7 Reasons NOT to use Hootsuite
By 
2018 Update
Hootsuite Review & Hootsuite Alternatives (Completely rewritten for 2018)
I update this article regularly. If you notice anything that has changed, please contact me.
I first published this article back in 2012. It started off as "4 Reasons NOT to use Hootsuite". I added an extra 3 reasons a little later.
I had no idea that this post would get so much traction. It's had over 842,000 views and over 850 comments. And I’ve heard it’s certainly known within Hootsuite. I believe that they couldn’t understand why it became so popular!
But it was time for an update.
In some ways, not much has changed. But some things have, and I want this article to be as helpful as possible to you.
There are so many social media management tools out there. It's so confusing for many entrepreneurs, social media teams and business owners and my aim is to help you make the right decision for you.
For some of you, Hootsuite might be the perfect tool.
In fact, many people have read this article and have become Hootsuite users.
If you read through my points and don't find that my reasons affect your situation, then Hootsuite could be the tool for you. And of course, there are lots of great things about Hootsuite. I still recommend it to some of my clients.
But this article focuses on the problems and disadvantages and why you might not want to use it.
The title of this post may sound a little provocative but I aim to be constructive in my criticism.
I have had a lot of experience with Hootsuite over the years - it was my preferred tool at one point.
Back in 2012, I wrote this post out of my personal frustrations with it.
What I find really surprising is that not much has changed.
There aren't that many new features...
The user interface is very similar (despite a lick of paint).
It's still clunky and buggy.
One thing has changed - the prices have rocketed up.
The pro plan has gone up by 7 and a half times since I wrote this article!
To be honest, that's depressing. This article, and others like it, haven’t done much to initiate change at Hootsuite.
It's still a tool I want to like, but I don't have much confidence in Hootsuite becoming the tool I want it to be any more. And that is sad.
Please let me know your thoughts. Join over 850 other comments below, and participate in the discussion. Whether you agree or disagree with me!
Of course, do have a read of my other social media management tool posts. For example:
- 7 Reasons why you SHOULD use Hootsuite
- 7 Reasons NOT to use Sprout Social
- The Hidden Prices of Social Media Management Tools
If you want to try Hootsuite, there is a free plan and also a 30-day trial of the Pro plan…
What is a Social Media Management Tool?
A social media management tool does more than publish or schedule content.
I love Buffer, SocialChamp and Friends+Me, but they are not proper social media management tools. They do a great job at posting and scheduling content and offer analytics, but that's it.
I love SEMRush, Talkwalker and Brandwatch, but these are listening or reporting tools. They are not true social media management tools.
Social Media Management Tools aim to be the "One Tool to Rule them All". They try and help manage all aspects of your social media empire including:
- Posting and scheduling content to your social media channels
- Analytics and reporting on your social media efforts.
- Engagement. So you can respond to your social media mentions, comments and messages efficiently.
- Listening. So you can find and engage with people talking about your brand, your competitors or keywords.
For more information, feel free to watch my presentation on how to Choose the Ideal Social Media Management Tool.
The History of the Owl
Hootsuite launched back in 2008 by Ryan Holmes. He launched it through his digital services agency, Invoke Media.
At first it integrated with Twitter only and called BrightKit.
In 2009 they launched a competition with a $500 prize to help choose a new name. The winning name was Hootsuite.
Since then, Hootsuite has grown tremendously. It's the biggest and most well known social media management tool. Hootsuite has over 16 million users and employs 1,000 people from over 175 countries.
In 2018 they received $50 million in growth capital. It will be interesting to see if the platform improves with this funding.
In October 2018, Hootsuite is up for sale. They hired hired Goldman Sachs to explore the possibility of selling for at least $750 million!
The head office is in Vancouver, Canada.
The Pros of Hootsuite
Hootsuite integrates with a large number of social channels. The main ones are:
- Facebook groups
- Facebook pages
- LinkedIn profiles
- LinkedIn pages (Basic Reports on Enterprise & Pro plan only)
- YouTube
- Pinterest (publishing only)
If those aren't enough, you can look through the Hootsuite App Directory. Third party developers create the bulk of these apps. Some are good, and some are, well... not!
Here are some other advantages:
- There’s a Free Plan. One of the only social media management tools to have a free plan.
- Schedule updates (including on a calendar and even upload from a spreadsheet (csv file)
- Team Features. Collaborate as a team (delegate replies, tweets, mark as done, track messages etc)
- Mobile apps (iOS & Android)
- Customised analytics (including scheduled reports)
- RSS integration (post updates from an RSS feed)
The Cons of Hootsuite
I've completely updated this article. You can still see my original reasons here. They were:
- Expensive Analytics Reports & the Point System
- Forced to Use Owly Short Links
- Expensive Custom URL Shorteners
- Facebook Image Problem
- No Data in Facebook Insights
- Lower Facebook Reach & Engagement
- Expensive for Teams
Reason #1
Expensive - Especially for Teams
Hootsuite has 5 plans.
- The free plan (which of course is free)
- Professional (from $348 per year)
- Team (from $1,548 per year)
- Business (from $7,188 per year)
- Enterprise (possibly from $16,000 per year).
Hootsuite Free
Hootsuite does have a free plan, but it's very limiting.
You get 3 social channels, can post up to 30 scheduled posts and can only have 1 user.
Hootsuite Professional
The cheapest paid plan, is Hootsuite Pro.
When I first wrote this article, Hootsuite Pro cost $5.99 per month. It allowed you to manage an unlimited number of social channels. It came with 2 users, and you could expand up to 10 users. Additional users cost from $15/month.
Now, Hootsuite Pro costs $45 per month which adds up to $540 per year. This limits you to a maximum of 1 user. No more team users on Hootsuite Pro.
You do get a discount if you pay yearly - $348 which works out as $29 per month.
Hootsuite Legacy Pro users forced to upgrade
Hootsuite has a large number of legacy pro users - many with more than 1 user per account. And of course, Hootsuite have many users on the free plan. It's clear that Hootsuite is trying to persuade their users on to the new, more expensive pro plans.
In the comments, Jill H-W alerted me to a change Hootsuite made to the availability of Twitter DMs. From from August 2, 2018, Hootsuite removed Twitter direct message streams.
Full paying Professional, Team, Business or Enterprise users could use the new Inbox feature. But legacy Pro and free users lost access. Hootsuite said this was due to "recent API changes", but I don't see how this can be the case. Twitter hasn’t made any changes to their API which would affect viewing DMs.
The upgrade cost for legacy pro plan users or those on the free plan, can be expensive.
Legacy Pro plan users with...
- 1 user. Upgrade to new professional plan - $348 per year.
- 2-3 team users. Upgrade to team plan - $1,548 per year.
- 4-5 team users. Upgrade to business - $7,188 per year
- 6-10 team users. Upgrade to enterprise - from $17,800 upwards
Team Features
There are two levels of team features.
1. Team Users
Do you have a team of people managing your social media channels?
Are you a Micro-business owner or a "solopreneur" and have a VA (virtual assistant)? VAs can help you publish content and manage your social media.
Do you have a larger business with a social media team?
Or maybe you have dozens of team members over the world managing a global brand?
Tools with team plans allow more than one user to access the social media dashboard. These team members can manage your channels without knowing the social channel passwords.
This is vital from a security point of view.
It's surprising how many businesses share the passwords for their social media accounts.
But what if one of your team members becomes disgruntled?
Or leaves your business?
They still have your passwords!
They could log into Hootsuite and post inappropriate content.
They could change the password.
They could close down the account!
Most of these cases would not happen if each user had different user accounts. Once they left, their access could be removed from the social media management tool dashboard.
2. Team Management
To get the most out of your team, team management features are a must. Even if you have an extra team member such as a VA, being able to manage your team within the tool is important.
Tools that offer team management allow you to assign different roles to your team.
For example, admin, editor and moderator. Facebook has this built in to business pages.
Social media management tools should have this too. Team members can assign tasks to each other and you as an admin or editor can approve content.
Team management features usually include:
- Assign user roles. Control the level of access for each user on your plan.
- Assign tasks. Assign incoming messages, comments, mentions etc to other team members.
- Team activity. See when team members are online and what they are viewing or who they are replying to.
- Publishing workflow. Go from drafts to published posts with a team approval workflow.
- Team statistics. Get the number of responses and response time for each team member.
- Team audit trail. See who took action on a message
Hootsuite Plans for Solopreneurs
If you are a solopreneur or micro-business owner, you might be managing your social networks on your own. If so, I recommend managing your networks natively on each network.
If Twitter is important, you could use the free version of Hootsuite or TweetDeck. They are useful for social listening, and basic engagement.
If you really want to use a social media management tool, only need access yourself, don’t need full analytics and want to manage up to 10 networks, then Hootsuite Pro might be a good option for you.
When compared to Agorapulse and Sprout Social, Hootsuite Pro is the cheapest at $348 per year for those needs.
Hootsuite Plans for Teams
If you need to give access to another team member and want to use Hootsuite, the pro plan won’t be enough. You'll need to upgrade to Hootsuite Team or higher.
Hootsuite Team Plan
The team plan costs $1,548 per year and includes 3 users.
You do have the ability to pay monthly at $189 per month which comes to $2,268 per year.
You can manage up to 20 networks which is quite generous, but there is a big problem.
Although the team plan gives you 3 users (including you), it has very few team management features.
Out of the ones I mentioned above, it only allows you to assign tasks to other team members.
Assigning tasks is a powerful feature, but with the Team plan…
- You can't assign user roles
- You can’t view live team activity
- You can’t view team statistics
- There is no team audit trail
- There is no team publishing workflow.
For example, you may have a VA or a creative team working on draft posts for a campaign. Or perhaps you run an agency and have a team member working on a campaign for a client.
It would be great to assign different roles for content creators, editors and clients and to have a leader or the client who can mark with final approval. But with the Hootsuite Team plan, this isn't possible. Having a proper team audit trail and a publishing workflow is really important, but you don’t get that with Hootsuite Team.
Hootsuite Business Plan
The business plan costs from $7,188 per year and includes 5 users.
You don't have the ability to pay monthly, so you need to have the cash flow to pay the yearly fee.
You get to manage up to 35 networks and can have up to 10 users in your team.
Each extra user costs $1,188 per year, although it's a bit difficult to get exact prices. Their website doesn't state the price for extra users. Teams of 5 or more are going to be paying anything from $7,188 to tens of thousands of dollars per year for Hootsuite Business.
Pricing aside, there is some good news. You do get proper team management features with the business plan.
As well as assigning tasks to other team members, the business plan allows you to...
- Assign user roles
- Use a publishing workflow
- View team statistics
- View a team audit trail
The only little thing that I would have loved to have seen was the ability to see live team activity. This is available in both Sprout Social and Agorapulse at significantly cheaper prices - $5,364 per year for Sprout Social and $1,908 per year for Agorapulse.
Hootsuite Enterprise Plan
If you need more than 10 users, then you've got no choice but to opt for Hootsuite Enterprise.
It's been years since Hootsuite published prices for their enterprise plan. However from my research, it's likely to start from $16,000 per year for 5 users, and from $25,000 per year for 10 users.
For teams, the Hootsuite Enterprise plan doesn't offer much in the way of features over the Business plan. You still don't get to view live team activity. But there are other features that you get in Enterprise and you've got the ability to customize your solution and get personalized training.
Reason #2
Dashboard is Hopelessly out of date
Multi-Column for the Win?
Hootsuite launched as a Twitter-only platform.
The Hootsuite dashboard is remarkably similar to TweetDeck with its multi-column layout.
TweetDeck is another Twitter-only social media management tool owned by Twitter.
Hootsuite now integrates with a huge number of networks, and the multi-column layout makes less sense.
I think a Multi-column layout is great for Twitter, but not so much for other networks.
What is Multi-Column?
In Hootsuite, you can have more than one dashboard. Here is an example of one dashboard:
Each dashboard can have multiple columns.
A column is a stream from a social channel, and could be:
- Your tweets from Twitter
- Your mentions from Twitter
- Tweets from a Twitter search
- Tweets from a Twitter list
- Your Facebook page posts
- Your Facebook page messages
- Your Instagram posts
Multi-column - you either love it or hate it.
It's kind of good to get a quick overview of your social media empire.
But honestly, in most cases, it's really overwhelming.
The exception is for Twitter management. But in those cases, I'd recommend TweetDeck and for Twitter chats, TweetChat - both of which are free.
Social Media Overwhelm
One big issue is that it's not obvious which mentions, comments and messages you or your team have dealt with. More on that later.
It's not clear when anything new has come in. It would be great if you could sort, archive or mark as read, but you can't. Yes, you can assign a post or comment to a team user, but you need to be on the $1,548 per year team plan for that.
The human brain can get easily distracted. The Multi-column layout in Hootsuite is just too busy and cluttered. Welcome to social media overwhelm! There’s so much information it can feel like you’re looking at the Matrix!
I much prefer Sprout Social's unified stream (Smart Inbox) and Agorapulse's per-network Inbox.
UI hasn't changed for years.
Hootsuite has millions of users. It also has had the kind of funding that would make most tool companies jealous!
And that's why I am confused about why Hootsuite is taking so long to improve their UI.
The Hootsuite UI has been one of the biggest criticisms from users over the years. People calling it "clunky", "old fashioned" and "buggy".
So, back in 2014 they decided to make fun out of these negative comments with a video. Team members from Hootsuite including CEO Ryan Holmes, read out negative Tweets about their UI. And then they announced a new and improved version.
Update November 2018, the video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Marmoset LLC. You can read the original announcement from Hootsuite in an article here.
But as you'll see from the video, it was nothing more than a minor cosmetic change. Nice colours, fonts and spacing, but the same old Hootsuite. Very disappointing. What have they been doing with all that money?
No ability to Pause Bulk posts
You've scheduled all your posts across your social channels. You've got different campaigns set up, and all looks good.
But disaster strikes.
A world event has happened.
Or a negative news story on your brand has been published.
An emergency stop button would be really useful right now!
You need to pause all those scheduled posts for now - so they don't get published. Otherwise they're going to look really inappropriate.
A key feature of a social media management tool is the ability to pause your posts.
But it’s a missing feature from many tools.
Buffer allows you to pause the queue for each network. You’ll need to make sure you pause each queue separately.
Some tools kind of have it. Agorapulse allow you to pause queues of posts, but not non-queued scheduled posts.
Sprout Social allows you to pause queued posts, but from June 2018 they have a stop messages button. This pauses all posts in queues and moves any scheduled posts to drafts.
But, Hootsuite does not allow you to pause your posts at all. It doesn’t even have the ability to queue your posts (but more on that one later!)
I assumed that Hootsuite had the ability, but Ruth M. L. in a reply to one of my LinkedIn threads mentioned it.
You could bulk download your posts to a CSV file and then delete them from Hootsuite. Then re-upload them after the crisis has happened. But that’s a lot of work to do.
Or, another workaround would be to revoke access to Hootsuite across all your social media channels.
But a nice pause button would have made our life a lot easier!
Calendar Restrictions compared to other tools
Calendar view only shows posts from Hootsuite
If you use Hootsuite to post and schedule all your posts, then this is no big deal.
But many of us use a selection of tools to publish content.
For example I often post natively from Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. Or I sometimes use another third party tool such as Buffer or IFTTT.
The calendar view in Hootsuite only shows posts that have been posted via Hootsuite. If you use more than one tool, then it's impossible to keep track of your content.
For example, here is a previous week’s view of my Twitter account in Hootsuite:
Here is the same week’s view in Agorapulse:
Although I use Agorapulse for scheduling some posts, I also use other tools such as Twitter itself and Buffer. They are all listed there so I can get a proper view of what has been published.
And Sprout Social is the same. It shows you all published posts no matter whether you used Sprout Social to publish them or not. Here is an example of their week view:
Hootsuite Calendar has No Monthly View
While other tools such as ContentCal, Sprout Social and Agorapulse have both weekly and monthly views, Hootsuite only offers a weekly view.
Not a massive deal, but it would be nice to have a monthly view.
Post Previews Can be Buggy and you can’t edit them
Hootsuite previously did not give you the previews of your social media posts before you posted them.
Being able to see a preview of how they will look on the platform is important. Hootsuite now gives you previews, together with the preview image... most of the time.
But it is surprisingly buggy. I've never seen this on any other tool, and I've tested a lot - Sprout Social, Agorapulse, Sendible, Jollor, Kontentino, ContentCal... I could go on!
Also, you can’t edit the preview in Hootsuite.
Editing Previews in Agorapulse
Agorapulse allow you to edit directly on each network’s preview. This allows you to craft different content for each network from one window. This is important, because each network has a different set up and different audiences. For example, with Twitter you have up to 280 characters and you can mention other screen names. With Facebook you can include a much longer post and mention Facebook pages.
Some networks allow you to edit the summary of the link. LinkedIn allows you to do this, and so does Facebook only if you verify you own your website:
Editing Previews in Sprout Social
Sprout Social doesn’t allow you to edit the preview either. So you can’t choose different content for each network, and you can’t change the summary for Facebook or LinkedIn.
Viewing Previews
If you use a link shortener or a link with a redirect, Hootsuite can get mightily confused!
But even if you add a straight link, Hootsuite sometimes can't extract the page image and preview:
Here is a similar post with the same link previewed in Agorapulse:
I particularly like the way Kontentino previews posts. You can create text, photo, video, link and carousel posts. As well as being able to add UTM tags, you can even add a call to action button.
Then once you’ve added the call to action, you can view exactly how it will look like on desktop or mobile view.
You can't move a post back into drafts from scheduled
You get a full publishing workflow in the $7,188 Hootsuite Business Plan. But that's not what we're talking about here.
If you create a draft social media post, then schedule it but then change your mind... you can't move it back to drafts. The only option is to delete it and start again.
Having said that, you can’t do this in Agorapulse or Sprout Social. But you can duplicate the post and delete the original one. With Hootsuite you can either edit or delete.
You can't publish a scheduled post now
And if you changed your mind and wanted to publish a scheduled post right now, you can't.
Your only option is to change the date and time of the scheduled post. At least you have the option of posting it 5-10 minutes in the future. But having the ability to publish a scheduled post now would have been a helpful option.
Digital Assets Library
Social media is very visual. Even Twitter, which used to be 140 characters of plain text, now supports videos, images and audio media.
If you're working with a lot of digital assets, either on your own or as part of a team, this can get a bit of a nightmare. I know digital agencies who have resorted to mad things to share their digital assets like...
- Shared USB thumb drives
- Shared network drives
- Emailing each other the files
- Services like Dropbox or Google Drive
If you’re exchanging files with clients it's even more complicated.
Having a digital assets library where you can manage all your images, videos and other digital assets takes this nightmare away.
Hootsuite does have a media library and even gives you access to a free library of images and GIPHY integration. However, you don’t immediately have the ability to upload digital assets and re-use for later.
Actually many social media management tools don't have this feature. MavSocial and ContentCal are the exception. They allow you to upload files to a central library, and then use within your posts.
SproutSocial has their Digital Asset & Content Library, but this is only available on their $249/month Enterprise plan.
One cool thing that ContentCal does is file reduction (or image optimization). When you try and post an image over a certain size to Twitter via Hootsuite or Twitter, you'll get a "file size too big" error message. ContentCal reduces the file size for you, which is cool.
But, Hootsuite does have a workaround there. You can can add apps to your media library. For example Google Drive and Dropbox. This is really useful and allows you to access all your shared assets.
The downside is that you can’t upload images or videos from Hootsuite to your media library (via Dropbox or Google Drive). So any images or videos you’ve used before in Hootsuite aren’t accessible unless you upload it manually on your computer. The media library has so much potential, but this is an oversight.
No emoji capability 😀🍓☎️❤️😎
Update - Hootsuite has just released emoji capability!
Hootsuite released Emoji capabilities in November 2018
You either love them or don't! But more and more people are using emojis to describe emotion.
While both Windows and Mac both have native ways of selecting and entering emojis, it would be good if this was built in to Hootsuite. (Update - and since I updated this article, Hootsuite have added it!)
Buffer, Agorapulse and SproutSocial all have emoji support.
Pinterest Functionality is Publishing Only
It’s great that Hootsuite integrates with Pinterest. Although you could argue it’s a niche network when compared to Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, it’s a great web traffic generator.
According to this study by Statistica, Pinterest is the second highest referrer of traffic from social media, with 7.53%. For many of my social media consultant friends, Pinterest is the highest referrer by far.
But Hootsuite’s Pinterest integration is very basic. It’s nothing more than a Pin publisher and scheduler.
If you want to schedule or publish a pin to Pinterest, you need to use the separate “New Pin” button.
This means that you can’t schedule to Pinterest as well as other networks at the same time. You need to post Pinterest pins separately.
Then you get the opportunity to select which boards you want to schedule your pin too. Unfortunately the selection panel is buggy, and didn’t show all my boards. The styling was slightly off with the checkbox overlapping my user image. I also couldn’t tell which of the boards were mine and which were shared boards.
When you publish or schedule your pins to multiple boards, they all get posted at the same time. This isn’t good practice. It’s much better to space out the posting to multiple boards over a longer time period. This just isn’t possible with Hootsuite without creating one scheduled pin at a time.
You do get the advantage of using Hootsuite’s media library, but that comes with its own issues as I have stated previously.
Hootsuite doesn’t offer any engagement or analytics features for Pinterest. There are some Pinterest reports in the old legacy reports system, but this is only for Enterprise users.
Sprout Social offers a much better Pinterest integration with decent analytics. Agorapulse doesn’t currently integrate with Pinterest.
But if you are really wanting to manage your Pinterest channel effectively then the best tool I’ve found is Tailwind.
Tailwind offers powerful analytics, interval scheduling (to stagger publishing to multiple boards), SmartLoop to repeat evergreen content and much more.
Reason #3
Poor Social Inbox - Difficult for Engagement
One of the big time savers in using a social media management tool is working through all your social mentions, comments and messages efficiently.
Being able to see new comments in the dashboard and either replying or delegating to another team member - or just archiving.
On Facebook, you may need to hide or delete comments that are offensive or libelous or just plain negative. Choosing a tool that does these things may be important for you.
Hootsuite makes it difficult to manage your social mentions. However, there have been some improvements for dealing with Facebook messages and Twitter direct messages with the Hootsuite Inbox.
Post & Comment Moderation
You can hide Facebook comments
Todd Maffin wrote an in-depth Hootsuite review back in 2016. In it he said that Hootsuite is dangerously out of date.
At the time, Todd wrote that you couldn't hide or delete Facebook comments! Thankfully, now you can. This is really important - to be able to hide or delete comments if they are overly negative or libellous.
But you can't hide Facebook posts
For posts posted by users to your page, although you can now delete posts, you still can't hide them.
The only way is to do this yourself on Facebook, or send a note to a team user asking them to do this on Facebook.
Twitter Direct Messages not available to Free or Legacy Pro users
Access to your Twitter DMs is only available in Hootsuite Inbox.
If you want to be able to see your Twitter DMs and respond to them, you'll need to upgrade to the $348/year Pro plan.
For Twitter, one of the advantages of the multi-column view was to view all your Twitter streams in once place.
But now, you can't add a stream of Twitter DMs on the Hootsuite Dashboard.
Hootsuite Inbox is Woefully inadequate
I was sad to see Twitter DMs moved away from the main dashboard.
But I was excited about the potential of the new Hootsuite Inbox.
I was expecting Hootsuite to catch up with Sprout Social and Agorapulse and offer an inbox view. Here you would be able to view comments, mentions and replies in a single stream and respond or delegate.
But no...
Right now, Hootsuite Inbox only works with Facebook page messages and Twitter Direct Messages. And while reviewing it for this article, I couldn't get Facebook messages to appear. But Hootsuite Inbox is still in beta, so maybe things will improve.
In this video from May 2018, product manager Arvin Dwaka mentions they are hoping to add other message types. But nothing has changed since.
Hootsuite Inbox is their first stab at an inbox zero workflow. I'll talk about this later in this article, but this allows you to either respond to a message, assign it to another team member, or just dismiss. Once you've actioned the message, it disappears from view. Both Agorapulse and Sprout Social offer this - but not just for Twitter DMs and Facebook messages.
It's a start, and it's good to see Hootsuite finally doing this.
You can filter by social network and order by recent or oldest first.
Very basic, but still useful. However, I’d love to have more powerful filters in the future.
No Bulk Select in Hootsuite Inbox
One big oversight is that you can't select more than one message at one time.
This would allow you to select lots of similar messages and bulk dismiss or assign to a team member.
And you can't bulk dismiss all messages in one go.
The only thing you can do is to review each message one by one.
Hootsuite Inbox is very basic. Sprout Social and Agorapulse are far more advanced and useful with their inbox zero features. But hopefully they will improve it over time. Please do!
No Zero Inbox Workflow
When it comes to email, most of us have a system for dealing with incoming messages.
After new emails come in, some of us might check our emails a few times per day (and probably more often than that)! Depending on the email, we may take one of the following actions...
- Respond straight away
- Forward/delegate to another team member
- Archive since no response is needed
- Delete if it’s spam
Dealing with social media comments, mentions or messages should be the same.
Social media management tools such as Sprout Social and Agorapulse have zero inbox systems. They allow you (and your team) take actions on incoming social messages. You can reply, delegate, archive or delete.
The great thing is that you and your team will only see messages that are either new or have been delegated to you. All responded to, archived or deleted messages will not appear unless you need to see them.
Agorapulse
Agorapulse has a really easy to use zero inbox workflow. You can select multiple messages per channel to archive, or you can review each one separately.
You can reply, assign to a team member or review/archive. For Twitter you can like or retweet too. You’re also able to label or bookmark the message, and label the user too. And the great news is that this works across Facebook pages, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube.
Another thing I love is the way you can set it to move to the next message automatically once you’ve actioned the current message. It makes you so quick!
As well as incoming messages, Agorapulse gives you a separate stream for each channel called Listening. Here you can search for keywords or key phrases using simple or advanced search.
Another thing that I love about Agorapulse’s zero inbox workflow is their “Inbox Assistant”. With this you can set up automated moderation rules based on certain keywords.
For example if I receive a direct message with the phrase “thank you for following me” then it automatically gets reviewed. If I get mentioned on Twitter with the phrase “via @iagdotme” it gets assigned to my VA.
There are loads of ways you can get this to action messages in the background.
Once you get through all your messages, you’ll get that happy inbox zero feeling - knowing that all messages have been dealt with.
Sprout Social
Sprout Social also has an inbox zero workflow and it’s called Smart Inbox. All your channels’ messages come into one inbox. But you can also filter them by social channel - for example just show Twitter or LinkedIn or a combination of the two. You’re also able to filter by message type - for example show Twitter DMs or Facebook comments or private messages.
You get a really helpful chart of your incoming messages and can visualize your progress.
A unified inbox won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but I do love the way you have full control over what you see in Sprout Social’s Smart Inbox.
Like Agorapulse, you can select more than one message or you can select all and archive them (Sprout Social says “complete”).
For each message type you have different options. Some of these features aren’t available in Agorapulse such as Advanced Retweet (retweet with a mention), report as spam, email the conversation and translate into your language.
To respond to a message you need to click on reply or task. In my testing, this was a bit slow as you’re taken to a new screen for each message. Then you can reply, assign a task type, mark as high priority or assign to another team member. And of course mark the message as complete.
As well as incoming messages, you can monitor Twitter keywords, Instagram hashtags and Instagram locations.
There are no automatic moderation rules like you get with Agorapulse, but the Sprout Social zero inbox workflow is very feature rich.
Sendible
Sendible has a zero inbox workflow of sorts. Like Sprout Social, they offer a unified inbox that contains messages from all your channels. It’s called the Priority Inbox. It uses an algorithm to display messages in order of what it thinks are the most important first. I’m not a great fan of relying on an algorithm, but you do get the chance to show the streams for each individual channel.
After you reply to a message you do get the option to archive each one. But it’s an extra click to do so.
And you can archive multiple messages. I could have done with an indication of how many messages I have in my inbox and when I try and archive all, it only archives what’s on my page. But I’m pleased to see Sendible have the feature.
Hootsuite
While the new Hootsuite Inbox offers a simple zero inbox workflow, it’s only for Twitter DMs and Facebook Messages.
If you want to monitor and engage with your Twitter mentions or your Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube or Instagram comments, you’re going to have to use Hootsuite Streams.
Compared to Sprout Social and Agorapulse’s zero inbox workflows, this is a total nightmare.
It’s not so bad for Twitter, since Hootsuite gives you a mentions stream. Here you can view all your comments or mentions and reply to them. But you can’t mark them as completed, so it’s difficult to know which ones have been dealt with.
For Instagram, YouTube and your Facebook page, you can't access comments and replies in one stream.
For Facebook, you have a few options.
- Add a "My Posts" stream. Scroll through your posts to see if anyone has left a comment.
- Add a "My Activity" stream. This is better, but it mixes posts where your page is mentioned and comments to your posts.
- Add a comments stream for a specific post. This is useful if there is a particular post that you want to keep track of, but you'll only see comments to that one post.
For Instagram, you only have one option - add a "My Posts" stream, which lists all your posts with the number of comments by each one. I asked their support about this and they said that they had:
"recently lost the ability to create a comment stream for Instagram. There have been some API changes recently that have disabled this functionality."
Imagine, someone has left a comment on a post from a few weeks or months back? You won't know unless you scroll down through all your posts, and see that the number of comments has gone up by one!
And even more frustratingly, even if you or a team member has dealt with the message - there is no archive button - so it will continue to appear.
Difficult to view comments on Facebook Ads / Unpublished Posts
Do you ever create Facebook ads? I’m not talking about boosting posts - I am talking about posts that are created solely for ads. They don’t appear in the page’s feed and are sometimes called unpublished or dark posts.
It’s now possible to view a page’s ads by clicking on the “info and ads” tab on the Facebook page.
When anyone comments on an ad post, you’ll want to see it straight away and engage with it.
In Hootsuite there is no Facebook ad comment stream. The only way to see such comments is to ad the Unpublished posts stream:
When you do this, you will see all your unpublished posts - a collection of current and previous Facebook ad posts.
It might be ok to manage if you have 2 or 3 ads. But what if you have 20, 30, or hundreds of ads? What if someone comments on an ad post that is at the bottom of the stream? It’s almost impossible to manage!
Reason #4
Expensive Analytics and Reports
At the time of writing this article, Hootsuite is moving over from their old point-based report system to their new Analytics.
Hootsuite Legacy Reports
The old report system is still available, and is the only way for free and pro users to access reports. Some reports are free, such as the Twitter and Facebook profile/page overview, Ow.ly Click Summary and owly URL click Stats.
The old reports are really very basic and clunky, especially when you compare to other tools such as Agorapulse or Sprout Social.
For example the Twitter Profile Overview only displays how many followers you have, how many people you follow and the number of times you are listed.
It has a follower growth chart, but the scale is zero to your max number so it’s often difficult to see the growth. Finally, if you don’t use the owly link shortener, the most popular links section will be blank.
For Facebook I was having problems viewing the data. This could have been a blip in the system, but frustrating nonetheless:
One good thing is that you can download the report data as a pdf or in CSV format.
As you will see shortly, this is something you won’t be able to do with Hootsuite’s new system unless you are paying for the Team plan or above.
For paid reports, you buy using points. Pro plan users get 50 points per month.
Paid reports in Hootsuite include:
- Facebook Insights: 30 points
- Facebook Aggregate: 15 points
- LinkedIn Page Insights: 20 points
- Google Analytics: 50 points
For Pinterest reports, it first appears that the Pinterest Engagement report is free and the Pinterest Aggregate report costs 30 points. But these are only available to $16,000+ per year Enterprise customers!
If you’ve run out of points, you’ve got two workarounds for the non-enterprise level reports. Firstly, you can delete previous generated reports to free up your points. Then you can generate new ones. This is a pain because you may find yourself deleting and regenerating reports each week or month.
Secondly, you have the option to buy more points.
Except you don’t.
Not any more.
Now that Hootsuite have their new analytics, you will be asked to “unlock custom analytics”. This basically means upgrading to at least the $1,548 per year team plan:
Hootsuite New Analytics
I was quite excited when Hootsuite announced their new Analytics.
At last, a move away from their point-based clunky and buggy reports. And they look so much nicer! A much improved UI as you can see:
The Twitter report is much more visual and helpful with a decent follower graph. You get engagement stats and even a sentiment graph:
But unless you track all your links within Hootsuite, you won’t see any traffic reports.
Hootsuite Analytics is only for Twitter, Facebook and Instagram
Unfortunately Hootsuite Analytics only works for Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. So even if you add your LinkedIn, Pinterest or YouTube accounts, you can’t see reports for those channels.
No Data Export unless you are on the Business or Enterprise Plan
Hootsuite has a handy export feature, which allows you to download to PDF, Powerpoint, Excel or CSV. This is a big improvement over the old report system. However, this is not available to Pro or Team plan users. You need to upgrade to the $7,188 per year Business Plan.
Post Performance and Reports Not available to Pro users.
If you want to view reports with the Hootsuite’s Analytics feature, you need to be on the $1,548 per year team plan.
You can, for now, continue to use some of the reports from the old system. But if you need the new reports, you’ll have quite an upgrade cost on your hands!
Expensive compared to other tools
If you want access to reports and the ability to export, you’ll need to pay over $7,000 per year. How does that compare with other tools?
Sprout Social
Sprout Social’s reports are not only powerful, they are beautiful. They offer unified reports for all your channels and individual reports for each channel.
You can also download each report as a CSV or a PDF file.
Unfortunately, like Hootsuite, Sprout Social doesn’t make all reports available to all plans. Their entry $99/user/month plan includes group and core reports. But if you want reports such as the Twitter, Instagram or Facebook Competitor Report and more, you will have to upgrade to the corporate or enterprise plans. You can see a comparison table here, or look at the plan comparison page on the Sprout Social website.
Agorapulse
Agorapulse reports are powerful and beautiful too. At the moment, they are per-network, so you don’t have any unified reports for all your channels. They’ve got reports for Twitter, Facebook pages, LinkedIn pages and Instagram. You can download them all in Powerpoint format.
You can also compare your Facebook pages with competitors and that can be integrated into the reports.
One great thing is that all reports are available on all plans, which makes Agorapulse very cost effective if you need reports for all your channels. It’s a shame they don’t yet offer unified reports, but I believe this will be coming.
Reason #5
No Queues
What is a queue?
Most tools allow you to schedule social media posts as well as publish immediately. This means you can post content in a specific time and date in the future. Some tools even allow you to bulk import content and schedule them all at specific times.
Social media content queues are a bit different. First of all you create a schedule for each of your social networks. These are time slots throughout the week when your content will be posted. You could have the same times each day or different times each day.
I post quite a lot of content to Twitter from my queue - ranging from 8 to 12 time slots per day. But for Facebook, I only have 4-5 slots per week. You’re in control!
Then you will need to add content to your queues. When a time slot comes up, the first piece of content gets posted, and the second piece of content comes to the front ready for the next time slot. When it’s time for the next time slot, that piece of content gets posted… and so on.
Once all pieces of content in the queue have been published, nothing more will be posted unless you add more to the queue.
Why would you want to use a Queue?
Using a queue is an easy way to get content posted throughout the week. Some tools also allow different schedules for different categories.
And some tools allow you to repeat content.
Repeating content can be really useful on certain networks. Agorapulse CEO Emeric Ernoult wrote a blog post on how he Got 24 Times More Views on LinkedIn. And repeating content has been very powerful on Twitter in the past. This is because not all your followers would have seen your content the first time. Also, having the ability to repeat weekly event-based posts to Facebook groups or Twitter chat announcements is really useful. Do bear in mind that Twitter does not want you to post duplicate content.
Which tools have it?
SocialOomph
SocialOomph was first called TweetLater and was founded in 2008. It was one of the first Twitter automation tools that offered queues and recurring updates. It now integrates with Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest and RSS feeds as well as Twitter. The professional version works out just under $40 per month.
Buffer
Buffer was the tool that first made queuing posts popular. For each of your networks you can choose the same times per day, or you can choose a different schedule for weekdays and the weekend, or even a different schedule every day.
However, you don’t have the option to repeat or loop your content so there’s no recycling evergreen content.
Once your queue or reservoir is empty, that’s it. You’ll need to keep on adding posts to keep things topped up. Also, no categories for different types of content with different schedules
For one user, Buffer is good value for money, with free and $15/mth plans. For team users, the Buffer business plan costs $99 per month and includes 5 users.
You can import from RSS feeds but not CSV files. But it’s great because it integrates with automation tools IFTTT and Zapier so you can import content from other platforms very easily.
Sprout Social
Sprout has two options - Viralpost and the manual times queue.
Viralpost chooses the times for you using an algorithm. In Sprout Social’s words it “works for you by taking the guesswork out of delivery times. This data-centric solution analyzes your audience's usage & engagement patterns, content velocity and other factors to determine the optimal times to deliver content.”
This is only available on the $99/user/month Premium plan and above. Anyone on legacy standard plans will need to upgrade.
The manual times option in Sprout Social is similar to Buffer.
You can choose post time settings for weekdays/weekends or individual days. But the number of times is quite limited depending on the plan you’re on. The old standard plan only gives you 5 slots per day. New plans now give you 10 per day (for Premium), 20 (for Corporate) and 30 (for Enterprise).
But there is no ability to recycle evergreen content. And you can’t have categories for different types of content with different schedules.
Agorapulse
Agorapulse has a full publishing queue system with categories. You get to create different categories for different types of content. For example, I have one for evergreen content, another for amazing posts I’ve found during my content research and another for events. Each of these has a different schedule with time slots throughout the week.
For each piece of content (depending on the network) you have the option to post it once or many times (from twice to 50 times). I actually like the fact that content expires as looping content forever is bad practice as it means your content becomes stale.
You can also export the content for each queue. Since Twitter no longer wants us to re-post the same content, you can download, tweak and re-upload.
Edgar
Edgar was the first tools to offer a content library, each with categories and their own schedule and the ability to repeat evergreen content. It launched in 2014 and became very successful. Like Buffer, it’s not a full social media management tool. It really just does one thing - schedule content. It used to cost $79/mth but they’ve reduced it down to $49/mth.
To find out more, check out my Edgar review.
SmarterQueue
SmarterQueue is a more powerful, geeky and less expensive alternative to Edgar. Their plans start from $16.99 per month. You can recycle evergreen content, create categories with their own schedules and more. It has a great bulk import system and even tries to import images directly from the web pages. Again, like Buffer and Edgar, it isn’t a full social media management tool in that it doesn’t help with engagement. But if you want a tool to publish and schedule from a content library with categories, queues and looping content, check out SmarterQueue.
Hootsuite
And so finally we come to Hootsuite’s offering. It’s called AutoSchedule and has been around since 2012.
AutoSchedule only available on legacy message composer
AutoSchedule is not available in the new publishing tool. You’ll need to post your scheduled posts using the legacy message composer. This means you won’t be able to preview your posts before you schedule them.
AutoSchedule is very basic
Hootsuite’s AutoSchedule is similar to Sprout Social’s Viralpost, in that it uses an algorithm to work out the “best times” to post each day.
Sadly, it’s very basic. You choose your days and how many time slots per day between a certain time frame. You only get one time schedule per week and you only get to schedule up to 10 per day.
No control over times
But perhaps the biggest issue is that you have no control over when it posts out your content. It uses a proprietary algorithm to work it the “optimal posting times”. It all sounds great, but we have no idea how Hootsuite works out those times.
Hootsuite could post out our content at exactly the wrong moment. Maybe you’ve just launched another campaign, and AutoSchedule decides to post something unrelated. Maybe you’re hosting a Twitter chat, and again AutoSchedule posts out content - and it gets lost.
AutoSchedule is a nice to have, despite it being very basic, but we really need a manual queuing option too.
No content categories
Like Sprout Social and Buffer, Hootsuite’s AutoSchedule doesn’t allow you to create different content categories with their own schedules. It will post out all content using the one schedule.
No evergreen queue recycling
Finally, Hootsuite doesn’t have the ability to repeat or loop content in a queue. Once it’s posted, that’s it.
Reason #6
Historically Terrible Support (but improving)
Learning how to use a new social media management tool effectively takes time.
Sometimes you may make a mistake. Or need an answer to a problem quickly.
Quick and reliable support from your social media management tool is really important.
Hootsuite has been plagued with reports of bad customer service for years. My view is that they've not been able to cope with all the free or low-paying pro plan users.
However, things do seem to be getting better. Maybe they are ploughing more resources into their support department?
While I was researching this update, I contacted them a few times and got a fairly quick response. So please do take that into account while reading this section. Hopefully things are on the up!
Hootsuite offers a few support and training solutions for users.
Hootsuite Academy
First of all there is the Hootsuite Academy. These give you access to different training courses. There are two free ones: Hootsuite Platform Training and Social Marketing Training.
Paid ones range from Social Selling Training at $299 to Hootsuite Enterprise Training at $499.
Did you notice that?
Hootsuite are charging Enterprise users (who are paying from $16,000 per year) a $500 training course to use their product!
But, that aside, it's good that they offer a free training course on how to use the platform.
Hootsuite Help Center
Like most social media management tools, Hootsuite offers a knowledge base website. They call this the Hootsuite Help Center. As Help centers go, it’s actually pretty good. I could have done with a few more videos, but the content was easy to follow.
Live chat, Twitter support and telephone support
Hootsuite offers a live chat facility.
I tested this out, and was pleasantly surprised to get a reply within a couple of minutes. I didn’t ask a complicated question, but they did reply in a friendly and helpful manner.
It’s supposed to be available 24 hours (Monday-Friday), but in my experience it wasn’t always available. I was told that if they’re not able to respond right away, it’s because they’re under capacity - but they’ll be able to reply by email.
They offer support in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Japanese which is very comprehensive..
They also offer support via their Hootsuite Helpers Twitter channel.
Hootsuite doesn’t offer telephone support. Personally, I don’t think that’s a big deal. I rarely want to deal with support issues over the phone. But occasionally it’s nice to have the option. I do think it might be different if you are paying tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars (or even millions) per year for the Enterprise plan. This is a point that Todd Maffin talks about in his article, The Hootsuite Problem.
Comparing with other tools
Agorapulse offers 24 hours (Monday - Friday) live chat/email support in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French. They also offer a more limited support over the weekend.
Their average response time is 30 minutes, but usually you won’t have to wait more than 5-10 minutes. They provide training via recorded webinars, and for larger companies they can provide a full personalised walkthrough. They don’t offer telephone support.
Sprout Social doesn’t offer live chat, but they do offer telephone, email and Twitter support. It’s 24 hours and they offer support in English, Spanish and Portuguese.
G2Crowd rating
G2Crowd allows customers to rate the tools they use. It’s useful to get a comparison between different tools and what their customers think of them.
I don’t always agree with their definitions though. For example they include tools such as Buffer, Edgar and SocialBakers in the social media management category. But it can be helpful to get a rough picture.
I wrote a comparison of the top 5 social media management tools according to G2 Crowd on my blog. Hootsuite scored lowest for their level of support.
For this update, I compared Hootsuite with Agorapulse, Sendible and Sprout Social. Although 8/10 is not a shocking score for quality of support, this is far lower than the score of 8.8 for Sendible, 9.0 for Sprout Social, and 9.3 for Agorapulse. It also scored lowest for the “ease of doing business with” category and product direction.
Reason #7
Expensive Custom URL Shorteners
This is not so much of a big deal as it used to be.
Hootsuite used to force you to use their own URL shortener, ow.ly.
Thankfully, you now have the choice - most of the time.
Why URL shorteners?
Let me explain a little about URL shorteners.
URL shortening started as a result of people wanting to add links to their Tweets without using up as much space.
Later on, URL shortener providers offered tracking services. This gave reports on the clicks on the link. For example, the number of clicks and the location of those visitors.
The big advantages in using link shortening services like bit.ly or bl.ink is that they are portable. You can use them with just about any tool you want, or simply paste the shortened link into your social network or email marketing tool. That means you can track all the stats no matter where they are posted.
You can also set up tracking, including Google Analytics parameters, and get full analytics.
The other advantage with these link shorteners is that you can create your own custom branded short URL. For example:
- Unshortened:
https://iag.me/socialmedia/reviews/7-reasons-not-to-use-hootsuite/ - Shortened with bit.ly:
https://to.iag.me/7reasons - Shortened with bit.ly and using my custom URL:
https://to.iag.me/7reasons - Shortened with bl.ink and their smart links URL:
http://reasons.social/hootsuite7 - Shortened with bl.ink and my custom domain:
http://ian.live/7reasons
You can paste in your shortened domains into any tool, but one cool thing about bit.ly is that it integrates with lots of social media tools including Buffer, Sprout Social, Agorapulse, Sendible and more.
But not Hootsuite.
Hootsuite’s URL Shorteners
Hootsuite now allows you to choose between no shortening or the ow.ly link shortener.
With no shortening, you can can use the original URL. Or you can paste in a custom URL from another service such as bit.ly or bl.ink.
With link shortening switched on, your links will be shortened using the Hootsuite ow.ly URL shortener.
It also offers url tracking. I found this a little buggy, but finally I got this to work.
URL tracking is really useful. It allows you to see where your visitors have come from to visit a page, buy a product or do something else on your website.
Tools that offer URL tracking add strings to the end of the URL. Services like Google Analytics can then track these. And you can see how successful your social media campaigns have been.
Hootsuite offers tracking with Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics and custom.
I have to say, Hootsuite have definitely made improvements here. It’s good to see them offering so many tracking features.
No custom urls unless you are on the team plan
A few years back, a custom URL from Hootsuite was already pretty expensive - $49.99 per month.
If you want a custom URL now, you’re going to have to upgrade to the $1,548 per year team plan.
And like before, this custom URL is fixed to Hootsuite. Unlike portable services like bl.ink and bit.ly, the Hootsuite URL shortener can only be used within Hootsuite.
Workaround
Of course you could just paste in your bit.ly or blink custom urls, but that’s time consuming.
Tools like Sprout Social, Buffer, Sendible and Agorapulse all integrate with bit.ly and shorten your links automatically with your custom URL - so it’s a lot easier.
So what next?
I’ve given 7 reasons why you might not want to use Hootsuite as your social media management tool. But, what’s the next stage?
Try Hootsuite
If the above reasons don't put you off, then Hootsuite may well be the best solution for you. Check out the alternatives below as well as test out Hootsuite. They offer a free plan and a 30-day free trial.
Look at the 7 Reasons why you SHOULD use Hootsuite
I’ve gone through 7 problems with Hootsuite in this article, but I’ve also written about 7 reasons why you SHOULD consider Hootsuite. The article is in need of an update, but the reasons are still current today. Have a read to get a balanced view.
Hootsuite Alternatives
Look at an alternative
Whether you’ve been using Hootsuite for a while, or looking for a new social media management tool it’s important to do a comparison. I recommend making a list of your top requirements in order of priority. Then compare at least 3 tools to see how they stand up to your list. Most tools have a free trial and provide support while you make your decision.
To help with this, I’ve listed loads of alternatives below.
Social Media Management Tools
Agorapulse
Free Trial, then from $49/user/month
Publishing:
Facebook Pages Twitter Twitter DMs LinkedIn profiles LinkedIn pages Google+ pages Instagram
Monitoring:
Facebook Pages Twitter Mentions Twitter Search Twitter DMs LinkedIn profiles LinkedIn pages YouTube Instagram
Other features:
Official Instagram Partners, iOS mobile app, Android mobile app
A powerful social media management tool for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and Google+ which aims to offer enterprise-level features at a low monthly price. It has an inbox zero feature which allows you to get through your social comments and messages really easily or delegate them to team members. There is a very handy automated moderation rules feature for social networks which can filter spam out for you or automatically delegate or review certain messages.
AgoraPulse has a built-in customer relationship management tool (CRM) allowing you to build up a list of your social contacts. The integrated reports and analytics are detailed and engaging and you can also export to a Powerpoint presentation (useful for agencies).
There is a mobile app for iOS and Android devices. Agorapulse was rated top Social Media Management Tool of 2017.
Sprout Social
Free trial, then from $99/user/month
Publishing:
Facebook Pages Facebook Groups Twitter Twitter DMs LinkedIn profiles LinkedIn pages Google+ pages Pinterest Instagram
Monitoring:
Facebook Pages Facebook Messenger for Pages Facebook Groups Twitter Lists Twitter Mentions Twitter Search Twitter DMs LinkedIn pages Instagram
Other features:
Official Instagram Partners, iOS mobile app, Android mobile app
A big competitor to Hootsuite with some awesome features (really snazzy reports, multiple bit.ly URL shortener integrations, Google+ pages etc) - it does have a hefty price tag though- prices start at $99/user/month (sadly, they recently removed the entry $59/user/month plan). There is no free account but they offer a free trial. Do have a look at my related article 7 Reasons NOT to use Sprout Social.
Sendible
Free trial, then from $29/mth (for one user)
Publishing:
Facebook Pages Facebook Groups Twitter Twitter DMs LinkedIn profiles LinkedIn pages Google+ pages Instagram
Monitoring:
Facebook Pages Twitter Lists Twitter Mentions Twitter Search Twitter DMs LinkedIn profiles LinkedIn pages YouTube Instagram
Other features:
Official Facebook Marketing Partners, Instagram Partners, Google Chrome browser extension, Review Monitoring (including sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor), RSS Feed Importer (adding RSS feeds in bulk), iOS mobile app, Android mobile app
Similar to Hootsuite and SproutSocial with an impressive array of features. Sendible integrates with a huge number of social channels including Twitter, Facebook (profiles, pages & groups), LinkedIn (profiles, pages & groups), Google+ pages, Foursquare, Flickr, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube and more. You can have as many team members as you like (although you will have to pay per user above your allocated amount) and it integrates with bit.ly and other URL shorteners.
There is no free account but they offer a free trial. Be aware that Sendible includes a certain number of "services" for each plan. For the basic Micro plan you get 12 "services", with the Small plan 48 services and with the large plan you get 192 services. Services can get a little confusing, because a Twitter list stream, Twitter mention stream, Twitter Search stream, Facebook Group and Facebook Profile stream are all classed as separate services. You can find yourself running out of services very quickly.
MavSocial
Free Trial, then from $19/mth for 10 profiles
Publishing:
Facebook Pages Facebook Groups Twitter LinkedIn profiles LinkedIn pages YouTube Instagram Tumblr WeChat
Monitoring/Engagement:
Facebook Pages Facebook Messenger for Pages Facebook Groups Twitter Lists Twitter Mentions Twitter Search Twitter DMs LinkedIn pages YouTube Instagram WeChat
Other features:
Official Instagram Partners, iOS mobile app, Android mobile app
A simple and affordable social media management tool for curating, scheduling and managing your socials all in one platform. Integrating Facebook, Instagram (direct publishing), Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Tumblr and WeChat, it streamlines the entire social media process from content discovery to audience engagement to reporting. WeChat integration is only available on the business/enterprise plans which start at $199/month.
MavSocial has an AI-powered digital asset management system, scheduling calendar and post recycling tools, Social Inbox, comprehensive real-time and exportable reports, and customizable team management features. Social listening to be released shortly
A mobile app for iOS and Android is available to make social media management even easier on the go.
Social Report
Free trial, and from $49/month
Social Report launched back in 2011 and has a robust all-in-one solution covering publishing and scheduling, analytics, reporting, a “smart inbox”, team management and automation. They integrate with most networks out there, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google+, Pinterest and more. They’re going to be shortly launching direct publishing for Instagram too. It's cost-effective and cheaper for teams when compared to Hootsuite, Sprout Social and Buffer.
MusterPoint
From $18/user/month
MusterPoint was created in 2012 specifically for the public sector and emergency services. The founder, Christine Townsend, has a lot of experience in communicating in this space. With that in mind, MusterPoint takes into account the unique challenges for such organisations - that need to be publicly accountable or responsible for emergency comms.
It provides in-depth audit and accountability and is very flexible in terms charging a small amount per user. It's perfect for small cash-strapped teams and large-scale organisations wanting to communicate en masse. It also supports collaboration between different agencies and supports excellent knowledge sharing protocols meaning both private and public sector organisations can seamlessly integrate their social media.
MusterPoint integrates with Twitter and Facebook, and has a media management functionality, allowing organisations to log media enquiries, publish press releases and track issues. It's been built with the public affairs communicator in mind. In addition to the software, MusterPoint also provides crisis communications and exercise simulation training.
Jollor
Free Trial, then from $5/month
Publishing:
Facebook Pages Twitter LinkedIn profiles LinkedIn pages YouTube Instagram VKontakte Odnoklassniki
Jollor isn't as well known as the likes of Hootsuite and SproutSocial, but it's a really good looking social media management tool that integrates with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube as well as the Russian networks VK and Odnoklassniki. They don't integrate yet with bit.ly, but they have some enterprise features such as team and role management and delegation. Analytics look very impressive. There is a mobile app coming, but the website is fully responsive and can be used well on a mobile or tablet. They have a very transparent pricing scheme starting at $5. It basically costs $5 per network, and you can add extra team members for $5 per month as well as other features.
TweetDeck
Free
Publishing:
Twitter
Monitoring:
Twitter Twitter Lists Twitter Mentions Twitter Search
Twitter Management Only.
This used to be one of my top recommendations, but Twitter has done their best to make this less useful. But Tweetdeck is a free way of managing multiple Twitter accounts and useful for scheduling posts as well as managing Twitter Chats.
Social Media Planning & Publishing Tools
ContentCal
Free plan, and from $49/month
Other features:
iOS mobile app
ContentCal is a great visual tool to help solo freelancers, small business owners or agencies (and beyond) manage their social channels. A content calendar is central to ContentCal, giving you a 'birdseye view' of all the social posts going out across multiple channels. It currently integrates with Facebook (Pages), LinkedIn (Pages, Profiles) and Twitter. It has very affordable plans despite some very enterprise focussed features.
Kontentino
Free and from $10/month
Kontentino is a content planning and publishing tool which has packed some amazing features. It has team planning and collaboration at heart, and it's perfect for agencies who want to work with their clients and get approval. Clients can approve work directly through the web app or on mobile with the click of a button. You can preview how your content looks across all platforms including all the major Facebook ad formats. Kontentino sends over all the scheduled posts to Facebook and allows Facebook to schedule them. This allows you to tag posts and do things that can only be done directly on Facebook.
Social Media Publishing & Scheduling Tools
Buffer
Free or $15/mth for Pro Plan. Business plans from $99/month
Publishing:
Facebook Pages Facebook Groups Twitter LinkedIn profiles LinkedIn pages Google+ pages Google+ profiles Pinterest Instagram
Monitoring/Engagement:
No Monitoring/Engagement available,
Other features:
Official Instagram Partners, iOS mobile app, Android mobile app.
Allows you to post or cross-post to Twitter, Facebook (profiles, pages or groups), LinkedIn (profile, groups or company pages), Instagram, Pinterest or Google+ business profiles/pages. You can either post straight away or create a schedule for each social network. Buffer is an amazing tool and one that I use every day.
Friends+Me
Free or from $3/mth
Friends+Me turns Google+ into a fully fledged Social Media Management tool. It allows you to selectively cross-post to Google+ pages, Twitter, LinkedIn (profiles, pages & groups), Facebook (profiles, pages & groups) and Tumblr. It has a scheduling system similar to Buffer and cross-posts intelligently to other networks (including using full images, headings and descriptions). It's something I use every day and couldn't do without it.
Social Champ
From $10/month
Social Champ allows you to schedule and publish content to a wide variety of networks, not just once, but many times in a cycle. You can also link up your RSS feed and set up filters.
Social Media Relationship Tools
Commun.it
From $19.99/month
Commun.it is a social media community management tool or CRM. As well as being able to manage multiple Twitter accounts you can find out who is relevant to your Twitter community. Examples include your influencers or people who support you. You can also find out who is talking about you or your business or who is linking to your website and interact with them straight away.
I don't have enough room to go into it here, but please see my Complete Guide on how to Manage your Twitter Community using Commun.it together with its walkthrough video.
Tool Comparison Table
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| Tool | URL | Parent Company | Year Founded | Head Office Location | Free Plan? | Number of users in free plan | Max number of users in free plan | Cheapest Paid Plan | Number of users in cheapest paid plan | Max Number of users in cheapest paid plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hootsuite | hootsuite.com | N/A | 2008 | Vancouver, Canada | Yes | 1 | 1 | $45/user/mth/billed annually | 1 | 1 |
| Agorapulse | agorapulse.com | N/A | 2011 | Paris, France | No | N/A | N/A | $49/user/mth $39/usr/mth if paid annually | 1 | Unlimited (extra users $39/user/mth) |
| Sprout Social | sproutsocial.com | N/A | 2010 | Chicazgo, US | No | N/A | N/A | $99/user/mth | 1 | Unlimited (extra users $99/user/mth) |
| Sendible | sendible.com | N/A | 2009 | London, UK | No | N/A | N/A | $29/user/mth $24/user/mth if billed annually | 1 | 1 |
| Zoho Social | zoho.com/social | Zoho | 2015 | Chennai, India | Yes | 1 | 1 | $10/user/mth $8.33/user/mth if billed annually | 2 | Not specified/addit'l user $10/mth |
| ContentCal | ContentCal | N/A | 2014 | London, UK | Yes | 1 | 1 | £15/mth billed annually | 1 | Not specified/addit'l user £15/mth |
| Social Report | socialreport.com | N/A | 2010 | New York, NY | No | N/A | N/A | $49/mth | 5 | 5 |
| Muster Point | musterpoint.io | N/A | 2012 | London, London | No | N/A | N/A | $35/£25 per month per user | 1 | Not specified/addit'l user $35/£25/mth |
| Jollor | jollor.com | N/A | 2014 | Prague, Czech Republic | No | N/A | N/A | $5/per mth | 2 | Not specified/addit'l user $5/mth |
| MavSocial | MavSocial | N/A | 2012 | San Francisco, CA | Yes | 1 | 1 | $16/mth billed annually | 1 | 1 |
| Tweetdeck | tweetdeck.twitter.com | N/A | 2008 | Yes | 1 | 1 | N/A | N/A | N/A | |
| Kontentino | Kontentino | N/A | 2014 | Bratislava, Slovakia | Yes | 1 | 1 | $10/mth | 3 | 3 |
| Lately | trylately.com | N/A | 2014 | New York, US | No | N/A | N/A | $79/mth | 1 | 1 |
Look at other Resources
If you need any more help on getting started with Hootsuite or want more advice on whether or not Hootsuite is for you, check out these posts…
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About Ian Anderson Gray
Ian is a Confident Live Marketing Coach and founder of Seriously Social. He’s an international speaker, trainer, teacher, web developer and consultant. He has a passion for making the techno-babble of live video and social media marketing easy to understand. Ian is co-founder of Select Performers – a family run web agency. As well as being a geek, husband, and dad to two kids, Ian is also a professional singer and lives near Manchester in the UK. Find out more
The Seriously Social Community
What do you think? Join the fun & Let me know below...
Hello everyone! I first published this article back in 2012. Although I’ve updated it over the years, it was time for a big update. So, I am pleased to say I’ve completely rewritten the article. It’s the most comprehensive article I’ve ever written. I won’t begin to explain how much work has gone into it! I hope it’s it helpful for you in making the right decision – whether that is in choosing Hootsuite or another tool. Ian
Trying to get out of HootSuite now. WP connection no longer works, their tech support won’t fix it even after I asked…errr…. demanded several times. Since it’s past my “one month” they refused to offer a refund for the remaining 3-4 months left on my plan. I’m stuck with manually posting all of my blog posts since I can only get so many from Buffer’s “free” plan (because I refuse to pay for 2 social sharing software right now. It’s just aggravating.
Hi Anna, oh no, that’s not good at all. How long have you been with Hootsuite? I am surprised you’ve had such a poor response from Hootsuite support. In the past, my experience was poor, but it seemed to have improved a lot recently. Could you explain a bit more about the WP connection? What do you use this for? What have they said? Have you tried connecting your blog to Hootsuite using RSS? Ian
DON’T USE HOOSUITE!!! The service is sh**ty, constantly goes down or channels disconnect randomly, and support is very bad. Their live chat feature is almost always offline, it’s horrible.
Sorry to hear that, Gregory. I’ve not had the experience of Hootsuite going down or disconnecting from channels – at least while I was reviewing it for the update of this article. Also, I had good experience with their live chat. But, you’ve had a very different experience so obviously it really depends! Are you continuing to use Hootsuite or are you using a different tool?
Don’t forget that Hootsuite implements a 6-minute window where you can’t edit a scheduled post. Tweetdeck doesn’t have that. Annoying.
Hi Jen, that’s an interesting. I don’t remember seeing that when I reviewed Hootsuite. Are you sure that’s the case? Is this directly after creating the scheduled post?
You: “Also, you can’t edit the preview in Hootsuite.”
Me: That isn’t accurate. I can just click on a scheduled post in the calendar view and a pop-up window comes up with a pencil icon, allowing me to edit the post.
Thanks for your comment, Michael. I appreciate it.
You can definitely edit scheduled posts like you say – by clicking on the post, and then click the pencil icon. This brings you back to the original publish post screen where you can edit the post and see the preview on the right hand side. But you still can’t actually edit the preview in Hootsuite. What I mean is that you can’t click on the preview and edit directly on that. Other platforms such as Sprout Social and Agorapulse do allow you to do that.
I hope that makes sense.
Ian
Hootsuite just stole $232.00 from me. I’m a Public Information Officer for my county Emergency Management Office. I had signed up for their free service to monitor social media. Unknown to me my account was upgraded to the Professional level and I was being billed 29 dollars a month. Since I didn’t know about the service change until tonight the bill was now 232 dollars total. In order to downgrade back to the free service I had to enter a credit card number. WHAM! BAM! I was charged $232.00. I promptly cancelled my account and wrote them a scathing response to their inquiry as to why I left. I find their business tactics questionable at best and possibly criminal. I’m curious to know if there is a class action lawsuit against Hootsuite I could join.
Oh no! So sorry to hear that, Carl. I don’t understand why you had to enter your credit card to opt for free. Have you contacted their customer support? I’m sure they will look into it for you. Unless you already have?
Let me know how you get on. Ian
Thanks for the article. It was really thorough. I found a good alternative to Hootsuite which doesn’t have any hidden costs – sociality.io. I hoped to see it on the list of alternatives, too
Reason #8 – They hide policies to trap you.
Once you are in, try getting out. We are a large SaaS company that used their enterprise plan. Tech savvy, we were able to figure things out on our own, until they were broken and buggy. We ended up using native resources instead. Then on our happiness calls, we complained and complained but no mention of the upcoming 60 days out deadline to stop auto-renew was had. No transparency or caring by the company. Instead, we wrote them 30 days out asking to cancel the renewal and they directed us to t&c and a small line of text in one email to book a routine call. The platform is wildly expensive, not forthcoming or transparent. Really bad taste in my mouth about it.
Thanks for sharing your story, Steph. That’s a pretty shocking story. What happened in the end? Are you still using Hootsuite?
Hi there Ian! I am a Community Manager and my company currently logs every comment and inbox we receive on Instagram as well as Facebook no matter if it was on a paid ad or organic post. At times this can be a tedious task and take up most of my day as you can imagine! We have been looking for a tool since I start working that could automatically log all this data and either keep it on site somewhere or have the ability for the data to be exported into an Excel sheet (not sure if that makes sense). I’ve now looked into Hootsuite and Sprout Social, which you mentioned. Have you heard of any tool that can do this? Thanks in advance!
Hi Lucy, great to hear from you. It’s difficult to find tools that handle comments on paid ad posts. I’d definitely check out Agorapulse that does an amazing job of logging Instagram and FB organic/paid ads – even if they are dark posts.
Sprout also does a good job, but I assume you’ve looked into that. It’s worth signing up for a free trial with Agorapulse and asking them to book a call with you to give you a walk through. Tell them I recommended you did
Hi Lucy, You may want to check out social media archiving solutions like Smarsh, Actiance, or Global Relay. They exclusively focus on this problem.
Thanks for that. Have you used any of those tools before? I haven’t heard of them, but they sound interesting.
Best,
I find your style interesting, and I think it is helpful to play devil’s advocate no matter what software or tool you’re using. There will always be pros and cons to everything, and I appreciate the fresh perspective! Thanks for sharing.
Of course, there are always pros and cons! The main point of this article was to share the pros and cons of Hootsuite. Glad you found the article interesting. Ian
Loomly rocks!
Thanks for your comment, Laura. I’ve not used Loomly myself, but it would definitely be a worthy addition to the Social Media Planning & Publishing Tools section together with ContentCal and Kontentino. How long have you used Loomly and what do you particularly like about it? Do you use it on your own or do you have a team? Thanks!
The options have become overwhelming. If I want a similar social management system set of tools that combines to be as good or better, as well as much cheaper than hoot suite, then what would you use?
Hi Vic. I know what you mean. But it depends whether you’re comparing to Hootsuite Pro or Hootsuite free. There are very few free options out there – and then the question is, are they any good? It also depends on what features you need. Buffer is a great tool for scheduling content. The same with Social Champ and Friends+Me. Then you could use Tweetdeck for monitoring and engaging on Twitter. But there are very few decent social media management tools that are cheap. I’d recommend Agorapulse, which in some cases is less expensive than Hootsuite. But for single users, Hootsuite might still be the best option.
What do you think about “From August 16, Twitter Inbox and Outbox Message Streams will no longer be available in Hootsuite.” ??? Is this Hootsuite actually working towards getting rid of its free option?
Hi Jill. No, I don’t think Hootsuite is quite ready to remove their free option just yet. But they are wanting to move as many people over to their new pro plan including their legacy pro plan users. Twitter has made some changes to their API, but it looks like Hootsuite are using this as a way to plug their new inbox feature. What I don’t understand from this is whether pro users won’t be able to have access to Twitter DMs from the free and legacy pro plan dashboards. Have you lost access?
Let me jump in here and confirm that access to Twitter DMs has been removed from legacy Pro Plans and users of the plans themselves are urged to upgrade. After filing a ticket with support on this, I was given DM access again for a few weeks (after which I should upgrade – despite me having paid for another 10 months of the Pro Plan)
Thanks, Chris. That’s really helpful. Did Hootsuite give a reason as to why they are doing this? It sounds like they are blatantly wanting people to “upgrade”. Except for many users this will actually mean downgrading since they’ll lose access to team member access. If you “upgrade” do you know which features you’ll lose? Will you need to pay more? Ian
Hi Ian,
No, they did not give a reason. I opened a ticket asking why our DM Inboxes had suddenly disappeared. In response they offered me access to the DMs for another couple of weeks. They said, they would still “continue to support customers that wish to remain on their existing Hootsuite Pro plan, the new inbox feature will only be available as part of our new Hootsuite Professional, Team, Business and Enterprise plans”. So if i want to keep the feature, I HAVE to upgrade. They call this a “better migration process for long time customers like you on our Hootsuite Pro”. But frankly taking away features of paying long time customers doesn’t seem to be a “better” solution to me…
The costs would quadruple approximately (as we have several team members). So we’re actively looking for a different, better value-for-money solution.
Cheers, Chris }:0)
Plus, in a non-related issue, HS support has transferred our central account (with super admin rights) to another user without properly confirming the rightfulness of the claim. They did not even inform me (the legitimate account owner) of the change. Luckily the request was sent by mistake by one of my co-workers. Still it took 4 days (!) to rectify this and return ownership to me.
This is an EXTREMELY SERIOUS ISSUE. Because it means anybody could have taken over this (or any other) account an sent messages on all our (official) social channels as my company. They tried to play it down, but I consider this a security loophole of the most important sort and hence another reason to quickly look for a different solution.
Hi Chris, oh dear, that’s not good. Have you had this properly resolved yet? Are you going to stick with Hootsuite? Have you considered an alternative such as Agorapulse or Sprout Social? Thanks for sharing this
Unfortunately, the issue is still open. Hootsuite Support promised to “pass this feedback along for consideration.” That’s still a bit vague for such a serious security loophole, but at least it’s something.
Meanwhile I’m looking into a combination of Tweetdeck and Buffer. That seems to work well for the moment. I haven’t checked Agorapulse or Sprout Social for years. Especially ther former looked promising already in its early days. How do they compare with regards to (scheduled) publishing to several Networks (Twitter and LinkedIn are a must, Instagram would be nice) and (simple) monitoring Twitter for a few keywords?
Oh, I am also considering falcon – any thoughts on that?
Hi Chris, that’s not good. I’ve always found Hootsuite support lacking.
It’s one reason why I think they’re trying to move all their legacy pro (and free) customers over to the paid plan. They just can’t cope with support and it is giving the, a bad name.
I still use Tweetdeck and Buffer, but not as much as I used to. Tweetdeck is great for Twitter chats and searches, but to be honest these days I am using Agorapulse for just about everything. It does everything Buffer does and more. It also has some Edgar-like features with content buckets and queues. I also love the automated moderation features too. It allows publishing/scheduling to Twitter, Facebook (pages and groups), LinkedIn (profiles and pages), Instagram and also engagement with YouTube. Sprout Social is great too – it’s just a lot more expensive. Falcon is a really nice tool – more in the enterprise bracket. Not looked at it for ages, because it’s out of my target audience’s price range. But worth looking at.
Curious which program you believe transfers hashtags and tags over to the social networks? Most of them that I have tried do not do that, minimizing their effectiveness. Appreciate all of the intel within this article Ian!
Hi Rick, sorry for the delay in responding. Most tools will post over hashtags – to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Google+. However other types of tagging aren’t always available. You can include a screen name in a Tweet, but tagging a person on Facebook or LinkedIn isn’t available due to the API. With this type of thing, you’ll need to post natively or edit later. Hope that helps. Ian
I’ve always fancied a Social Media Management Tool that works a little differently to what I’ve experienced with those out there.
I’d like to set time frames throughout the day or week where a maximum of one post can be made, for example
06.00-12.00
12.00- 18.00
18.00-00.00
And then also set a rule where postings must be no closer together than a specified period of time, eg minimum 2 hours apart.
Then we could just keep feeding it with content and have the social media tool optimising/managing the scheduling for us.
Hi Stuart. Sorry for the delay. I love your idea. Unfortunately, I’ve not come across a tool that allows you to set timeframes like that. All the main tools out there such as Sprout Social, Agorapulse, Buffer and Social Champ allow you to set specific times throughout the day. I know this isn’t exactly what you want, but you could just add one time per your timeframe and that would do what you want. Except it would mean you’d be posting at the exact same time each day.
Hi Ian, thank you for this article full of great information. I have a new social media agency and a new client that is a realtor. I’m looking for a tool to help me regularly post to FB, Instagram, Twitter and Linked In. Of course photos are an important part of her posts and we don’t want links to click to get to the photos which I understand has been a problem on Hootsuite. What would you recommend for a real estate agent?
Hi Tyna, thanks! I’d need some more information before I could give you a more concrete recommendation. It depends on your budget and if you have a team. I’d definitely consider Sprout Social or Agorapulse. Happy to help further if you give me more information. Ian
Greetings!Thank you for your article; it was very enlightening!
I’m the social media committee chair for a high school PTA. I use Facebook, Twitter & Instagram primarily to communicate daily with our parents, students, faculty & staff.
I’ve tried to Hoot Suite(free) & Agora Pulse in the past, but since they did not post to Instagram, it didn’t seem worth it.
The PTA is on a tight budget, so a free or very budget friendly platform is needed. Any suggestions?
Hello, Maria – I stumbled on this comment of yours.
May I recommend Zoho Social to you? It offers complete social media management including direct publishing on Instagram. https://www.zoho.com/social/
I am happy to help you with any questions that you may have!
Thanks so much for responding, Praval. It’s great that Zoho offers direct publishing.
Thanks, Maria. So glad you found this article helpful. Things have changed over the years, and more social media management tools offer direct publishing to Instagram. Hootsuite, Sprout Social and Agorapulse all now offer direct publishing to Instagram. I am in the middle of updating this article and hope to give more information on which Hootsuite alternatives offer this. And as Praval mentions, Zoho Social also offers direct publishing to Instagram. The main issue you’ll find is finding a tool with a free or low price. Hootsuite might work for you since they offer a free plan. But it does have its disadvantages. Sprout is very expensive – their cheapest plan is now $99/user/month. Agorpulse is better value for money than Sprout, but it may still be more than your budget allows. Definitely check out Zoho, since their prices are a little lower. Also, check out ContentCal. I am not sure if they have Instagram direct publishing, but I think it may be coming soon. I’ll check with them for you.
Buffer has announced that due to Facebook changes they will no longer be allow to post to Profiles, only pages in facebook. Is this going to apply to ALL social media management tools? I am not finding anything thus far in my google searches.
Hi Vicki. Yes, unfortunately, that is correct. Facebook has announced that they’re dropping access to one part of their API which means third-party tools won’t be able to publish to Facebook profiles from August. This will affect all tools – not just Buffer.
Tried Hootsuite for a small team and it was a pain to use, full of bugs, I highly don’t recommend.
Hi Laurent,
Thanks for your comment. I’d love to know what kind of bugs you encountered. Were you on their business or enterprise plan?
Interesting thoughts and you highlight the pain very well
Thanks. Glad it helped. Have you had similar issues yourself?
I don’t see Iconosquare as an option. Is it not suitable?
Thanks, Kelly. Iconosquare has changed a lot since I wrote this blog post.
It was only an Instagram analytics tool and it didn’t really do much else.
These days, it’s much more of a social media management tool. However, since it only integrates with Facebook and Instagram I’m hesitant to add it as an alternative. There are more cost-effective tools out there that integrate with more networks and offer more features for management. Do you use Iconoquare yourself? If so, what features do you really like?
I’m a graphic designer who’s newish to social media stuff and I have a client who wants me to post to facebook, her facebook group and instagram and I want to be able to do the same post to all 3 but not have to do it 3 times. I’d also like to be able to do a bunch of posts and schedule them so they hit every couple of days or at least not all at once. Hootsuite was recommended to me but I can’t tell from your article and looking at all the programs online what’s best. I’d also like to be able to do posts for my own business or other businesses eventually. what would you recommend?
Hi Brenna,
Thanks for your comment. I don’t want to knock Hootsuite – it might work for what you want, but there are other tools that might do a better job.
SproutSocial is worth checking out. AgoraPulse doesn’t do exactly what you want yet, because it doesn’t support Facebook groups – but give that a few more weeks and I think they will. Ian
Hi Ian,
A couple of other points.
1. Recently, Hootsuite’s ability to tag facebook pages has also been restricted (among other things) due to tightening privacy regulations from Facebook. This is a major bummer because it means you have to log into Facebook to fix the posts.
2. Secondly, you can’t upload large file sizes to your platform of choice via Hootsuite. Hootsuite throws up an alert saying the filesize is too large. It’s a useless restriction given Facebook doesn’t limit your filesize but your third party tool does.
Thanks, Amy. Facebook has had loads of changes recently with all the privacy issues. They had to remove the tagging feature, but I believe that’s coming back. Not sure about with Hootsuite, but the ability should be there from the API.
And there is a filesize limit with uploading via the Facebook API, I believe. Here’s Agorapulse’s help documentation on it – http://support.agorapulse.com/article/show/19582-image-file-types–size-recommendations Hootsuite and SproutSocial both have the same 5Mb max upload restriction.
There isn’t much they can do about that due to the API restriction.
Hiya – wondering if you could make a recommendation. We are a company that supports multiple brands. Thus we have about 40 social media profiles.
We rely heavily on images and videos in our social media promotion. Currently using Hootsuite and the lack of bulk image upload + Facebook preview
is essentially wanted us to change platforms. Can you recommend something that supports all the social media platforms / allows bulk upload with images,
but won’t break the bank?
Thanks!
Hi Andrew, There are a number of tools that support bulk upload, but usually they’ll just import the text and link – not allow you to bulk upload the images yourself. The only one that might work is eClincher. Other than that, I’d check out the bulk uploader from the tool I use, AgoraPulse. It doesn’t import images, but it’s easy to go through and add images and videos for each one. I’ve not come across any tool that would import videos. Sorry, I can’t be more helpful.
There appears to be one called SocialPilot that allows it. Also – Buffer seems to have it as well…
Yes, I’ve come across SocialPilot. Not had the chance to play with it, though. There are hundreds (and probably 1000s) of social media tools out there. Hope you find what you’re looking for. Let me know how you get on!
Thanks! Will do.
I got excited when I read in the article that you could use a custom domain for free with bit.ly. That’s why I use rebrandly right now, because it is free. I headed over to bit.ly to figure out how to do it since I hadn’t seen anything about it before. I came back here to post this because it does not appear to be an option with the free version of bit.ly. I looked at your other article on custom domains with bit.ly and those instructions don’t correspond to what I see in the menus. It appears that maybe the custom branding is only available in the enterprise version. Or am I missing something? Thanks.
I’m still pretty sure that it’s available with the free version, although I’ve not been able to 100% confirm this for new accounts. I have two bitly accounts (for my two different businesses) with branded URLS. For information on how to set this up, see here -> https://support.bitly.com/hc/en-us/articles/360003294132-Setting-up-your-BSD-in-bitly-com
Yes you can use your own domain with the free account. You get one. There’s an article about it here https://support.bitly.com/hc/en-us/articles/230898888-How-do-I-set-up-a-Branded-Short-Domain-BSD- but it’s missing the information about what to do in your bit.ly account. I have pointed this out to them but they have yet to fix it (maybe they don’t want us to know?). And it’s not easy to find. In the upper right corner of your dashboard, there’s a box with your account number to the left of the menu icon. Click that and click the Manage link. Then click Branded Short Domains from the left sidebar. Then click Add Branded Short Domain and enter it into the box provided. Hope this helps
Thanks, Amy, that’s really helpful. Yes, I think bitly are trying to make it as difficult as possible to show how you can use a custom domain! Ian
Great points overall, but the second bullet is very misleading and contradictory. The title is “Forced to use owl.ly.” Then in the content, it says, “you are forced to use them (unless you add your own custom url shortener- more of that in a bit).” Not having other shorteners integrated into the system is quite different from being forced to use theirs. It’s very simple to just paste in the url from whatever shortener you use. I use a combination of snip.ly, bit.ly, and rebrandly, so while it would be nice to have them all integrated it’s not realistic. I’ve seen most of the other services have one or two integrated, but of course they don’t have their own. I don’t see this as a reason not to use Hootsuite compared to others. Otherwise, I appreciate the info you put out. Thanks!
Thanks, Andrew. It used to be the case that Hootsuite shortened all links with owly. Now, I suppose you do have the option to select no URL shortener or owly. But you are forced into using owly as your only URL shortener unless you pay a lot more to get a vanity URL. You could manually paste in your URL, but that’s not the same as an integrated URL shortener that some other tools offer. So, you are right, you could use bitly if you’re happy to manually paste in each time. I’ve not used rebrandly, what does that give you? Personally, I really recommend against sniply. I used to use it, but it can really frustrate people because you are effectively adding your branding to their content. I’ve actually blocked sniply from being used on my website and I know many others do (this block feature is baked into the Social Warfare plugin).
So, coming back to your point. The lack of bitly integration or being “locked” into owly is only a minor disadvantage, but it’s still one that frustrates me. I use my custom url shortener with bitly across multiple tools – Buffer, Friends+Me, Sprout Social and more. But I can’t use it with Hootsuite.
Do you have a newer articles for small business?
Hi Kate, Yes! Although I do make sure this article is kept up to date. But, you may find these articles helpful…
https://iag.me/socialmedia/the-hidden-pricing-of-social-media-tools-revealed/ https://iag.me/socialmedia/top-5-social-media-management-tools/ And I’ll be creating more articles this year too.
Are looking for anything in particular?
Hi, what about MS Social Engagement? You didn´t mentioned it in your post. Is there anything wrong with it? I’m using MS Dynamics CRM and I’m looking for a social media management tool that integrates with Dynamics CRM for creating leads, cases, contacts and opportunities from comments within the social networks. I know MSE is limited to only facebook, twitter and recently Linkedin but that’s pretty much I need, and I´m sure they will add more in the future. How are their analytics and reports? Is MSE less o more expensive than Hootsuite?
Ian Anderson Gray
Hi. I can’t mention all social media management tools out there. There are hundreds and hundreds of them! To be honest I’ve not looked at MS Social Engagement so I can’t give you any feedback.
Absolutely, these are really good tools to use. All these tools helps to a great extent in making social media campaigns more effective and successful.
Thanks, Benny. Do you use a particular social media management tool? Ian
Ever tried Zoho social? I’m looking at that now. Basic plan only $10 a month but I’m concerned with the basic analytics report. Wonder what you get with that.
Hi Tina, great question. I really like Zoho and the reports/analytics are pretty good too. But I’m not sure what the difference is between the basic reports on the cheaper plans and the more advanced ones. I’ll ask Zoho to see if they can reply to you directly. Thanks! Ian
Thanks for the heads up, Ian.
Hello, Tina.
The basic reporting on Zoho Social includes stats from your social media accounts. These are numbers and stats that you’d see on each social network. If consolidating basic reports from each social network is what you need, this should be fine for you. If you need additional analysis about how your brand is performing on each of the social networks, I’d recommend going for our Professional Plan. Hope that helps!
Praval
Thanks, Praval, that’s helpful. Ian
You mention Grabinbox, but it seems to be dead. The link is 404, and a little Google searching didn’t lead to any details about where they might have moved.
Hi Carl, thanks for reminding me! I thought I had removed Grabinbox from the article, but you’re right. They ceased to exist a little while ago.
They were a free platform, so I was surprised how long they lasted. Ian
I have been using Hootsuite for a while now. Nice article
Hi Mary, thanks. What is it about Hootsuite that you like? Ian
I am unable to get my free Hootsuite account to connect to LinkedIn. I don’t have a Company LinkedIn account, just a personal one. It tells me I have to get permission from LinkedIn for Hootsuite to connect. I’ve looked through all my LinkedIn settings and don’t see anywhere to do that. And all the searches I do come up empty.
Think you can help.
Hi Mark,
You should be able to connect your LinkedIn account to the free version of Hootsuite. When you connect it, it should connect to LinkedIn and you give your permission there. After that, it should just work.
However, LinkedIn does need to be reconnected every 30 days or so (or at least that was the case the last time I checked). I’d remove it and try again and see if that works.
we operate over 2000 facebook pages what service do you recommend thanks
larry
Hi Larry, that’s a huge number of Facebook pages to manage! How big is your team, and how do you want to manage all those pages? Do you want to publish to all those pages all in one go?
For that high number, you’ll need an enterprise level tool because most of them have upper limits of around 20-30 profiles/pages. I’d recommend speaking to Hootsuite about their Enterprise plan as well as Agora Pulse and Sprout Social. But really it will depend on your speciifc needs. Ian
Thankyou for your previous response. I have just signed into the free version of hootsuite and have connected 3 social mediums and it is just so slow and will not even allow me to add a second photo. I friend told me about hootsuite so I thought I would check it out before using it for business. Although easy to set up(relatively) but just trying to add a second photo to post of 2 facebook pages & 1 instragram(ie. 3 social mediums I thought I would try) from where it says ‘choose to upload files’ , it loaded the first picture, but it will not allow a second picture to upload. Therefore based on this, either hootsuite is very basic(can only load one picture), or corrupts easily, is very slow, or not user friendly. As an Accountant, I have usually found if the basic version has difficulty then the upgrades tend to follow suite eventually. I would like an answer before I would like to try venturing to any other type of version of hootsuite. I do not want to do a trial period on the other upgrades as I would like to see if the basic version works first. Kristine
Hi. I’ve checked, and on one Free Hootsuite account that I have access to, I was able to add three images to a post for 3 social networks (Twitter, Facebook and Instagram). You need to compose your post and click on “add media” at the bottom of the post composer. I would say that HootSuite isn’t exactly fast, but it isn’t overly slow. It could be where you are located or perhaps your internet connection. I’d try again another day and see if it improves. But HootSuite is one of the only main social media management tools out there that offers a free version. Yes, it is limited, but it at least allows you to manage up to 3 social profiles.
I live in Australia and would like to know that if I use hootsuite would it be free if I used it only to post to facebook, twitter & instagram. When did the free plan with Hootsuite start
The free version of HootSuite has been around since the beginning. But over the years, HootSuite has reduced the features. It’s very cut down now compared to what it was a few years ago.
Lightful.com is also free! really good!
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Great article! I work for a local health department in the Miswestern US and our organization, along with others in the region, are looking to develop a risk communications plan for social media. Musterpoint looks like a great tool for emergency communication, but I’m guessing their services would not extend to the U.S. Do you know of any other organizations like them that are in the States or other social media managers that can do what they offer for emergencies? Much obliged!!
Hi Kaitie, I am fairly sure that Musterpoint does work internationally. They are based in the UK and have a lot of experience with working with the public sector here. But it’s probably best to chat with them – they are very friendly.
As for coping with an emergency, other social media management tools such as Sprout Social or Agora Pulse are well placed to help. They have team management which is absolutely vital, and you can stop posts in an emergency. Of course, Musterpoint also has similar features, and I’ve always been very impressed with them. Another option is to use a tool such as SEMRush or Brandwatch which can monitor the web and social media and can notify you if there is a big increase in conversation. That’s been really useful for me and vital for bigger businesses and organisations.
I hope that helps!
Hi Katie and thanks Iain for the update. We are based in the U.K. but now we have a US office in Austin, TX and have US public sector clients so we would love to hear from you.
I’m on CDT so will happily chat through and show you a demo.
Look forward to hearing from you.
Christine Townsend
Thanks for being so quick in responding, Christine! Great to know that you’ve got a US office. Ian
Hootsuite is not the best tool to use. Do your research and you will find that to be true.
Thanks. Well, I think Hootsuite is a good option for some people in certain circumstances. For those looking for a limited free social media management tool, it’s a good option. It’s also good for people who really like the multiple column layout.
Dear Ian,
I am a very basic and light user of FB, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram.
I do however need to monitor and retrieve content as and when required.
Would Hootsuite Free be the best option for me.
Kind regards,
Ben
Hi, You are talking about disadvantages, but using hootsuit is more convenient and beneficial. For example, It helps monitoring multiple streams in one place, you can manage and connect to lot of services together. One of the best part is you can have a report in email for free. I am just saying what i feel is right. Thanks for the post.
Hi Suketu, thanks for your comment. Yes, I agree, there are many advantages in using Hootsuite. I’ve written article on the advantages in using Hootsuite. The user interface will be loved by some and hated by others. I do kind of like the multiple streams in one place – they’re good for research and for Twitter streams. However, from a productivity point of view, I find it not as good. I find single column views from Agora Pulse and Sprout Social much more effective. Thanks again.
Hi Ben,
Sorry, I totally missed your comment. If you’re a light user, then just using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram natively might be adequate. Hootsuite free only gives you access to a maximum of three networks and so you’d not be able to manage all your networks without paying.
Hi Ian, i wanted to know what you think about Sendible!….i work at a small companny but we have a lot of clientes. Social media are not our priority (specially FB) but i think that it is important to keep and eye on what is happening. I just want a tool that helps me to publish and monitor all the content (i need good and complete reports)…what do you recommend?…
Thank you so much
Oh and i don’t have a big budget for this :s
Hi Alejandra, Thanks for your question. The perfect tool for you depends on a number of things…
Which networks do you want to manage with it?
Do you want to manage and publish to networks such as Instagram and YouTube, for example?
What is your monthly budget for this?
You mention reports, and that is an important one, because some of the tools don’t have great reporting. The best ones for reporting (in my experience) are Sprout and Agora Pulse.
Sendible is definitely worth looking at.
Check out these posts I’ve written which compare the main social media management tools in this space:
Thank you!! we are using Instagram, FB, LinkedIn and we want to use YouTube too…..i’m not very sure about the budget! But any suggestion will be appreciated….I need “easy to understand” analytics.
Buffer would help you publish to all those platforms (except YouTube) but their analytics are poor.
Hootsuite does the same, but their support for LinkedIn and YouTube is limited and their reports aren’t that great.
Sprout has amazing support for all of those except YouTube which it doesn’t support and it’s expensive.
Agora Pulse has amazing support for all of those and they’re adding YouTube in a few weeks. But it may be above your budget.
Really, for what you need, you are going to struggle to find a tool that does everything you want for free or cheap. But I hope that helps.
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Thank you so much for your time and help
This could take hours to search out and understand. I’m only looking to promote my artist website and usually send out blog posts from my website. Would have to be free or real cheap. Friends+Me or Jollar looks like might work. Would like to be able to track activity and send out posts to all social sites at one time. Thanks for all this info.
Thanks, Judi. Researching social media tools does take a huge amount of time, and that’s why I have written these posts to try and help people like you find the best tool.
There are some free or inexpensive tools out there, but they do have their limitations. As long as you are aware of that and can cope with their disadvantages, you’ll be fine. I started off with free tools such as Hootsuite and Tweetdeck, and then as my business grew, I moved to paid tools.
If you want to automatically post your blog posts to your social networks, then check out IFTTT – you can connect your blog with most social networks. There’s also Buffer which has a decent free option. As for tracking activity, it depends on what you mean. If you want free, then the official Twitter analytics and Facebook Insights are really very good. Yes, you don’t all your analytics in one place, but it’s free.
I just want to see all my feeds in one. So everyone I follow on any given platform in the same scrolling feed. Why would I want to see my own Facebook or Instagram profile? I don’t go on these things to see what I posted. Ugh.
Hi Chris, In that case, Hootsuite isn’t going to be for you. In fact most social media management tools don’t offer a unified feed feature. That’s partly because it is more difficult to achieve, and also because a lot of people think they prefer the separate feeds. At the moment, the main tool that offers this is Sprout Social.
It’s not cheap, but it’s one of my top picks for social media management tools.
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Nice try, but you aren’t actually an alert box!
I really like Buffer and I try to like HootSuite, most of these APPS are very good at scheduling posts and perhaps watching a stream but I’m yet to come across a management tool that integrates well with two important features. Commenting, liking and keeping track of connections who engage, especially the later. Until a program can do that, I’m not willing to part with any money. This all starts to get very expensive for a small business, website hosting with e-commerce, social media management, and then other 3rd party plugins and tools.
Thanks, Paul. There is no such thing as a perfect tool. There are plenty of good scheduling tools. Buffer does a great job and Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Agora Pulse and others are good too. When it comes to commenting and liking both Agora Pulse and Sprout do a very good job. They have a social inbox feature (especially Agora Pulse) that allows you to quickly get through your social mentions.
Now, you mention keeping track of the connections who engage? Can you expand on that more? Agora Pulse gives you a list of the top engagers in your community as well as influencers. There are other tools such as Do you even list that you can use as well as your main social media management tool.
I didn’t see Meet Edgar as a recommendation, is there a particular reason?
Good question. Edgar isn’t a social media management tool, but I should really add it as an alternative to scheduling content. I’ll add it in my next update.
I do have a full tutorial on Egdar here – https://iag.me/socialmedia/reviews/how-to-become-a-content-marketing-jedi-with-edgar/ It’s also worth checking out RecurPost – https://recurpost.com/ and SmarterQueue – https://smarterqueue.com/
Ian, thank you very much for all of this incredible information! My entire research consisted of reading this page. Incredible. Thank you for gathering it all!
Thanks so much, Kris! It was a pleasure and I am so glad I was able to help you out!
If you’re looking to manage social media accounts for multiple companies the changes to hootesuite limts for the pro plan are a game changer, number of social profiles allowed for anyone signing up for a new pro plan was reduced from 50 to 10. They obviously feel as though they have enough customers given that move!!
Also I have to tell you that my recent experience of their support is that some of the support staff are clueless.
Buffer is much more intuitive if you’re just looking to schedule posts and it natively supports Pinterest, Hootesuite needs an add in called Tailwind to post to Pinterest which is a pain. Buffer also integrates with third party apps like IFTTT to link actions and posts, Hootesuite doesn’t to my knowledge.
In fact tbh the single reason to sign up to hootesuite in the past was that that they offered a limit of 50 social accounts to manage on the pro plan which was very competitive pricing. Take that away as they have and you’re left with a clumsy web based application missing some key features. Yes hootesuite has streams which can be useful if you want be hands on and very manual with your social media activity……. But with the changes Hootesuite seem to be saying they do NOT want agencies, internet marketing companies etc.
Thanks for your comment. I totally agree with you. Hootsuite has really reduced the features in their pro and free plans, and now they aren’t at all suitable for teams of users.
I wasn’t aware that Hootsuite required Tailwind, but it doesn’t surprise me. Tailwind is a great app that I use as a standalone tool for Pinterest and Instagram – it is really good. But I am surprised that Hootsuite doesn’t have their own setup. Hootsuite is still valuable for people who want to monitor multiple streams in one view, but for most of the time, I think that can actually make you more productive.
I think Hootsuite does want agencies and companies, it’s just that they want you to pay a lot more!
Hi Ian,
Thanks for the article. Was literally about to hit the Start my free trial button for Hootsuite.
I’m a startup so outgoing expenses are still very tightly held. Currently only using Instagram and Facebook. Perhaps may use Twitter and Linkedin at a later stage though I fail to see the ROI and effectiveness of these for me in real estate, specifically selling new homes often not yet constructed.
Before I came across Hootsuite in the same day, I also came across one called Later. Could you let me know your thoughts on Later and perhaps in addition how it is vs Agora Pulse or any other SMMT you would recommend?
I have need to post, comment, monitor and really like analytics and reports to be able to make sense of everything as well as justifying the time spent on social media.
Thanks mate! <Aussie
Evan
Also just wanted to quickly add that the reason I came across Later is because it offered really cool tool whereby it mirrors your Instagram feed in a browser with the main purpose being able to then link each post to an individual url. This allows me to link each post to a Mailchimp campaign because each campaign has a url and from there receive all the images and information for that particular real estate development project.
Look forward to hearing back!
Thanks so much, Evan, glad I was able to help you. It was interesting to hear your story.
I’m a big Later fan. The guys who set it up, used to work at Hootsuite. It’s a really easy to use and robust tool.
I am also a big Agora Pulse fan, and now that they have a really good Instagram integration, it’s my main tool. I continue to recommend Later to those people who just want Instagram management. But with Agorapulse, you can manage all your social networks from one place. It’s amazing.
Do check out my other articles on the top social media management tools and their pricing-
Hope that helps!
Ian
Hootesuite have reduced the number of social profiles on the pro plan from 50 to 10. That represents a massive downgrade or effectively a massive increase in pricing. This was the main reason we used Hootesuite.
Paul, you are so right. Hootsuite are massively downgrading the features across many of their plans. Having said that, other tools are doing that too. Sprout Social recently removed their entry plan and now cost from $99/user/month.
Great write up Ian!