Hootsuite vs. Smarsh Communications Intelligence Platform (with Actiance)

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
Smarsh Communications Intelligence Platform
Score 7.5 out of 10
N/A
Actiance was a social media compliance and archiving platform acquired by Smarsh in November 2017. It is now part of the technology underlying the Smarsh Communications Intelligence Platform. Actiance products Vantage and Socialite are now Connected Capture. Actiance Alcatraz is now Connected Archive.N/A
Pricing
HootsuiteSmarsh Communications Intelligence Platform (with Actiance)
Editions & Modules
Professional
$99
per month
Team
$249
per month
Business
$739
per month
Enterprise
Contact for Pricing
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
HootsuiteSmarsh Communications Intelligence Platform
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
HootsuiteSmarsh Communications Intelligence Platform (with Actiance)
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
HootsuiteSmarsh Communications Intelligence Platform (with Actiance)
Listening/monitoring
Comparison of Listening/monitoring features of Product A and Product B
Hootsuite
7.6
262 Ratings
1% below category average
Smarsh Communications Intelligence Platform (with Actiance)
-
Ratings
Boolean keyword searches7.4178 Ratings00 Ratings
Filtering out noise/spam7.0186 Ratings00 Ratings
Sentiment analysis7.4180 Ratings00 Ratings
Broad channel coverage8.3245 Ratings00 Ratings
Publishing
Comparison of Publishing features of Product A and Product B
Hootsuite
8.3
368 Ratings
5% above category average
Smarsh Communications Intelligence Platform (with Actiance)
-
Ratings
Content planning and scheduling8.9367 Ratings00 Ratings
Audience targeting8.1252 Ratings00 Ratings
Content optimization7.8300 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow management8.2309 Ratings00 Ratings
Engagement
Comparison of Engagement features of Product A and Product B
Hootsuite
7.8
295 Ratings
3% below category average
Smarsh Communications Intelligence Platform (with Actiance)
-
Ratings
Automated routing and prioritization7.7213 Ratings00 Ratings
Customer interaction histories7.6230 Ratings00 Ratings
Bulk actions8.0253 Ratings00 Ratings
Marketing
Comparison of Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Hootsuite
7.4
285 Ratings
3% below category average
Smarsh Communications Intelligence Platform (with Actiance)
-
Ratings
Lead generation6.6171 Ratings00 Ratings
Content marketing7.8255 Ratings00 Ratings
Paid media management7.5170 Ratings00 Ratings
Campaigns and promotions7.8218 Ratings00 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
Smarsh Communications Intelligence Platform (with Actiance)
-
Ratings
Twitter8.9333 Ratings00 Ratings
Facebook9.1348 Ratings00 Ratings
LinkedIn8.7304 Ratings00 Ratings
Google+8.960 Ratings00 Ratings
Instagram8.6307 Ratings00 Ratings
Pinterest8.2158 Ratings00 Ratings
YouTube8.2145 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting/analytics
Comparison of Reporting/analytics features of Product A and Product B
Hootsuite
7.8
292 Ratings
1% below category average
Smarsh Communications Intelligence Platform (with Actiance)
-
Ratings
Campaign success analytics7.8268 Ratings00 Ratings
Real-time tracking7.9269 Ratings00 Ratings
Competitor analysis7.7182 Ratings00 Ratings
Account management
Comparison of Account management features of Product A and Product B
Hootsuite
8.1
304 Ratings
1% below category average
Smarsh Communications Intelligence Platform (with Actiance)
-
Ratings
Role-based user permissions & privileges8.4257 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile access7.9282 Ratings00 Ratings
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HootsuiteSmarsh Communications Intelligence Platform (with Actiance)
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User Ratings
HootsuiteSmarsh Communications Intelligence Platform (with Actiance)
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(427 ratings)
7.5
(2 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.2
(89 ratings)
8.1
(2 ratings)
Usability
8.2
(65 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
9.5
(21 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.5
(19 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.4
(264 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
6.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(17 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.1
(39 ratings)
-
(0 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
HootsuiteSmarsh Communications Intelligence Platform (with Actiance)
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
Smarsh
This appliance is well suited for organizations that have a need to monitor, moderate, or log social networking site use or the use of any website. It is a very solid tool for any information security department to have at their disposal.
Read full review
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
Smarsh
  • Discovery: It allows for easy discoveries by the compliance and cyber security departments.
  • Ethical walls: This keeps certain departments from talking to each other.
  • Very granular control. This is a big product meaning you can get very detailed with it.
  • Once it's configured and running, we hardly ever have any issues.
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
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Smarsh
  • Its configuration options were very large and required a good deal of time to learn all of the various settings.
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.
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Smarsh
It's the only product at this time that meets all of our requirements.
Read full review
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!
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Smarsh
No answers on this topic
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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Smarsh
No answers on this topic
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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Smarsh
No answers on this topic
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
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Smarsh
No answers on this topic
In-Person Training
Hootsuite
Very easy to teach and learn
Read full review
Smarsh
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
Smarsh
No answers on this topic
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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Smarsh
No answers on this topic
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
Smarsh
This was the only appliance of its kind that I have used. Other devices have different capabilities for web filtering such as the checkpoint firewalls, but none of them offered the overall solution that was deployed with this product at that time.
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Scalability
Hootsuite
We are only using in marketing and have been able to scale.
Read full review
Smarsh
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.
Read full review
Smarsh
  • Faster investigative work has led to increased employee efficiency when working on security investigations.
Read full review
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.