Hootsuite Review for those who do not 'do' social media for a living
Updated November 11, 2015

Hootsuite Review for those who do not 'do' social media for a living

Michael Royal | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Hootsuite Pro

We are a small consulting business. I am the sole user and I use it to co-ordinate my outgoing communications across LinkedIn's various groups, Facebook & Twitter

Pros

  • Easy to send and schedule - once you figure out where you do it from. The instructions for scheduling are straightforward
  • The Hootlet on my Chrome toolbar has increased efficiency with communicating interesting web links being easy to spread
  • It is easy to add LinkedIn groups to a communication message, again, once you have done it once or twice (first time was a bit tricky)
  • The link shrinking is a good feature - saves having to go to ow.ly

Cons

  • I find it is not as intuitive as I thought it should be, although easy once you know how (& remember how!). I found myself guessing where stuff might be and some things still baffle me! As it is not my 'day job', I can only spend so much time trying to uncover the benefits.
  • The vertical slider is very narrow. A small issue but an irritating one! I notice this is a trend on software but I don't like it. My Windows vertical slider on my screen now at 3 to 4 mm (1/8th of an inch) is a lot easier to control.
  • I find the whole 'streams' concept a bit confusing and don't know what to do with it other than look at it. I might be a bit of a social media laggard but I find myself in the 'one way' (outgoing) communication stream - and don't know how to readily respond to others.
  • Adding new LinkedIn groups is a bit of a hit and miss challenge. I have to remember which screen to go to (which reminds me, I will have to do this again soon). It would be good for Hootsuite to reach out to LinkedIn and offer me to sign up those groups which I am not using through Hootsuite rather than wait for me to go through another screen (when I find it!) and to this.
  • I would like to have the option of grouping LinkedIn groups so that I could short cut selecting groups for particular messages. For example, I am a member of a number of Australian based groups, as well as HR groups, Insolvency groups, Restructuring groups, Business Owner groups. It would be good to have the ability to 'group' the groups to save time posting.
  • The posting process is not a check box but you click on the link and it disappears and reappears in the links to be posted to. Again, a bit of a challenge the first time to intuitively know how this works.
1 - Marketing & Communication
  • I use it to reduce my stress of feeling that I should be communicating. It has achieved that to a large extent as I have increased my knowledge of how it works.
  • I can't say I have obtained any direct leads from it but I notice that my postings are getting some traction which is good
  • It is the usual '100 hours' to learn the software. I find most software - even relatively simple to use software like Hootsuite, still requires a level of trial and error and study - oh and mistakes!
I saw a recommendation and bought it - at $6/mth I thought I cannot go too far wrong with trialing it.
I have not used the competition nor researched them (Hootsuite came along at just the right time and it was very cost effective for what it allowed me to do - circulate web articles of interest to numerous Linked In Groups plus also FB and Twitter).

Hootsuite Feature Ratings

Content planning and scheduling
7
Audience targeting
7
Content optimization
Not Rated
Workflow management
7
Automated routing and prioritization
Not Rated
Customer interaction histories
Not Rated
Bulk actions
9
Lead generation
Not Rated
Content marketing
7
Paid media management
Not Rated
Campaigns and promotions
Not Rated
Twitter
8
Facebook
8
LinkedIn
8
Google+
Not Rated
Instagram
Not Rated
Pinterest
Not Rated
YouTube
Not Rated
Campaign success analytics
Not Rated
Real-time tracking
Not Rated
Competitor analysis
Not Rated
Role-based user permissions & privileges
Not Rated
Mobile access
Not Rated

Using Hootsuite Pro

I can't see myself learning another piece of software in this space unless I find some time! However, it does have some issues and if when researching others someone gave the opposition some rave reviews and in particular, addressed some of my concerns re gliches, then I would be highly likely to change.

Hootsuite Pro Implementation

Using Hootsuite Pro

Hootsuite does not encompass Google +
Hootlet the Chrome widget does not always work as it should (there is a technical bug with it which has been partially fixed but it still occurs from time to time).
Otherwise good.

Hootsuite Pro Reliability

Gliches have made it a bit of a bind, particularly when you just want to 'click and send' a web article after you have read it - and then you have to deal with support (a great team but not always able to solve the problems with the gliches). Gliches with it loading properly, gliches with 'double ups in FB on the posts (the personal page and the business page if both clicked will lead to 2 lots of postings to each page!)
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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