Social Media Tools 101: Hootsuite

As the name suggests, Social Media Tools 101 is a series of posts to help beginners understand some of the wonderful social media management apps and tools available today.

What’s Hootsuite?

Hootsuite is a social media management tool to keep all your social media platforms and campaigns in one place. It first launched in 2008 and quickly grew into one of the most popular social sharing interfaces to date.

How is it different than Buffer?

There are some similarities between the two, even some overlap of function, but both Buffer and Hootsuite offer very different benefits that can compliment each other well. The scheduling feature of Hootsuite isn’t as user-friendly as Buffer’s, but the analysis reports from Hootsuite actively inform users on their social sharing effect. Many social media sharers actually favor using both services for different features.

How do I get started with Hootsuite?

The first place is to create your Hootsuite account through your browser or mobile device. Hootsuite also has add-ons and extensions for browsers, similar to Buffer.

What are the benefits of Hootsuite?

One of the benefits is the ability to monitor your brand’s reputation on social media feeds. Users can create a search feed based on their brand’s name and view mentions and tags in real-time.

Unlike Buffer, Hootsuite allows multiple users to access the same social media accounts for collaboration and management. This is helpful for mid-level or larger businesses with a content management team running multiple social campaigns.

Are there any drawbacks?

There are a few, many of which are more preferences than actual drawbacks. The biggest area of debate is the analytics provided by Hootsuite. There limited analytics reports included in Hootsuite, but additional reports can cost $40-50 per report.

Another ~~drawback~~ preference is that Hootsuite requires a URL shortener (ow.ly) for all Hootsuite posts. This is the way Hootsuite tracks clicks and shares in its analytics. Any content shared without the ow.ly URL is left off the analytics report.

What’s the consensus?

Hootsuite is a terrific app for social media management. I’d recommend any beginner give it a try to see its capabilities and benefits. Nothing’s going to be perfect, but Hootsuite is a great place to start.