Increased use of social media has been a major contributing factor to the rise in the number of smartphones connected to the internet around the world. Users are no longer restricted to using a single social network and have accounts across multiple platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, and more.
With multiple social media accounts, businesses need a way to manage them and reach out to different demographics across multiple channels. This is where comprehensive social media management tools like Hootsuite come into the picture.
Hootsuite is an easy-to-use social media management (SMM) tool that allows you to handle multiple social accounts, business pages and profiles from its comprehensive user interface.
Hootsuite has a single dashboard that has an easy-to-use web interface and doesn’t require any special installations to start managing different social media accounts. With Hootsuite, you can easily schedule, publish, monitor, and analyze your social media activities.
Why consider alternatives to Hootsuite?
Although Hootsuite offers a wide range of flexible plans to its users including a free trial, small businesses might not be able to leverage the true capabilities of this tool without spending a significant amount of money on subscriptions.
In this post, we will take a look at some of the top Hootsuite alternatives that small businesses can opt for and take care of the most desired social media marketing activities like post scheduling, content creation, publishing, and analytics.
We will review each alternate tool so that you don’t have to, and when we conclude, you will be able to make an informed decision about which tool fits your marketing strategy perfectly.
So, what are the best Hootsuite alternatives?
Table of Contents
1. SocialPilot
Developed especially for small businesses and agencies, SocialPilot is best for publishing, engagement, and analytics. It is hands down more powerful than Hootsuite and offers a wide range of features that are a must for small businesses at a fraction of cost.
Here are the key features SocialPilot offers:
- Central dashboard to manage all posts
- Custom branding options for Facebook
- Compatible with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google My Business, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and TikTok
- RSS feed
- Social account groups
- Content curation
- Content suggestions
SocialPilot vs Hootsuite:
While both platforms are quite similar, there are certain advantages of using SocialPilot. For example, Hootsuite schedule up to 350 posts at a time to your social networks, but you can bulk schedule up to 500 posts in SocialPilot.
SocialPilot offers a unified dashboard similar to Hootsuite and allows you to put certain social platforms in a group. This feature is extremely useful when you’re dealing with multiple clients and do not wish to make a mistake while posting content.
Hootsuite only offers ow.ly link shortener, whereas SocialPilot gives you access to other popular link shorteners like Snip.ly, Rebrandly.com, and Bitly.com as well.
Additionally, you will be able to search for content related to your field while getting your RSS feeds. This feature is not available in Hootsuite.
To see more categorized advantages click here.
Price: SocialPilot offers a 14-day trial and the subscription starts at $25/month (billed annually) as compared to Hootsuite’s $29/month subscription when billed annually.
2. Buffer
Much like Hootsuite, Buffer also started as a scheduling tool for Twitter. But as the years progressed, Buffer has undergone more changes than Hootsuite.
Here is a list of Buffer’s key features:
- Comprehensive feed for every social network
- Free plan with 1 social account for a network up to 10 scheduled posts available
- Compatible with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google+ and Pinterest
- Users can re-buffer published posts
- Content curation using RSS feeds
- Visual Calendar
Buffer vs Hootsuite
Both tools have similar dashboards but Buffer doesn’t show notifications about direct messages or comments. Buffer only displays scheduled posts and previously published posts under the Analytics – Posts path.
Using Buffer is advantageous when creating publishing schedules for different social channels. You can use these schedules and add new content regularly. Hootsuite also has a similar feature but it is restricted to a single schedule.
However, Buffer doesn’t give you many options to interact with fans and followers but it is great for scheduling posts and re-publishing the ones that worked well.;
Price: Buffer offers a free plan and after the trial, you can avail the ‘Awesome’ plan at as low as $12/month (billed annually) but limited to a single user.
3. eClincher
eClincher is a robust and feature-rich social media management tool that can be used by small and medium businesses to streamline their social media presence. It is known to make social media management easier and more effective with its intelligent social media dashboard and centralized inbox.
Key features of eClincher include:
- Advanced publishing
- Content curation
- Marketing automation
- Keyword tracking
- Social media analytics
- Content recycling
- Scheduling
- Engagement
- Team collaboration
eClincher vs Hootsuite
eClincher is best known for its publishing, reporting and monitoring capabilities. It offers an interesting feature called Pocket integration. You can use this feature to share any content stored in your pocket account directly to associated social platforms.
However, compared to Hootsuite, eClincher doesn’t let you collaborate on social media tasks. You will have to collaborate separately for messages via email or Slack.
eClincher’s UI is not as simple as Hootsuite and takes some time to master. It is recommended to use the support documents to train the team before they start using eClincher.
Price: All eClincher subscriptions include a 14-day free trial and the base subscription starts at $59/month.
Interesting Read: Why You Should Be Using a Content Calendar?
4. CoSchedule
CoSchedule allows you to manage your marketing from a unified platform. It offers Social Organizer that integrates multiple social networks and helps businesses by equipping them with the marketing essentials.
Some key features of the tool include:
- Automatic notifications
- Campaign analysis
- Campaign management
- Content management
- Custom branding
- Monitoring
- Reporting and statistics
- Third-party integrations
CoSchedule vs Hootsuite
If we compare the two tools, CoSchedule is an expensive option due to its pricing structure and as you scale up you will have to pay more for availing advanced features.
CoSchedule also offers a free trial to perform testing. You can curate content, schedule posting time and automate it from its centralized management system.
Price: CoSchedule – Social Organizer plans start at $120/ month up to 3 users. The top tier allows 10 users and you need to pay extra to add more users.
5. Socialbakers
Socialbakers is an AI-focused social media marketing and analytics platform that empowers small businesses to post their content at the right time to generate maximum traction.
You can easily measure, compare, and optimize your social media campaigns with its easy-to-use interface. Some key features of this tool include:
- Social media analytics
- Reporting
- Publishing
- Competitive Ad insights
- Predictive intelligence
- Data integration
Socialbakers vs Hootsuite
Socialbakers and Hootsuite are pretty evenly matched and while the free version of Hootsuite is a good place to start for small businesses, investing in Socialbakers might be worth the investment.
Socialbakers allows you to schedule posts at a time when they are likely to receive maximum hits. Upload content and get a comprehensive overview of your marketing campaigns with its reporting and analytics tools.
Price: However, unlike other platforms, the pricing for Socialbakers is only available on request and it is a good idea to contact them for the exact price in order to avoid any lengthy bills in the future.
6. Agorapulse
Agorapulse is a publishing tool. But it also covers some other important aspects of social media marketing like competitor research and social listening. Some of its key features include:
- Unified inbox to view, reply, and assign comments
- Compatible with Facebook, Google+, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn
- Comment moderation
- Hashtag and keyword monitoring
- Visual calendar
- Follower profiling
Agorapulse vs Hootsuite
Agorapulse’s bulk upload options combined with unlimited RSS feed helps it beat Hootsuite in almost all regards.
The unified inbox feature allows you to manage interactions within your social channel in a much easier manner. In addition to that, Agorapulse offers a clutter-free dashboard that adds to the user’s convenience.
Price: Agorapulse offers a 14 days free trial without a credit card and the subscription for their Solo plan starts at $79/month (billed annually).
Interesting Read: Must Have Online Marketing Tools for Every Team and Agency.
And it’s a wrap!
There you have it. Hootsuite is one of the oldest social marketing tools but alternatives like SocialPilot are allowing users to create new USPs and get better features at competitive prices.
Click here to take a look at the complete list of features offered by SocialPilot.
In order to create a solid strategy, you will need to a have a right set of tool at your disposal and with the comprehensive list discussed in this article, you will be able to make an informed decision for your business.
Originally published on www.socialpilot.co
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