Hootsuite Reviews

Pros

Hootsuite makes it easy for our distributed team of content contributors to submit content, and our internal team can then create a posting calendar and use automated posting to make the management of all of our social platforms fast and simple.

Cons

We really like hootsuite, but it would be nice if more platforms and types of posts could be made.

Alternatives Considered

Sprout Social and Sked Social

Reasons for Choosing Hootsuite

We have actually held onto SKED but we made the switch because more of our content contributors were familiar with hootsuite than sprout.

Switched From

Sked Social and Sprout

Pros

It's useful to connect more than one social platform and manage all of them from one channel.

Cons

Unfortunately I think the pricing is expensive. Also, the lack of a scheduling option for stories complicates the process. The most important shortcoming for me is the lack of a PDF scheduling option for LinkedIn. I think this is a very necessary feature especially for B2B marketers.
I also think it is necessary to integrate more social media accounts, especially for the free plan. I understand the scheduling limits, but I think every marketer, even if it is a free plan, needs to be able to use all social media accounts on the free plan to test the effectiveness of the product.

Pros

Hootsuite comprises of an easy to use scheduler that is extremely beneficial across social media platforms. The mobile feature is also user friendly.

Cons

Hootsuite has some drawbacks. One of them being a system crash where a video is unable to post or duplicates posting in error.

Pros

I like the user interface of Hootsuite and how easy it is to navigate between facebook and instagram

Cons

Hootsuite NEEDS a grid planner for instagram.

Pros

I'm able to manage our companies social media accounts. We don't get a lot of interaction but about once a month we post to the 3 platforms that we utilize. It's FB, Twitter and Instagram. I love that I can do the work once and have the post go to all 3 platforms.

Cons

Hootsuite used to have a free level and we used it for years. Now we are reevaluating what we are going to do because we're a small business and every dollar counts in this economy.

Pros

great for scheduling on many different accounts you may have as a business.

Cons

Nothing I didn't like, only used it for it's scheduling tool which works great.

Pros

Hootsuite enhances multi-profile post scheduling across a wide range of social media accounts which boost our brand online.

Cons

Unavailability of free plan is the only issue with Hootsuite.

Pros

Hootsuite allows you to
Manage multiple social media accounts at once. You can create and schedule posts, stories, and set your social media to run all from one platform.

Cons

Twitter (X) does not sync with Hootsuite so you have to magnate that account from a different platform.

Pros

Hootsuite is easy to use and able to quickly get all account integrated and tracking. Customer service is top notch!

Cons

Rates although they do so much, as a small business cost of entry to use us tough to swallow.

Pros

Connecting social media handles in this tool is straightforward and does not require technical hands on

Cons

The pricing of the software is too expensive for smaller businesses to use the solution

Pros

One of my favorite things about Hootsuite is the ability to 'autoschedule' posts based on the time that you're likely to receive the most engagement. This takes a lot of the guesswork out of the job of a social media manager, as you can tend to labor over the details like whether or not something is emergent enough to post right now or whether you should wait to schedule it in the future. I find Hootsuite's customizable streams can be helpful in mitigating a lot of the noise that comes along with social media, but constant algoritm and UI updates to platforms like Twitter can make streams obsolete quickly. The platform is super simple to get set up and running with, and the free version (which I'm currently using for my personal accounts/projects) is perfectly serviceable for teams with 3 social accounts or fewer. I've never had to reach out to support, but Hootsuite's online presence is great and they're constantly providing materials that are helpful to social media managers.

Cons

I find their integration with Instagram somewhat lacking. During my time with Hootsuite, I have scheduled countless Instagram posts, but the way the marriage between Instagram and Hootsuite Works means that you can schedule the post, but you need to open the app on your phone and hit send when the time comes to actually publish your post. I have missed so many Instagram posts because of this, and the fact that I only appear to get a notification when It's time to post on Instagram about half the time. I realize that this isn't necessarily all Hootsuite's fault, but this is a real downer, and leaves me wishing that the integration was better

Alternatives Considered

HubSpot Marketing Hub

Reasons for Switching to Hootsuite

Pricing for the most part. At the time, HubSpot was still charging for every level of their services. Once I started using it, the autoscheduling feature became too important to me to consider switching. As long as Hootsuite allows me to manage my 3 accounts for free, I'll continue to use their services.

Pros

Social Post Scheduling is the raison d'etre for Hootsuite and it does it effectively and with lots of options including custom tagging for your analytics platform. If you're only interested in being able to schedule and post to multiple social media channels, this is the first place to look.

Cons

The pricing and tiers no longer make sense as many of their competitors are offering similar/better scheduling and posting options at a lower price (or free with limitations). In 2022, Instagram post scheduling shouldn't be an exclusive feature.

Alternatives Considered

Sprout Social and Buffer

Reasons for Switching to Hootsuite

At the time, Hootsuite provided better analytics tools than were available to any of their direct competitors.

Pros

I mostly like the range of analytics tools and and the support of wide range of social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and more in a single nutshell.

Cons

The price for the business is a little on a high note.

Alternatives Considered

Sprout Social and Planable

Reasons for Choosing Hootsuite

We need more advanced social media management features, such as team collaboration, social listening, and analytics.

Switched From

Buffer

Reasons for Switching to Hootsuite

Hootsuite offers more robust social media management features, such as team collaboration and social listening, making it a better choice for larger businesses or agencies.

Pros

My department is currently in the process of shopping social scheduling/monitoring/reporting tools (i.e. Buffer, Sprout, Hubspot, etc.), and Hootsuite is one that I was assigned to test. The feature I enjoyed best was definitely the feeds setup. Unlike other providers I've used, Hootsuite allows you to set up different feeds (i.e. mentions, hashtags, etc.). This allows me to monitor all platforms and mentions, and even keep tabs on things like certain keywords I can respond quickly. For instance, I manage the social presence for a popular sporting goods company, and I can search for FAQs on Twitter and quickly provide an answer and a link, all while responding to different DMs across our other social platforms. On Sprout Social, everything was aggregated into one feed. I prefer to have it parsed out so I can know how to modify my answers quickly depending on the platform. I also really liked the reporting options - the reporting templates are set up so the bulk of the numbers are at the beginning, rather than below the fold, which has been great for clients with short attention spans.

Cons

The UI seems a bit dated. The features themselves are great, so it truly doesn't matter, but it's just not as modern and beautiful as other platforms. I don't think it's changed much, looks-wise, since when I last used it in a previous role 5+ years ago. It has no effect on actual usability, but an update would make it feel less clunky and more intuitive.

Pros

Hootesuite is highly reliable and I can schedule posts and forget knowing they will go out on time every time. Simple to use with one of the best post editing I've used on mobile.

Cons

Hootesuite has a problem dragging images out of websites when sharing web pages.

Alternatives Considered

Hookle

Reasons for Choosing Hootsuite

Buffer could not do reposts.

Switched From

Buffer

Reasons for Switching to Hootsuite

It's reliable and gave me what I needed. I liked to be able to schedule and forget.

Pros

The ready to integrate plugin to add 3rd party services is a great feature to extend the usability.

Cons

Poor customer support and longer TAT on query resolution

Alternatives Considered

Brandwatch

Reasons for Choosing Hootsuite

Frequently integration failures with the social media accounts

Switched From

Buffer

Reasons for Switching to Hootsuite

Market reputation

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.

Pros

I mainly liked the way Hootsuite makes it easy to publish content to multiple social networks on a schedule and in one place. The interface is very intuitive and allows you to create an easy-to-manage content strategy. With their calendars I can plan posts in advance, assign hashtags, and mention users. I also found the dashboard useful, which allows you to see the activity and engagement on each platform, as well as the statistical reports on reach and interaction. It is undoubtedly a great tool for those who must manage several profiles and do not want to constantly publish manually

Cons

What I liked least is that some features such as message alerts are only available on the paid plan. While I understand that it is a way for the company to earn income, for those just starting out with a small budget, those alerts could be useful. Another detail is that the programming does not allow as much flexibility when adjusting publication times when necessary. In general I feel that the free plan is somewhat limited and to get the most out of it it would be better to have the premium versions

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.

Pros

Hootsuite offers the integration of multiple social media accounts on the same platform, thereby reducing the duplication of efforts in reposting the same content on different platforms. It also provides a brief insight on which kind of post is performing well on which kind of social media platforms.
Most importantly, it facilitates scheduling of posts on the social media platforms. This reduces the burden of the social media manager as the content can be scheduled as soon as it is ready, without waiting for the right time schedule the post.

Cons

Though there aren't much features that one can hate about Hootsuite but a few things that, if incorporated, can make more smoother user experience. First the interface of Hootsuite is a bit complicated for a new user, so proper training is required before actually using it properly. Second, a detailed insights from each post can help the admin in visualizing the impact of each content amongst the followers and non-followers (especially on Instagram). And finally, Hootsuite doesn't works properly when multiple prople ard handling the account as a team.

Pros

For younger or smaller companies, time is valuable and the ability to schedule up to 30 messages at a time means you send once a month and it's complete. Enjoy an hour or two focused on the topic, this relieves the stress of having to remember to log in several times a week when other events get in the way. Likewise I am interested in analytics, I may access each social networking site and watch it, however, at that time I could be engaged in something else. I am fascinated to observe the performance of each magazine in different channels, especially because each of these differs in the way the material is consumed.

Cons

I would like to see a keyword or hashtag report included, which is not in the free version, but, even so, I wouldn't complain. When I used the free service, my main goal was just to share content and showcase a greater presence in different media. They are equipped with the Hootlet owl that can be employed to schedule posts in Chrome and Firefox browsers. Interesting, I've noticed that it sometimes has a lot of bugs, so I generally don't use it or install it. I wish it was more efficient, as a small portion of the content is created on the fly. However, it is a free resource, so I'm not complaining.

Pros

It's a one-stop-shop for all your social media needs. You can manage multiple accounts in one place, schedule posts, and track analytics.The user interface is super easy to navigate. Even if you're not the most tech-savvy person, you can figure it out.You can customize your dashboard to fit your specific needs. Want to track engagement on a specific post? Easy peasy.The customer support is top-notch. If you do happen to run into any issues, their team is quick to respond and always helpful.

Cons

The price can be a bit steep. It's not cheap, especially for small businesses or individuals.It can be overwhelming at first. Since there are so many features, it may take a bit of time to fully understand and utilize everything HootSuite has to offer.Overall, I absolutely love HootSuite. As someone who manages multiple social media accounts for both personal and professional use, it's a game-changer. While it may have a bit of a learning curve and the pricing can be a bit high, it's definitely worth it for anyone serious about managing their social media presence. Give it a try, and you won't be disappointed!

Pros

Make no mistake about it; when it comes to getting your social media work done, Hootsuite will deliver. Its scheduling feature is great, it (mostly) does a good job of letting you tag things, and it offers a good suite of analytics features that will help you review your social media performance and deliver key insights to other members of your organization.

Cons

My issues with Hootsuite aren't dealbreakers, but they do make me less than enthusiastic about bringing my business to this platform. The UI just isn't very attractive or intuitive, which is a shame. Competitors offer much more modern looks and simpler posting functionality than you get with Hootsuite. Annoyingly, and I know this isn't Hootsuite's fault, there are issues relating to who you are able to tag on certain networks, like LinkedIn. I often find myself unable to schedule a post to LinkedIn because of who I need to tag, and having to post manually defeats the purpose of having Hootsuite in the first place. I do understand that this is an issue created by the social networks themselves, but it's an annoyance nonetheless.

Pros

Hootsuite was the first content manager software I used, and it has given me almost no problems. I've been able to program even weeks of posts on Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin, which in some like this last one mentioned, is pretty helpful due to no programming feature so far on the main social media site/app.

Plus, through Hootsuite, you can also have a wide view of what the people or brands you follow in social media are posting.
And also, the fact that you're able to check and answer messages, mentions and comments from here, saves you lots of time in case you work in many social media channels.
Last but not least, the analytics feature is also helpful for creating new strategies, discarding, adding, or complementing content.

Cons

So, Hootsuite is really comfortable, however, the main flaw many users can agree with, is the price. The platform can get way too expensive in case you're dealing with more than 10 social media channels and more than 1 user. Of course if you're in control of so many channels and collaborators, it means your business is bigger, but honestly, there are cheaper options in the market (some of them even free!).

Another point to consider relates to what has been said before. Back in the day (like 2 years ago at least), this might seemed like a very helpful hand to have control over too many accounts and scheduling. However, now days, social media like Twitter, and specially Facebook and Instagram, have been into this kind of features, so you can program your tweets directly from the app or website, and you got the special tool "Creator Studio/ Business Manager" from Facebook. So Hootsuite eventually might get obsolete.

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