Free is still Free even if it's not Perfect
January 16, 2018

Free is still Free even if it's not Perfect

Megan Lemons | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Hootsuite Free

Overall Satisfaction with Hootsuite Free

We have used Hootsuite free to manage the scheduling, publishing, and monitoring of our Facebook profiles. It is being used by our marketing department as well as our human resources department. Hootsuite free gives us a central location to access our Facebook profiles to make sure that our content writers post content according to our social strategy.
  • Web-based. This is a very big strength because there is no need to download anything, it can all be done on the web.
  • Customer Service and communication. Hootsuite does a very good job of communicating with their customers. If there are ever problems, they are quick to respond and helpful. When it comes to social media, knowing that someone is there to support you when issues arise gives peace of mind.
  • Accessible content. The Hootlet extension allows users to post content from anywhere online for easy content curation.
  • Limited profiles/services. The free service does not allow for more than 3 profiles. This makes it almost unusable for companies who wish to have a presence across the social sphere.
  • Not user-friendly. The organization of the user interface is lacking. It has a difficult learning curve.
  • No post previewing. As a manager, I would like the ability to approve posts before they are sent. It is very easy for posts to slip through and get posted without approval. Either posts are scheduled and missed or they sit in drafts until past the optimal date/time of posting.
  • Adding more users is not included with the free version and can become expensive.
3 - One human resources representative and two marketing representatives use the free version of Hootsuite. We have too many profiles to use the free version of Hootsuite for the rest of the company, so we upgraded to the paid Hootsuite. We are still working with similar issues with the paid version and adding more users becomes very pricey.
  • Hootsuite free was an excellent first social media monitoring and publishing program that helped our department identify what features are most helpful in our social strategy.
  • Rogue posts that do not match with our social strategy going out without approval to our profiles is detrimental to our overall social performance.
  • Hootsuite free scheduling and monitoring has allowed for our departments to discover the optimal posting times and days which has lead us to improved performance.
Each program has its pros, however, Hootsuite Free does not compare to any of them. It is much more limited and lacks the usability features of the other products. Similarly, the analytic features of Hootsuite Free feel out-of-date compared to other products of the same type. Cyfe has a visually appealing and flexbile analytic dashboard set-up that makes understanding where your profiles stand in the social spheres. Sendible has manager-writer capablities that prevent rogue posts and the added benefit of being able to control the exact time of posting (rather than just the nearest multiple of 5 as Hootsuite). We use Hootsuite Free despite these failings, because the free price is hard to pass up on for those profiles that we do not expect to receive any leads from.
The combination of utilizing the Hootlet add-on and the scheduling feature make posting efficient. However, the hard-to-use interface, limited number of profiles, and lack of multi-user capabilities make the free version of Hootsuite unusable for those wanting to have social presence across all social platforms. The only answer is to upgrade to a paid version of the program or to move to a different one. To be fair, Hootsuite free is not alone in these issues - other social media programs suffer from the same limitations in their free versions (if they even have free versions). However, with the clunky interface and lack of approval features, purchasing an upgraded version would not be my go-to answer. In order to bring Hootsuite free in line as a competitor, the interface would need to be updated to make user functionality the primary goal of the program.

Hootsuite Feature Ratings

Boolean keyword searches
8
Filtering out noise/spam
6
Sentiment analysis
8
Broad channel coverage
9
Content planning and scheduling
8
Audience targeting
6
Content optimization
5
Workflow management
4
Automated routing and prioritization
Not Rated
Customer interaction histories
6
Bulk actions
Not Rated
Lead generation
Not Rated
Content marketing
7
Paid media management
Not Rated
Campaigns and promotions
Not Rated
Twitter
Not Rated
Facebook
7
LinkedIn
Not Rated
Google+
Not Rated
Instagram
Not Rated
Pinterest
Not Rated
YouTube
Not Rated
Campaign success analytics
6
Real-time tracking
8
Competitor analysis
Not Rated
Role-based user permissions & privileges
3
Mobile access
5