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Hootsuite: Good to Start With, but Not the Best Solution for Our Needs
October 17, 2014

Hootsuite: Good to Start With, but Not the Best Solution for Our Needs

Sid Haas | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 4 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Hootsuite Pro

Overall Satisfaction with Hootsuite Pro

We used HootSuite previously to manage social media sites for LKCS and some of our clients. We used it to publish content to a variety of social media sites and monitor social media activity. It was being used by account representatives and our web development department. There were only about 5 individuals that used it regularly.
  • Scheduling social media content
  • Publishing social media content on supported social media sites
  • Ensuring Twitter posts are under the character limit and do not get cut off.
  • HootSuite only allows one account to attach to a social media profile. This is a problem. We had customers that wanted to use the free version of HootSuite while we also used HootSuite for them. We also had situations where a social media site was already connected to HootSuite but client's didn't know who had ever established a HootSuite account or how to get control of it.
  • We found the user access permissions very difficult. They were not intuitive or user friendly. HootSuite only enables you to create one organization. Then we ended up with numerous social media teams, with each team having different profiles. It was difficult to juggle.
  • We found the monitoring to be overly time consuming. We would still have to review activity for each social profile individually, instead of being able to look at one pain of glass. We wanted a way to easily filter out the posts/comments that needed our attention. We didn't feel HootSuite did this as well as other tools.
Marketing, sales, and web/e-marketing specialists used HootSuite.
  • We chose to switch platforms before there was a negative ROI. As we added users and profiles, HootSuite became rather expensive.
I evaluated dozens of social media management tools. HootSuite was better than some, but fell short in the areas mentioned. I felt other platforms had easier monitoring and reporting. They also managed multiple clients/users easier than HootSuite. And costs for some were significantly lower -- several tools supported unlimited social media profiles, unlimited monitors, etc. We chose Sendible as our platform and have been very happy with it.
Hootsuite's publishing tools are very good. We never had any trouble scheduling content across social media channels. We created some posts individually but most were imported in bulk into the system. Delivery was reliable and performed as expected.
HootSuite monitored the established social media profiles very well. Unfortunately, we had to review each profile individually. And the listening/monitoring didn't spread outside of the established profiles. We wanted a tool that was broader and would report on mentions outside of the established profile pages.
If you can use the free version of the tool, use it. If you need the paid version, my recommendation would be to look at other tools -- especially if you are an agency managing social media for multiple clients. HootSuite is big player in the industry, but I personally don't feel it's the best solution.

Using Hootsuite Pro

We have stopped using Hootsuite and do not plan to use it again.