Hootsuite vs. Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Hootsuite
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Hootsuite is a social media management platform for building brand awareness, engaging with customers, and driving business results. Users can schedule posts across multiple social networks (including Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and YouTube ), manage organic and paid social content together, keep track of customer conversations, integrate with over 200+ applications, and gain actionable real-time insights from social media to make critical business decisions from…
$99
per month
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
Score 5.9 out of 10
N/A
Radian6 was acquired by Salesforce.com in 2011 and - along with Buddy Media - became Salesforce Social Studio. The product is slated to be retired in November 2024.
$1,000
Per Org Per Month
Pricing
HootsuiteSalesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
Editions & Modules
Professional
$99
per month
Team
$249
per month
Business
$739
per month
Enterprise
Contact for Pricing
Basic
$1,000.00
Per Org Per Month
Pro
$4,000.00
Per Org Per Month
Corporate
$12,000.00
Per Org Per Month
Enterprise
$40,000.00
Per Org Per Month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
HootsuiteSalesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details*Prices displayed in USD, based on annual billing, but do not include applicable taxes. Free - 1 user / 2 social accounts Professional @ $99/month - 1 user / 10 social accounts Team @ $249/month - 3 users / 20 social accounts Business - starting @ $739/month - 5 users / 35 social accounts Enterprise - contact for pricing, unlimited users / 50+ social accounts
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
HootsuiteSalesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
Considered Both Products
Hootsuite
Chose Hootsuite
I had a horrible experience working in Social Studio (Radian6) back in 2020. This was the primary reason why I started posting native across multiple platforms. Once Facebook introduced the Creators Studio and Twitter offered the ability to upload media and schedule posts I was …
Chose Hootsuite
It is less expensive and we use Microsoft dynamics so not easy to integrate.
Chose Hootsuite
Hootsuite lacks many features as i've said before. I think their reporting is also not as great as other platforms. I find the interface really messy and hard to navigate. The metrics also vary a lot between platforms which makes comparing success between channels very …
Chose Hootsuite
We switched to HootSuite Enterprise due to the outstanding customer service record and their overall approach to our business needs. They provided us with real-time solutions for problems that had plagued us for months while we were at a competitor.
Chose Hootsuite
For one year each, we tested both Meltwater and Vocus for social media management (running in parallel to HootSuite Enterprise). For monitoring client mentions and issues, both missed far more posts than HootSuite did. We demoed the others >> Radian6 clearly functions and is …
Chose Hootsuite
Tried Meltwater Buzz / Jitterjam, Sysomos and Sprout Social.
Use HootSuite Enterprise to listen and engage with Facebook and Twitter profiles only.
Currently using HootSuite Enterprise in conjunction with Radian6 and Simply Measured for analytics.
Chose Hootsuite
• We had tried Sprout Social, primarily for posting and monitoring. Sprout had a great UI – perhaps a bit more modern than the HootSuite UI: It’s very intuitive and easy-to-use, but it didn’t have filtering. It presented one big stream. HootSuite allows filtering so that data …
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
Chose Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
Social Studio is most comparable to Meltwater in that they both have very basic analytics capabilities, but pull in mass amounts of data. crimson hexagon, Sprinklr and Cision all have much more advanced social media analytics capabilities, although they are potentially more …
Chose Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
They are in completely different ballparks. Radian6 is an enterprise tool. Mention, Google Alerts and Talkwalker are for anyone.
Chose Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
Radian6 is better in terms of listening and monitoring, but lacks slightly in scheduling.
Chose Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
Compared to Radian6, I found Meltwater Buzz, Simply Measured, and Sprout Social to be much more user friendly. Meltwater Buzz and Radian6 are very similar products with many of the same functionalities but Buzz presents your analytics in a way that is much easier to understand. …
Chose Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
At the time it was more robust.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
HootsuiteSalesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
Listening/monitoring
Comparison of Listening/monitoring features of Product A and Product B
Hootsuite
7.6
262 Ratings
1% below category average
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
8.5
10 Ratings
11% above category average
Boolean keyword searches7.4178 Ratings7.09 Ratings
Filtering out noise/spam7.0186 Ratings7.09 Ratings
Sentiment analysis7.4180 Ratings10.08 Ratings
Broad channel coverage8.3245 Ratings10.010 Ratings
Publishing
Comparison of Publishing features of Product A and Product B
Hootsuite
8.3
368 Ratings
5% above category average
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
8.5
10 Ratings
7% above category average
Content planning and scheduling8.9367 Ratings10.010 Ratings
Audience targeting8.1252 Ratings8.09 Ratings
Content optimization7.8300 Ratings8.08 Ratings
Workflow management8.2309 Ratings8.010 Ratings
Engagement
Comparison of Engagement features of Product A and Product B
Hootsuite
7.8
295 Ratings
3% below category average
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
7.6
9 Ratings
6% below category average
Automated routing and prioritization7.7213 Ratings9.99 Ratings
Customer interaction histories7.6230 Ratings9.99 Ratings
Bulk actions8.0253 Ratings3.19 Ratings
Marketing
Comparison of Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Hootsuite
7.4
285 Ratings
3% below category average
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
5.5
9 Ratings
33% below category average
Lead generation6.6171 Ratings5.08 Ratings
Content marketing7.8255 Ratings5.09 Ratings
Paid media management7.5170 Ratings6.07 Ratings
Campaigns and promotions7.8218 Ratings6.08 Ratings
Channel coverage/integration
Comparison of Channel coverage/integration features of Product A and Product B
Hootsuite
8.6
364 Ratings
1% above category average
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
8.1
10 Ratings
5% below category average
Twitter8.9333 Ratings9.010 Ratings
Facebook9.1348 Ratings10.010 Ratings
LinkedIn8.7304 Ratings10.08 Ratings
Google+8.960 Ratings6.86 Ratings
Instagram8.6307 Ratings8.07 Ratings
Pinterest8.2158 Ratings6.54 Ratings
YouTube8.2145 Ratings6.76 Ratings
Reporting/analytics
Comparison of Reporting/analytics features of Product A and Product B
Hootsuite
7.8
292 Ratings
1% below category average
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
8.6
9 Ratings
9% above category average
Campaign success analytics7.8268 Ratings8.99 Ratings
Real-time tracking7.9269 Ratings7.09 Ratings
Competitor analysis7.7182 Ratings9.97 Ratings
Account management
Comparison of Account management features of Product A and Product B
Hootsuite
8.1
304 Ratings
1% below category average
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
9.5
9 Ratings
15% above category average
Role-based user permissions & privileges8.4257 Ratings9.08 Ratings
Mobile access7.9282 Ratings9.99 Ratings
Best Alternatives
HootsuiteSalesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
Small Businesses
Conte.ai
Conte.ai
Score 1.6 out of 10
Conte.ai
Conte.ai
Score 1.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Score 9.3 out of 10
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Score 9.3 out of 10
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Score 9.3 out of 10
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User Ratings
HootsuiteSalesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(427 ratings)
8.9
(51 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.2
(89 ratings)
8.8
(38 ratings)
Usability
8.2
(65 ratings)
9.0
(9 ratings)
Availability
9.5
(21 ratings)
9.6
(5 ratings)
Performance
9.5
(19 ratings)
8.4
(5 ratings)
Support Rating
7.4
(264 ratings)
9.0
(8 ratings)
In-Person Training
6.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(17 ratings)
7.6
(6 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.1
(39 ratings)
9.8
(6 ratings)
Configurability
7.1
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.2
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.3
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.5
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.3
(18 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
HootsuiteSalesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
Likelihood to Recommend
Hootsuite
I really like that I can just go into hootsuite, connect all the our social channels and be able to have a great overview on what our social feeds look like. It's super handy not having to spend time going into each social platform to do the same post, and I can spend one day scheduling out that month's social plan. I much prefer sorting out boosting post from Hootsuite, the only downside is that they have a limit to what you can boost a month so a lot of the time I have to grin and bear it and use Meta Business Suite instead for boosting posts.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
If you're tasked with publishing content to social on behalf of your organization then this tool is certainly worth considering. You have quick and easy capability to schedule across multiple platforms with drag-and-drop simplicity. It ties into Salesforce's real strength of its CRM platform so you can quickly tie social activity and leads to those already in your database. And it does a good job at monitoring and analyzing brand and competitor content across multiple media types. Having said that, if you're into deep-dive and full functionality SaaS tools then this might not be for you as it covers three areas adequately, but not in enough detail or strength to make it a star performer
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Pros
Hootsuite
  • Scheduling of content. The ease of use for Hootsuite's planner abilities is top of the industry. It is simple and effective in posting content to different channels and accounts.
  • Analytics are superior on Hootsuite. Their custom reports allow you to view very specific KPI's that you can adjust for each channel or account. The reports are also exportable to be used for others in the company.
  • Inbox management. The inbox manager is superior to any in the industry. Hootsuite allows you to tag certain phrases or keywords to better filter messages based on importance or topic.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
  • The amount of the information that radian6 can pull from multiple social platforms is absolutely phenomenal. Its just not only the pull but the way the information can be presented in dashboards was way good. It helped us understand in various aspects of our social presence.
  • Multiple profiles helped us to break down the Big/Huge social buzz cloud to smaller and more manageable pieces. This helped us concentrate on the lows and helped us to plan better on turning them to highs.
  • Radian6 allowed us to follow thru the crowd trends with the latest information presented in a single view. This also helped us to collect the social opinion on the product releases.
  • The ease of use, one need not be an expert to start using this platform. The interface is easily understandable by anyone.
  • A keyword can be edited quickly to tailor the needs and the results were quick.
Read full review
Cons
Hootsuite
  • Because of the way algorithms works, we would have loved to be able to automate making a post with no link and posting the first comment with a link (hello LinkedIn)
  • We would have loved an easy way to post from a main account and repost the post for other accounts we administrate, for instance a corporate post reposted by individuals for LinkedIn, or retweets from one main account by child accounts
Read full review
Discontinued Products
  • Instagram Social Listening - it currently does not offer much social listening in terms of Instagram.
  • Instagram Owned - It currently stops pulling once an update is "old" by their standards, even if it receives recent comments. They can force pull, but you have to work with their tech team to do so.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Hootsuite
At this time we are satisfied that Hootsuite offers the most of what we are looking for at the most reasonable price point. As the social media landscape and monitoring/scheduling software changes, so do our needs. We re-evaluate our tools semi-annually or as new tools emerge onto the market. If we find at any point that we aren't gaining an advantage, then we are open to switching products.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
I spent a lot of time researching the right platform for me and our organisation (thanks to the other reviews on TrustRadius also). Having used other platforms when I found frustrations getting my everyday work done, I knew exactly what I wanted and this is why I chose Social Studio. While there have been a few hiccups, the quarterly update releases and the outstanding tech support have kept me more than happy.
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Usability
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is probably the easiest to use social media scheduler of all the ones that I've used. It's been easy to teach clients how to use the software themselves and it can be accessed easily on anyone's phone through their mobile app. Highly recommend for anyone that wants a software that is easy to learn!
Read full review
Discontinued Products
• Would rate this a 6. The User Interface is pretty intuitive, but the platform was still considered pretty intimidating by our non-technical staff when they first saw it. It took a while to get used to it and feel comfortable. There was quite a lot of setup work in the beginning (for example, we had to build our own reports using a canned report as a template, and this was not simple). Although it took a while to get it setup correctly, it’s quite intuitive once that work has been done.
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Reliability and Availability
Hootsuite
Any outages are communicated in advance and have not been a problem. We let our clients know based on communications from HootSuite. Since we operate 24/7 with multiple shifts, planned outages can interfere with our operations, but we can always work around it.
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Discontinued Products
The platform is rarely down
Read full review
Performance
Hootsuite
Hootsuite makes passing on articles from the web very easy- when it works! I have had a number of gliches with Chrome where it does not open properly and the solution (after some toing and froing with support) was to uninstall and reinstall. The support staff are always very helpful (which is great!) but the gliches..... well, they suck when you are already busy!
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Discontinued Products
No issues with performance.
Read full review
Support Rating
Hootsuite
I can manage all of my accounts on one site! It's absolutely amazing!
The dashboard is helpful to see how you are doing as well. Still
getting to understand the analytics and may need to reach out for help
on this
Read full review
Discontinued Products
As mentioned previously, it can be hard to get through to people who can help you. On occasion when I have spoken to customer service/tech support, they all seem nice and try to be helpful, however instead of admitting the system cannot do certain things, they will persist it saying that it can, which results in many wasted hours overall.
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In-Person Training
Hootsuite
Very easy to teach and learn
Read full review
Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Hootsuite
The online training is decent; however, it takes a lot more time to search for answers to my questions. Having a training session with a live person was much more effective as they were able to quickly address the business needs I have.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
• We initially received dedicated online training for our team which was delivered by our account rep. This was pretty effective since it happened after our data had been loaded into the system and it had been configured for specific needs our organization. The training was perhaps a bit shallow though, as it was only an hour long. Online videos are available to be taken individually, and these have been useful.
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Implementation Rating
Hootsuite
• Combination of vendor and internal. The vendor bumped up our account to the Enterprise version (quite simple and easy) and then set up our organization and team structure. We then had to log in and set up team members and assign members to social media accounts. This was pretty easy to do as they have a great user interface. We simply had to drag and drop people into the correct team giving them access to specific social media accounts.
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Discontinued Products
Implementation was pretty simple. Just a matter of giving the account rep a list of our search terms and having him set the system up to pull the data we wanted to see. Once this had been done, we tweaked it with his help. Process was pretty smooth, although there was some back and forth until it worked the way we wanted.
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Alternatives Considered
Hootsuite
Hootsuite's free account was sufficient for use on behalf of our client. When they restructured their pricing model and eliminated free and affordable subscriptions suitable for a small business, we found that Zoho Social was an excellent replacement. The interface was simpler and the pricing was affordable and suitable for a small business.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
Compared to Radian6, I found Meltwater Buzz, Simply Measured, and Sprout Social to be much more user friendly. Meltwater Buzz and Radian6 are very similar products with many of the same functionalities but Buzz presents your analytics in a way that is much easier to understand. I did a two week trial with Sprout Social and absolutely loved the product but our company needed the capability to connect to Salesforce, which is available on R6 and Buzz. Simply Measured is my all time favorite but I have only used the free version so I am not completely sure how it stacks up to Radian6
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Scalability
Hootsuite
We are only using in marketing and have been able to scale.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Hootsuite
  • I have been able to evaluate which posts, in general, do well and figure out what types of posts to make (content)
  • It's been harder however to compare on social medial platform compared to another because it's hard to duplicate a post with a new owly (I think you used to be able to) but more so, you also can't assign it a custom owly link so I can see at a glance which owly link was associated with what platform.
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Discontinued Products
  • Monitoring social brand awareness is not something you can consider to have a meaninful impact in your business ROI short term, however it's a must for taking care of long term relationships and customer intimacy.
  • Radian6 connects with other analytical tools like webtrends, Google Analytics, etc..however it's not directly linked to a revenue driven platform, you can´t see the immediate ROI generated in the tool.
  • If you bet for social relationships you should consider this tool, no question on that. Social Commerce might be of course impacted postively by the proper use of this tool.
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ScreenShots

Hootsuite Screenshots

Screenshot of Monitoring: Monitors social media profiles in one place and tracks the topics that matter to the brand.Screenshot of Publishing: Create, publish and schedule engaging posts across social channels.Screenshot of Customer Engagement: A consolidated stream of messages across networks that can be triaged and assigned to respond to customers faster. Provides optional chatbot handover for automated responses.Screenshot of Scheduling: Social content can be planned as a team with a shared calendar that features collaborative post drafts and built-in approval workflows.Screenshot of Analytics & Reporting: Measures the effectiveness of a social media strategy to help turn strategy into execution with meaningful and actionable insights. Reports can be customized and shared according to unique business goals and objectives.Screenshot of Best Time to Publish: Helps to find the best time to publish so posts are seen more often by fans and followers.