Hootsuite Free? Owl pass.
January 19, 2018
Hootsuite Free? Owl pass.
Score 4 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Software Version
Hootsuite Free
Overall Satisfaction with Hootsuite Free
We used Hootsuite Free to schedule posts across social media platforms, namely Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn (it doesn't work with Instagram, which was always irritating, but, as I understand it, not entirely Hootsuite's fault/problem). As a marketing department of one, I was the only user. It certainly saved time if the only alternative was crafting each post one at a time per social media platform (which is not the case, in reality) and it offered something in the way of analytics.
- Scheduling across up to three platforms
- Basic monitoring across up to three platforms
- Basic analytics
- Make friends with Instagram!
- Not a big fan of the user interface
- Could improve entry-level reporting
At this point, we're off Hootsuite entirely. At peak use, I was the only user in our small organization, though others were trained on it if they had an interest. Marketing and communications are the most obvious uses but I can imagine some companies using Hootsuite and other social conversation monitors to strategize in other areas.
- Got us into the habit of being more consistent about posting content across social media channels
- Got us thinking about measuring our social media engagement (and looking for better ways to do it)
- Allowed us to monitor hashtags where we could contribute existing content to an ongoing conversation
- Buffer and TweetDeck
I selected Hootsuite initially based on its popularity and status as a leader in the realm of social media scheduling/monitoring. Ultimately, the user interface, lack of Instagram integration, and less-than-dazzling free options led us to make the switch to a paid Buffer account for scheduling and monitoring engagement across our platforms. If all we did was tweet, TweetDeck would be all we need, for free. For everything else combined, there's Buffer.