When comparing Hootsuite vs. Later, it’s important to understand how each platform works and which features make the software better for your business.
Hootsuite offers a simple, clean interface and integrates with most major social media networks, but later has more robust media editing capabilities.
We’ll discuss some of these features in this article and decide which tool best meets your needs.
Hootsuite’s interface is clean and simple
For business owners who want to stay on top of their social media marketing, Hootsuite is an excellent choice.
This software combines business social media accounts into one streamlined platform.
Its user-friendly interface allows for quick navigation, a comprehensive overview of customer trends, and easy update on multiple social media sites.
It also makes it easy to assign a social media account to an outside agency and manage advertising campaigns, all in one convenient place.
When creating a post, Hootsuite allows you to create a preview of each message before submitting it. You can then customize each post or schedule it manually. You can also save it as a draft and schedule it manually or automatically.
Unlike other tools, Hootsuite does not have an “instant publish” feature. The free version of the program allows for up to 30 posts, but you can extend your reach by paying for an upgrade.
While Buffer offers more tools to find content, Hootsuite’s analytics have the edge. It covers a broader spectrum of analytics, including Twitter and Facebook. However, some organizations might need more specific analytics tools, such as Google Analytics, TapInfluence, and Snaplytics.
Regardless of your business needs, the ability to integrate with other marketing tools is a major advantage for any marketer. The app integrations available on Hootsuite are essential for a business marketer, and most medium-sized organizations will benefit from them.
While Buffer’s dashboard is sleek and modern, Hootsuite’s interface is less aesthetically pleasing. You can add free and premium apps to your dashboard and customize the interface to fit your needs.
Hootsuite has more than 140 in-app integrations and is an excellent choice for small businesses and solo users. While it is easy to use, it lacks some features, which can make the app unusable for large organizations.
Both Hootsuite and Buffer offer tools to monitor social trends and manage social media conversations. Both tools let you post to multiple channels at the same time.
The main difference is cross-posting, and cross-posting isn’t as popular. Both services offer tools to monitor your social media audience, reply to comments, and track engagement. Using a content curation tool is a smart move when creating a social media marketing strategy.
It integrates with many social media networks
Unlike a typical social media management platform, Hootsuite is capable of monitoring multiple social media accounts from one dashboard. In addition to monitoring mentions, new followers, search terms, hashtags, and engagement, Hootsuite also lets you set up custom social streams.
These streams can be tailored to your specific interests or be filtered to exclude certain keywords, post types, and locations. Whether you’re trying to boost brand awareness or monitor negative posts, Hootsuite is a good choice.
This social media management tool integrates with more than twenty different social media networks, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest.
Using Hootsuite’s dashboard, you can create new posts, review previous ones, and schedule them for the future. The integrated social media networks give you the power to measure the performance of each post and share that information with your team. This means that you can create a consistent, organized social media presence.
With its comprehensive social media management system, Hootsuite gives you easy access to important streams of information, allowing you to respond to relevant content and respond to social media influencers.
Hootsuite also provides dashboards that help you measure the success or failure of your social media campaigns. With this integration, you can track everything from a post’s success to the amount of traffic it has generated. This data helps you make better posts in the future.
One of the main benefits of Hootsuite is its flexibility. It offers integration with several social media networks, including Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.
By connecting with all of these platforms, you can monitor brand mentions and public comments and then share your posts across all of them in one place. With Hootsuite, you can monitor and manage several accounts without having to spend time logging in to each one separately.
The full-featured scheduler in Hootsuite allows you to post to multiple social media networks at once. But make sure you consider the audience of each social network you plan to use. Twitter’s character limit limits are only 280 characters, while Facebook allows longer posts.
Hootsuite also doesn’t offer robust analytics and can’t track all your activity. You’ll probably need another social media management tool.
It offers team collaboration
For businesses that need team collaboration to keep their social media campaigns on track, Hootsuite offers new features and tools to help them do just that.
Team collaboration tools include the ability to assign messages to team members and share columns within a team.
The team collaboration features make Hootsuite an ideal tool for customer service groups, project teams, support desks, and more. You can even assign messages, track follow-ups, and share updates from Twitter, Facebook, and other social media accounts with your colleagues.
The Hootsuite platform provides basic reporting and team collaboration features, such as engagement overviews and demographics. If you need more detailed reports, however, you need to upgrade to the Professional plan.
The Professional plan offers demographics, age groups, and engagement metrics. The Enterprise plan offers data analytics to help you better understand how your social media management team is engaging with your customers. The Enterprise plan also lets you measure the engagement of different team members to make better decisions about your marketing strategy.
Drafts can be shared among team members and edited if necessary. The mobile app provides message approval functionality, so that team members can approve or reject a draft message before it goes live. You can even assign editing permissions for team members, allowing them to collaborate on a particular draft. If the draft message is approved, it can be scheduled for publication or published right away. Once it is approved, it will appear in the Publisher Planner.
Team collaboration is one of the most valuable aspects of Hootsuite. The organizational structure allows for large-scale team management, and smaller teams can also take advantage of the same features.
HootSuite teams can also be customized to fit any organizational structure. Team members can share accounts, assign tasks, and communicate directly in the application.
Team collaboration makes the tool an effective way to collaborate on social media. The team members can even designate themselves as “Team Members” or “Owners” in the platform.
The Team plan allows for three users and unlimited social networks, while the Business plan includes five users. The team plan features unlimited social networks and an inbox with all messages.
Team members can access all messages in one place and review them before publishing. The business plan includes team collaboration and access to premium apps and extended training.
Hootsuite offers a free trial for each of its plans, but the premium plans have enhanced features.
It has more robust media editing features
The free plan for Hootsuite has limited features. You must upgrade to the paid plan if you want to use its advanced features.
The Pro plan starts at $29 per month and provides unlimited scheduling and editing of up to 20 social media accounts for one user. Hootsuite is the best choice for companies that want to use social media as a marketing channel, but the free version is limited in its capabilities.
The free version of Hootsuite includes basic reporting features, such as how many people you’ve followed, how many comments you’ve received, and your response time. You can also use Hootsuite for managing comments on multiple social media accounts. However, there are plenty of other features you may find useful.
For instance, Hootsuite has a scheduler that allows you to create and post new posts in the future. You can also edit existing content by clicking directly on the time.
Buffer offers more functionality than Hootsuite for scheduling, but it does lack in some areas. For example, Buffer only has one user, while Hootsuite offers unlimited accounts, unlimited scheduling, and RSS integration. Hootsuite has more advanced media editing features. But you should be careful when comparing Buffer with Hootsuite – the latter is better for larger companies.
Summary
Social media management is a crucial aspect of marketing, and Hootsuite is an excellent tool for this. It connects with multiple social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+. It also provides analytics, automation, and other useful features for social media managers.
It also includes a directory of apps and features for managing your presence across multiple channels. If you’re interested in using Hootsuite for social media marketing, you should look at the Professional Plan.
The Pro Plan allows you to add up to 10 social accounts and one user can access it.
Buffer allows you to create campaigns and manage them. You can also monitor the performance of each campaign.
Ultimately, Hootsuite has more bells and whistles and is more powerful than Buffer.
However, for those who are not sure whether they need a paid plan, the free version may be the better option.
It also provides a longer trial period. You can compare the two services and decide for yourself.