7 alternatives to Hootsuite
If your small business is looking to harness the power of social media content marketing, you’ll probably keep seeing one name over and over — Hootsuite — and with good reason.
As a social media management platform, Hootsuite offers an array of attractive features, such as team collaboration, the ability to engage with customers for brand maintenance, and the ability to curate content across multiple social media channels.
While it’s hard to argue that Hootsuite holds a dominant position in managing social media accounts, it’s not the only game in town. There are many contenders for the title of “best Hootsuite alternative” — especially among solutions that offer small businesses a lot of functionality and competitive pricing.
1. Agorapulse
Agorapulse is a cloud-based platform with many features similar to Hootsuite, such as publishing content across different social media platforms, monitoring user activity on accounts, and audience engagement.
It also offers management features like social listening, which lets marketers easily identify angry content and trolls. This feature can quickly diffuse issues that could harm your brand.
Agorapulse includes team collaboration functionality that lets you define roles for team members and scheduling features to assign tasks to team members. You can publish the tasks using a shared content calendar that ensures all marketing team members know what the team needs to accomplish.
Agorapulse also offers flexible publishing options for queued and scheduled posts. Unlimited reporting that’s exportable to both PDF and CSV files is available at any subscription level.
One drawback is that Agorapulse lacks video support for LinkedIn.
Details:
- Free plan available; paid plans start at $49 per user, per month (if paid annually)
- 30-day free trial available
- Mobile app available
2. Zoho Social
While Zoho Social works well for small businesses, it’s also very scalable, with features suited to mid-size businesses.
It has all the usual bells and whistles — social listening, multi-account management, a configurable social listening dashboard, bulk scheduling, reporting and analytics, and more — but it also has a unique differentiator.
SmartQ predictions use prior data to forecast the best times to release content so your posts achieve wider engagement. If you also use Zoho CRM and Zoho Desk, this tool integrates with those seamlessly.
Zoho Social’s drawbacks are the lack of RSS feed integration, which can limit content automation, and a less robust reporting system than Hootsuite. All in all, however, if your reporting needs aren’t that granular, Zoho Social is a cost-effective alternative to Hootsuite.
Details:
- Pricing starts at $10 per month (if paid annually)
- 15-day free trial available
- Mobile app available
3. Sprout Social
In addition to all the things a social media marketing system lets you do, Sprout Social helps you organize your content on multiple platforms in a single, unified social inbox.
Similar to Agorapulse, it allows you to delegate work to various members of your marketing team, but it has the added benefit of real-time activity updates for the team, which prevent two team members from posting the same update simultaneously.
Sprout Social allows you to manage Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, and other accounts. However, one of its main drawbacks is that it lacks the ability to manage Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups, and Pinterest accounts.
Details:
- Pricing starts at $249 per month
- 30-day free trial available
- Mobile app available
4. SocialOomph
SocialOomph, like Hootsuite, began as a social media management platform that focused primarily on Twitter, but then it grew to include other social networks, such as Facebook, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. For all of these platforms, SocialOomph allows you to schedule posts, track social media profiles, and monitor social media activity.
However, SocialOomph limits its more advanced features — like keyword searches, hashtag management, inbox cleanup, mention and retweet tracking, and follower tracking — to Twitter only.
One helpful feature is the autoresponder, which helps you stay engaged with your audience even when you’re not in front of your computer or phone.
Details:
- Pricing starts at $55 per month for twenty social profiles
- Free plan limited to one social profile
- No mobile app
5. Buffer
Buffer is another tool that started as a Twitter manager and then branched out to other platforms with its advanced features. In addition to Twitter, Buffer lets users manage content on Facebook, Instagram, Google+, and Pinterest.
A considerable drawback is that, unlike Hootsuite, Buffer doesn’t give real-time notifications about direct messages or comments. Buffer can provide this information, but you have to access it through the reporting suite.
Where Buffer shines is in its capability as a scheduler. Buffer enables schedules for different social channels, while Hootsuite allows you to use only a single publishing schedule.
Details:
- Pricing starts at $6 per social channel, per month
- Free version available for up to three social channels
- Mobile App available
6. eclincher
eclincher is known for its social media monitoring, reporting, and publishing capabilities. But what sets this platform apart is its integration with Pocket, which saves videos, articles, and other content from more than 1,500 sites. You can access any content in your Pocket account from eclincher’s publishing functionality.
Details:
- Pricing starts at $65 per month for up to 10 social accounts
- 14-day free trial available
- Mobile app available
7. Sendible
Sendible combines social media management software with a digital marketing social CRM suite. This allows you to monitor campaigns both inside and outside of social media.
Sendible has more detailed reporting options than Hootsuite, and its scheduling is more robust.
Sendible’s Smart Queues feature allows you to edit scheduled posts prior to deployment without having to remove them from the queue — a great feature for an automation tool. And the user-friendly interface allows you to access a lot of features on a single dashboard.
All of this comes at a cost, however. Sendible doesn’t integrate with other platforms.
Details:
- Pricing starts at $29 per month for up to 6 social profiles
- 14-day free trial available
- Mobile app available
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