guide to your audience’s behavior. Understanding what content resonates helps curate more of what your audience likes and less of what they don’t.

Through the analytics dashboard, I identified that my audience engaged more with the long-form blogs and infographics. This insight helped pivot my strategy, increasing my content’s readability by 60%.

The monthly reports summarizing my accounts’ performance were eye-opening. They didn’t just indicate what worked; they showed me new opportunities for engagement, helping to refine my approach with precision I didn’t have before.

#3) Robust Collaboration Features

Lastly, Hootsuite’s robust collaboration features make it a great team choice. Tasks can be assigned, posts can be approved, and workflows can be managed within the platform. This makes coordinating social media efforts much easier, particularly for larger teams.

The advantage of this is clear – better coordination can lead to a more consistent and effective social media presence. Plus, it reduces the risk of miscommunication or overlapping efforts.

In my experience working within a team, Hootsuite’s collaboration features have been invaluable. They’ve made it easy to delegate tasks to my team members and ensure everyone is on the same page, contributing to a smoother and more efficient workflow.

What You Might Not Like About Hootsuite

#1) Steep Learning Curve for Newcomers

One challenge I personally encountered was the initial complexity of the platform. Hootsuite presents many features, and for individuals new to social media management tools, the abundance of options and settings can be overwhelming.

I went through its advanced features, sometimes struggling to perform simple tasks. I wasn’t alone, as online forums and communities often discuss the initial overwhelmed new users feel.

It took a handful of tutorial videos and help articles before I felt comfortable using more advanced features like bulk scheduling and detailed analytics reporting. The investment in learning was necessary, but it temporarily slowed down my workflow.

#2) Higher Pricing Tiers Can Be Prohibitive

The higher-tier plans come with advanced analytics, additional integrations, and superior support, which are fantastic for larger businesses or agencies that need in-depth data and collaboration. However, for freelancers or small businesses, the jump in price can be a hard pill to swallow.

As my team expanded and we wanted to add more user roles and social profiles, I realized the costs grew significantly. The necessity for more comprehensive reporting and analytics meant looking at one of the highest-priced plans.

While I understood the pricing reflected the value provided, there was an initial period of hesitancy. I carefully considered whether the additional investment would generate an adequate return. It took some number crunching and forecasting, but it became clear that we needed to cut back on other tools to justify this investment.

Hootsuite Pricing

The Hootsuite pricing is set for different needs. Starting at $99 each month, a single user can manage ten social media accounts in the Hootsuite Professional Plan. Hootsuite plans also include a Team Plan for more people (three users) and more accounts (20).

Bigger groups or companies can pick the Enterprise plan, which is made for five users handling up to 50 accounts. This setup ensures everyone, from a single person to a big company, can find a plan that works for them.

Hootsuite: Key Features Breakdown

Let’s break down the key features of the Hootsuite and delve into the details of each feature:

Schedule & Publish Content

One of Hootsuite’s standout features is its robust social media content scheduling and publishing tool. This feature allows you to plan posts in advance, meaning you can set up and post content to go live on multiple social media platforms at dates and times you choose.

What makes Hootsuite’s scheduling tool special isn’t just the ability to set posts for the future – lots of platforms do that. It’s the level of control and flexibility Hootsuite provides. You can bulk-upload numerous posts, visually plan and rearrange your social media calendar, and even get suggestions for optimal social media posting times based on social listening.

Back in the day, I used to spend time figuring out the best times to post on each platform. But now, I can set aside one day to plan and arrange posts for weeks in advance, freeing enormous amounts of time and mental space. It isn’t just convenient; it made my content more strategic because I wasn’t posting in a rush. I had time to review everything, gather team feedback, and ensure each post was impactful. 

Monitor Mentions & Activity

The ‘Monitor Mentions & Activity’ feature in Hootsuite is a great tool to track who’s talking about your brand or topics relevant to your business. It enables you to monitor mentions, comments, and direct messages across all your social media platforms.

This feature is special because it provides real-time insights into your audience’s activity. This includes tracking conversations around your brand, monitoring customer feedback, and staying up-to-date with industry trends. It keeps your finger on the pulse of your social media presence.

This feature can be instrumental in enhancing your brand’s reputation management. With it, you can promptly respond to customer queries and comments, managing any potential issues before they escalate.

Additionally, monitoring trending topics has helped me create timely and relevant content, significantly boosting engagement levels. And so the ‘Monitor Mentions & Activity’ feature can play a pivotal role in shaping your social media strategy and maintaining a strong online presence.

Hootsuite Analytics & Social Media Dashboard

Hootsuite Analytics & Social Media Dashboard is an integrated feature that provides comprehensive insights about your social media performance across all platforms. It presents data about your followers, their engagement, and the overall success of your posts in a clear, visual format on a single Hootsuite dashboard.

What makes Hootsuite’s analytics platform stand out is the way it centralizes complex information. It’s not just throwing numbers at you; it’s providing a coherent narrative about your social media brand or business engagement. 

The dashboard allows for custom reports, meaning you can tailor the analytics to what’s most crucial for your brand’s unique goals and challenges. This level of customization and clarity is something that you don’t often find in other standard social media tools.

In my personal experience, analytics are invaluable. It allows me to easily monitor and measure the success of my social media strategy, providing crucial insights that have helped inform future content and engagement strategies.

The ability to compare my performance with competitors has also given me a clear understanding of how I’m doing compared to my competition, which has been vital in shaping my social media objectives and goals.

Hootsuite App Directory & Integrations

The Hootsuite App Directory & Integrations is a feature that enhances the functionality of your social network by connecting with over 150 free and premium apps. These include popular tools like Dropbox, Google Drive, Mailchimp, etc.

Plus, with the numerous apps available, you can tailor your Hootsuite app directory experience to fit your needs perfectly. This means that you can manage your social media content, email marketing, file sharing, and other digital marketing automation tasks from within the Hootsuite platform.

This feature is special because it can bring all your favorite tools together in one place, saving you the hassle of switching between different platforms. This level of integration streamlines your workflow and improves productivity. 

Managing all your social media posts, monitoring email campaigns, and accessing content files in one platform is a game changer. It saves you a lot of time and makes tracking all your marketing efforts in one place easy!

Hootsuite Academy

The Hootsuite Academy is an online learning platform that offers a suite of social media marketing and Hootsuite platform courses. It provides free and premium courseware, including video training sessions and certifications in various areas such as Social Marketing, Advanced Social Advertising, Social Selling, and Social ROI.

This feature stands out because it focuses on practical, industry-relevant knowledge. Each course will advance your career by equipping you with the skills needed to excel in today’s digital marketing landscape. Moreover, it offers personalized training resources, one-on-one strategy coaching sessions, and even a student program that provides free access to its courses and certifications.

From my personal experience, the Hootsuite Academy has been a beneficial resource to help me better understand how to use the platform and effectively use social media marketing. And, if you want, it offers certifications, but I’m not sure how useful they will be in the industry.

FAQs about Hootsuite

Is there a limit to the number of posts I can schedule on Hootsuite?

Hootsuite’s post-scheduling limits depend on the plan you’ve chosen. Each tier, including Professional, Team, Business, and Enterprise Plan, has different limits regarding how many posts you can schedule in advance.

Can I respond to comments and messages on Hootsuite?

Yes, Hootsuite’s unified inbox feature consolidates messages and comments from your connected social accounts or web pages. This lets you respond to your audience’s engagement using social listening directly through Hootsuite, ensuring you don’t miss any important interactions.

How secure is Hootsuite?

Hootsuite takes security seriously and implements several measures to keep your data safe. This includes data encryption, two-factor authentication, and compliance with global privacy regulations.

Is there a free version of Hootsuite?

Yes, the Hootsuite free plan is good for 30 days. However, the capabilities of this plan are limited, and businesses or power users need one of their paid plans.

Does Hootsuite offer a mobile app?

Yes, Hootsuite launched a mobile app for both Android and iOS, allowing users to manage their social media accounts on the go.

Final Verdict – to Buy Hootsuite or Not to Buy Hootsuite?

After trying out Hootsuite and seeing what it can do, I say go for it! It’s a big yes from me.

Why? Because it makes handling social media accounts so much easier. I’ve seen how it helps people talk to their audience better and keep everything organized.

I hope this review showed you how good Hootsuite is at automating your social media. For example, it helps you plan your posts, understand what your followers like, and ensure you don’t miss out on chatting with them.

And it’s not just talk; these things really make a difference! People have seen their brand and business popularity grow because of Hootsuite.

Some worry about the cost or think it looks too hard to use. But honestly, these small worries are nothing compared to how much Hootsuite helps.

It’s worth the money because of all the time you save and the cool insights you get about your posts. So, don’t wait any longer!

Try Hootsuite today and see how it changes the game for you on social media!

And if you’re still wondering if it’s right for you, just keep reading. We will discuss other options to ensure you find the one that fits you best.

Hootsuite Alternatives

If $99 per month is too much for you to stomach right now or you need a different ideal solution, you might like one of these alternatives.

#1) Loomly

Loomly is an excellent alternative to Hootsuite, especially for larger teams. One of its key differences from Hootsuite is its robust collaboration features, which make it easy for teams to work together on social media campaigns.

While Hootsuite excels in social media analytics, Loomly shines in the area of team collaboration. It’s an excellent choice for many businesses with large teams that need to coordinate their marketing efforts. On the other hand, Hootsuite’s analytics feature is more beneficial if you’re a small business owner or solo entrepreneur.

#2) Sprout Social

Sprout Social stands out with its focus on customer relationship management (CRM). Unlike Hootsuite, a general-purpose tool for social accounts, Sprout Social integrates CRM features into its platform.

This gives you a better understanding of your audience and allows for more personalized engagement. However, this does come at a higher price point. Hootsuite is still a better fit if you’re a small business or individual with budget constraints.

#3) Later

Later is another strong contender, particularly for visual-heavy platforms like Instagram. It offers a visual content calendar and easy-to-use scheduling features, making it a favorite among creators and small businesses.

However, it lacks the comprehensive analytics provided by Hootsuite. If your primary focus is scheduling and you mainly use Instagram, Later could be a good fit. But, for those needing extensive analytics and multi-platform support, Hootsuite remains a top choice.

#4) Buffer

Buffer is a straightforward social media scheduling tool, which makes it an excellent choice for beginners or those looking for simplicity. It doesn’t offer the same breadth of features as Hootsuite, focusing mainly on scheduling and basic analytics.

If you’re new to managing accounts or prefer a minimalist approach, Buffer could be a good match. Yet, for businesses looking for deep analytics, extensive integrations, and advanced features, Hootsuite may still hold the edge.