Of all the social media management tools out there, Hootsuite is seen as the perfect tool by many users.
Hootsuite is among the oldest and most well-known social media management players. Ryan Holmes and his partners launched this tool’s first version on November 28, 2008, as BrightKit, which offered a Twitter dashboard. Holmes then recognized the tool’s potential for other businesses looking to manage multiple social media accounts.
Hootsuite’s current popularity can be attributed to the wide range of features, which include scheduling posts, managing comments and mentions, monitoring social media conversations, and their social media analytics tools.
But did you know that with all the fame & popularity, there are a fair share of disadvantages of Hootsuite, too? The platform’s high pricing, steep learning curve, and intimidating interface are a few obvious cons.
In this in-depth article, we will look at Hootsuite features that make it a tough choice as a tool for many users, as well as a few alternatives to Hootsuite.
How Hootsuite Hasn’t Changed Much Over the Years Since It Peaked
On the back of being the first social media management platform, Hootsuite cultivated a decent following, and by 2010, it had over 1 million users. However, Hootsuite couldn’t remain a lone wolf in the space as competitors like Sprout Social and Buffer broke the former’s monopoly, positioning themselves in the market in 2010.
Still, Hootsuite has grown at an impressive rate and earned a fair share of goodwill over the years. Despite this constant growth, the only thing that has changed drastically on the ground is the Hootsuite pricing model. The platform has hiked its pricing plans almost eight times since it began charging customers. This is one of the prominent challenge Hootsuite users face – and it shows in the Hootsuite reviews.
A keen look at the platform shows it hasn’t added many new features, which would be expected for pricing that stacks much higher against the competition. Another thing that has not changed is the Hootsuite interface, which can still seem as complicated as it did several years ago.
With that said, let’s now weigh the disadvantages of Hootsuite against the platofrm’s pros to better understand the overall capabilities.
Disadvantages of Hootsuite
Despite the seemingly great features of the platform, comprehensive and continued use of Hootsuite throws up a good number of problems and disadvantages. Here are the most prominent ones:
1. Hootsuite Pricing
There are four different offerings for Hootsuite’s pricing plan: The Professional plan costs $99 per month, the Small Teams plan costs $249 per month, the Business plan comes at a whopping $739 per month, and the Enterprise plan is available on request and is bound to be the most expensive.
Even with the current cost of Hootsuite, the social media management tool has limited the user numbers to 3 and 5 team members for the Team and Business plans, respectively. So, the Hootsuite affair will become pricier if you want to increase team member capacity for the business and enterprise plans.
How much do the Hootsuite add-ons cost?
The add-on feature for additional users is priced per user only under the Business and Enterprise plans, making the tool’s use more restricted and expensive.
Is Hootsuite free?
Hootsuite has officially revoked its free plan in 2023, which it had been offering since launch. In March 2023, it officially notified users to either upgrade to a paid account or permanently delete their free account.
Overall, Hootsuite may not deliver the desired value for money if you are a team, business, or enterprise-level customer seeking a large team capacity or nifty features at an affordable rate.
2. User Interface: Our Hootsuite Review
Hootsuite’s interface may benefit a few users by encapsulating everything on a single screen. But for those who prefer a segregated viewing experience, the platform’s crowded dashboard is confusing and not easy to navigate.
The many tabs for the various social profiles appearing together make for a clunky UI that is bound to confuse users.
Also, there have been numerous technical issues reported with the Hootsuite app, such as, performance issues during peak usage times. This can be frustrating for users who need to manage social media accounts in real-time and is another major complaint from users in a lot of Hootsuite reviews.
3. Steep Learning Curve
Hootsuite can be overwhelming for social media marketing beginners or users who are still learning the ropes of social media management tools. The platform has many features, and it can take time to learn how to use them all effectively.
Hootsuite is designed almost completely for teams and enterprise-level customers. If you are an individual user or a group of two to three team members, the platform is not worth investing in, given, the cost of Hootsuite’s pricing plans.
In these and other cases, you should consider alternatives to Hootsuite like SocialPilot, known for its ease of use and comprehensive resource library. SocialPilot is an ideal tool for individuals, teams, and enterprise-level customers as it offers dedicated plans to support all levels of users.
4. Limited and Unreliable Customer Service
Customer service holds a high level of relevance if you’re a business or enterprise-level customer with big teams working across time zones.
Unfortunately, the Hootsuite customer service remains accessible only during business hours in Eastern time zones.
Moreover, only the Enterprise and Business plans specify customer support under the main list of features. The platform’s pages do not elaborate on the limited customer support offered, unlike its competitor SocialPilot, which clearly states all the customer service options, including real-time call support, under every plan.
Additionally, Hootsuite’s support page is not very self-explanatory. Many Hootsuite reviews show users’ frustration about the unreliable customer care. A deeper look at the page reveals access to a self-serve help center, chat support, Twitter and Facebook DMs, and email requests as the various support options.
The lack of real-time customer service from experienced representatives can seem a big letdown against the investment in a reputed SaaS platform. Herein is a recent review shared by a Hootsuite user.
5. The URL Shortener – Are You Overpaying?
Hootsuite has a proprietary URL shortener, Ow.ly, which works as a link shortener and performance tracker. Ow.ly allows you to view traffic from every link and analyze total clicks for every link via your Hootsuite dashboard.
Sounds good, right? But you will need to set aside extra dollars for Ow.ly, even if you are a business or enterprise-level customer. Another limitation of Ow.ly is its capability to work only with an Hootusite account.
A highly affordable alternative to Hootsuite, the SocialPilot social media management tool offers URL shortening capabilities for free under all the nominally structured pricing plans. What’s more, with this URL shortener integration feature, you can choose from independently usable tools like Bitly, Sniply, and Rebrandly.
6. Hootsuite for Content Queuing
Many social media management tools offer post-scheduling and immediate publishing capabilities. This allows users to pre-plan and organize their content. Some tools even allow bulk importing of content and scheduling it at specific intervals.
Social queues work a little differently. With social queues, you create a schedule for each social network, specifying time slots throughout the week when content will be posted. This allows you to establish a consistent weekly schedule.
These slots can be the same or different for each day. Users have control over how often content is posted on their social media, whether it’s multiple posts a day or a few every week. Drawing up queues of content simplifies the entire process of scheduling and publishing posts on various social media accounts, at once.
Unfortunately, Hootsuite doesn’t offer social content queueing capabilities in any of the plans. Users looking to manage bulk scheduling for multiple accounts can opt for the SocialPilot tool instead, which includes seamless content queuing functionalities.
Are There Any Advantages to Hootsuite?
Hootsuite comes with a decent interface and customization options, which makes it a popular choice among businesses of all sizes. If we talk about the platform’s advantages, Hootsuite offers integrations with various social media platforms including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, etc.
This tool also offers social media analytics to understand post performance and make data-driven decisions. It also comes with decent core publishing capabilities and allows you to customize posts for every platform.
Hootsuite also offers a fair amount of dashboard customization capabilities with over 150 integrations to suit varied needs. The platform also enables report customization and enhanced distribution for the user’s convenience.
Bottomline: Is Hootsuite Worth It?
Yes and probably no. If you are a business seeking an all-in-one social media management platform, irrespective of pricing, Hootsuite can be your tool.
However, the social media management tool can be a steep investment for individual and small team users as the cost of Hootsuite doesn’t exactly match the limited features it offers and is one of the biggest disadvantages of Hootsuite.
So, if you’re restricted by your budget, Hootsuite’s pricey analytics reports, add-on custom URL shortener, and shaky customer service may pose far too many cons for a decent ROI. If you have already purchased a paid plan, it is fairly simple to cancel the Hootsuite plan as well.
Laying a strong ground for this comparative review are the Hootsuite alternatives that offer similar and additional features to Hootsuite.
Let us look at the top five social media management tools you can consider as a Hootsuite alternative:
If you are a social media agency managing multiple social media accounts for various clients or a business managing numerous social accounts, SocialPilot can be your tool. With SocialPilot, you can strengthen your brand’s presence across major social media platforms and execute a well-planned social media posting schedule using advanced features.
We have drawn up an easy comparison between SocialPilot & Hootsuite that can help you choose the right social media scheduling tool for you.
Unlike HootSuite, SocialPilot has a user-friendly interface that makes it easy to manage multiple social media accounts, schedule posts, create content queues, and easily shorten social media URLs.
This tool is an excellent option for those who want to increase their brand’s visibility and engage with their followers effectively. Moreover, SocialPilot provides advanced features such as bulk scheduling, social media analytics, and team collaboration capabilities.
With bulk scheduling, you can save time by scheduling unlimited posts without losing extra bucks. Social media analytics enables you to track the performance of your posts and campaigns, helping you to optimize your social media strategy.
SocialPilot also supports multi-location brands effortlessly by allowing you to work with team members in streamlining your social media marketing strategies. Users can also count on an active support team accessible through phone calls, chat, and social media DMs around the clock.
With all these features and more, SocialPilot is an excellent option for businesses looking to enhance their social media presence without breaking the bank.
Sprout Social comes with an easy-to-use dashboard that presents data in an organized manner. It offers team collaboration features and can help simplify the social media management process.
It’s a good option for businesses managing customer relationships and extending a comprehensive CRM system like Zoho. However, it is also an expensive alternative to Hootsuite and levies extra charges for every additional team member.
In terms of integration capabilities, Sprout Social allows you to integrate with Zendesk, UserVoice, and Salesforce to facilitate collaboration between your sales, support, and social media teams. It also enables users to create a Facebook Messenger bot to connect with customers during and after office hours.
3. Hootsuite vs Agorapulse
Agorapulse is a comprehensive social media management tool designed to aid small businesses in building and moderating their online communities. Aided by the user-friendly interface, you can get acquainted with the platform with minimal training.
When it comes to customer support, Agorapulse is better than Hootsuite. Moreover, Agorapulse can seamlessly integrate with major social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. The tool offers various features, including post-scheduling, competitor analysis, user engagement automation, and detailed reports.
Other key features include a unified inbox, customized publishing options, social listening, advanced analytics, and customer engagement. However, Agorapulse integrates limited capability to handle reviews and queries, as it doesn’t allow you to reply to questions, visitor posts, and reviews.
4. Hootsuite vs Buffer
Buffer enables you to easily share and manage multiple social media accounts. While it is primarily known as a scheduling tool, Buffer provides features to optimize social media posting times for target audiences.
Buffer offers a free plan with limited features. However, you can also try out the paid ones with a 14-day trial period. It supports various social media platforms and allows users to log into all of them at once.
With the Buffer browser extension, users can instantly share content or schedule it to be shared later with a single click. Buffer also offers integration with WordPress, Chrome, and other important tools.
Some other notable features of Buffer include detailed social media analytics, team management, and insights. The tool is designed to be user-friendly, making it suitable for small businesses and newcomers to the industry. However, Buffer falls short in offering social listening capabilities.
5. Hootsuite vs Sendible
Sendible helps businesses enhance their brand’s social media presence. This agency-focused tool enables users to connect with teams and clients with ease.
Sendible is compatible with all major social media platforms, as well as blogging platforms such as WordPress, Medium, and Tumblr. Sendible’s dashboard is equipped with a range of features, including a unified social inbox, custom social media reports, team collaboration, social media calendar, and social media listening. However, it lags in offering competitor tracking and audience targeting capabilities.
Conclusion
Overall, Hootsuite is preferred by many for being a credible tool with a decent range of features. However, it may not be a tool for small teams, agencies, and businesses seeking an affordable tool in the social media management space.
So, it’s definitely worth trying affordable Hootsuite alternatives like SocialPilot, which offers all-important social media management features without all the disadvantages of Hootsuite.
Frequently Asked Questions
How reliable is Hootsuite?
Hootsuite is a very popular tool and has a strong image for being a reliable social media management platform. However, it is not the ideal tool for everyone, as individual marketers and small agencies may not need the extensive list of features that it offers for a hefty price.
Is Hootsuite no longer free?
Yes, Hootsuite is no longer free, which means you will have to spend on any of their paid social media plans to use the tool.
Is Hootsuite costly?
Yes, Hootsuite is the most expensive social media management tool. However, there are some great alternatives, like SocialPilot, Buffer, etc., that allow you to perform social media management at an affordable cost.
What are the disadvantages of Hootsuite?
Despite the seemingly great features of the platform, comprehensive and continued use of Hootsuite throws up a good number of problems and disadvantages. The major disadvantages of Hootsuite are it’s pricing, user interface, steep learning curve, limited customer service, pricey URL shortner, lack of content queuing tool.
