
Is Hootsuite worth $9.99 a month? - AznHisoka
Does anyone here use Hootsuite for social media management? is it worth $9.99 a month? What alternatives would you recommend? Buffer? SproutSocial?
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hollaur
Hootsuite sucks. It's clunky, and the UI is horrible.

Buffer writes great blog posts, but I just don't see the value in its service.

HubSpot, if you can afford it, is what I enjoy using the most to post to
social media because of its Social Inbox.

For Pinterest and Instagram, Piquora looks promising and so does Postris.

Read/skim these articles: -[https://blog.kissmetrics.com/automate-pinterest-
marketing/](https://blog.kissmetrics.com/automate-pinterest-marketing/)
-[http://www.inboundio.com/blog/ultimate-list-23-marketing-
too...](http://www.inboundio.com/blog/ultimate-list-23-marketing-tools-
software-plugins-pinterest/)

Another great tool I love for social media management is sproutsocial.com.

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samsnelling
If you're asking the question, probably not.

If social media drives a good portion of your business, and it will save you
time, $120 a year could be nothing to your bottom line.

In my trial and error, I like Buffer the most. SproutSocial 2nd. I haven't
tried HootSuite, but recently read they raised an additional $35M in funding
bringing their total funding to over $225M at a valuation of $800M - mind-
blowing. My favorite Twitter tool currently is TweetAdder.

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fookyong
Gonna throw [http://beatrixapp.com](http://beatrixapp.com) into the ring :) *

better UI than Hootsuite and it helps suggest more types of content such as
images, texts etc.

But if you don't think Hootsuite is worth $10 a month, then you probably won't
think Beatrix is worth $20 a month. I think the target market for these tools
is more like people who _need_ to use them for their jobs. Where $20 to $100 a
month doesn't matter as long as it's creating concrete value.

Selling directly to small businesses is a harder sell, I think. The ROI from
social media is not as immediate as say, something like advertising or an
email newsletter - so it's more difficult to demonstrate value in a short time
(e.g. a free trial period).

*disclosure: I'm the founder!

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mvp
Many comments here are from accounts created after the link was posted!! I
hope HN does some highlighting of such comments, so it's easy to ignore them.

~~~
sergiotapia
That's pretty disgusting and so easy to verify. Such a shame.

I use this Chrome extension, and new accounts have a -green- name:
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-
enhanc...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-
enhancement-s/bappiabcodbpphnojdiaddhnilfnjmpm)

~~~
rahimnathwani
I'm not sure you need an extension for that. I'm reading this on Safari/iOS
(which has no plugins) and those usernames show up in green for me too.

~~~
mvp
That seems to be the case on Chrome/Android as well.

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biancajsmith
I've used all three for clients and my own profiles and prefer Hootsuite Pro.
I currently manage five different sets of profiles, so it can get messy
easily.

Sprout Social has beautiful analytics, but with a hack I can get the same for
only a quarter of the price. I also work better with multiple columns so
Hootsuite wins me over there. With more than a couple of profiles, it's too
hard working out what came from which profile in Sprout.

I was using Buffer free to post content, but Hootlet is built into Hootsuite
and gives me Ow.ly URLs for tracking, so I found myself not using Buffer as
much then not at all.

Probably the biggest clincher for me with Hootsuite Pro is the price and extra
user. I have a client also managing their profiles, so I set them up with my
extra user. At $10 a month it's amazing value. Two users on Sprout Social is
at least $80.

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ernestipark
When you ask if something "is worth" it, it really depends on your business
and what kind of value you expect to gain from it. Unless you're talking about
personal use, it's hard to believe any service is not worth at least $9.99 to
a business unless it's providing negative value.

What do you actually hope to gain from using Hootsuite and how do you want it
to help your business?

I'm a developer for HubSpot's Social Inbox and I think our tool is fantastic
in helping you schedule/publish content, monitor social media activity
relevant to your business, and interact with people interested in your
company. If you're searching for other marketing tools as well, I'd suggest
taking a look at HubSpot, especially since it integrates well with the rest of
HubSpot's products.

~~~
AznHisoka
From a content marketing perspective, I'm looking to monitor what ppl are
saying in social media about certain keywords/trends across Twitter and
Facebook. Not so much interested in the scheduling and publishing component.
How can Hubspot help me in creating timely, relevant content?

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deedubkay
Hi AznHisoka,

Thanks for thinking about using Hootsuite. We think our Pro service is worth
the price. There's a free version as well.

It comes down to what your business goals are and whether you believe social
media can help you accomplish these goals.

There's lots of great discussion here already. To be honest, this is amazing
feedback for us here at Hootsuite as our goal is to provide a tool to securely
manage your social communication.

Here's an article on Social Media Today about the benefits of social media
monitoring, and how Hootsuite helps people do so:
[http://ow.ly/Bg3E2](http://ow.ly/Bg3E2).

If you have any questions or would like us to help get you set up with a
Hootsuite account so you can try it out, reach out to us at @HootClub.

\- David from Hootsuite

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Lue
I been using HootSuite for nearly 4 years and most if not all of the success I
had and keep having with social media is thanks to the many useful tools
HootSuite provides.

For $9.99 a month is more than worth it BUT you need to take your time to
master the platform if not you will not get proper results. Also is very
important that you prepare a social media marketing strategy so you know
exactly where you want to go. No matter what your social media goals are
HootSuite will have the tools you will need to make it happen.

So give it a try and if you have any questions HootSuite customer support is
awesome. Also the HootSuite forums are great to ask because the HootSuite
community Ambassadors are always happy to help.

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christiandperez
It is known that Hootsuite allows update, schedule and monitor our activities
through Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Foursquare from one single platform.
With the latest dashboard update of Hootsuite it's easier than ever to create
publications for these social networks with the renovated profile selector.
Not only is it possible to select which social network we want to send, it can
be marked as favorites or set them to appear selected by default each time
draft a message. Easy to manage, easy to get reports... easy at all!!!
Wouldn't you want to pay a small price to make your work easier and fast?

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enricogi
I manage multiple Social Media Accounts. Hootsuite saves me time and effort.
With Hootsuite I can listen for keywords and with Smart Queries I can easily
analyze conversations about my brand, my competitors, doing sentiment analysis
on the fly and also geo targeted analysis if required. With Team Functions I
can coordinate a social media team in sharing content and answering to
prospects. With analysis functions I can monitor KPI and have a clear
comprehension of the effects of my communication strategies. Yes, it is really
worth 10$ a month

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recalibrator
I've used Hootsuite and Buffer, and Buffer is the better deal by a country
mile IMO. Hootsuite is annoying with its "university" and other nonsense it
tries to upsell.

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dhawalhs
Not sure about Hootsuite, but I really like Buffer. I spend an hour every
Sunday night scheduling shares for the next week. It works out well for my use
case.

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bonniezink
Hootsuite saves time and makes it easy to manage various profiles across a
number of different platforms. Hootsuite's added bonus is its stellar customer
service. Got a question? Experiencing technical glitches? Hootsuite's
professional and courteous staff are always ready to deliver what you need
with a smile. Yes, Hootsuite is definitely worth the cost of admission.

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majose
Worth every dollar spent, Hootsuite is a very powerful tool, facilitates work
in social media, easy to handle, with many options to take full advantage the
dashboard, 70 free apps that give us very many utilities which other tools can
not give us, and of course i love the Hootsuite help support. And all that for
only $9.99?!

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ChrisJG
I use Hootsuite to manage multiple accounts across different platforms. It
saves me time, allows me to keep an eye on keywords (that I can geo target if
need be) and share clients content. Easily for me the best £10 a month; what's
that 33 pence a day?

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mamscluis
I use it everyday and my results have been great. I use it for so much more
than writing and scheduling posts. It's the best social listening tool out
there and it provides great social media reports. $9.99? I think it's worth a
lot more.

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nobullet
Take a look at [http://meople.net](http://meople.net). It might not be a
business oriented solution but supports several social networks viewer and
multipost (where the post is allowed).

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funkyy
Hard to trust company that didn't changed their C dates in footer...

~~~
nobullet
Will be fixed soon, sorry for that.

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patanbcn
Of course that you have a lot Hootsuite alternatives. But not any as
Hootsuite. Really do you know how work with the dashboard¿? Perhaps in
Hootsuite University you would learn more about it

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lenny_pistorio
Not sure what your looking for exactly but we just launched a tool (still in
Beta) that will help you select the right terms before you tweet. Check it out
and let us know what you think.

www.12perks.com

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sittingoverhere
It depends on what you want to do with it. I use it and I reckon its worth $10
a month because I can post to and monitor all my social media channels at the
same time.

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AndryantoS
Yeah!, its worth if you are Social junkie! :) Hootsuite is one of the greatest
tools that helps you to manage your social accounts into one account and easy
to use!

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johns
Another option not yet mentioned: [https://respond.ly/](https://respond.ly/)
Especially good for doing support via twitter.

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sergio_sosa
I use the Hootsuite Pro Version since 2013 and I find it very useful.

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Ungvall
I've been using Hootsuite for several years, and find it crucial to the day-
to-day Social Media workflow. There's just no comparable tools on the market.
And add the Hootlet to really streamline your work and you have everything you
need.

/ Toby

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valerialandivar
Yes I do, I use the Pro version since 2011 and I love it!

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notastartup
I really don't see why people buy Hootsuite when there's an open source self
hosted version that you can use on your desktop computer.

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cabbeer
What's the alternative?

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colinbartlett
Probably this, but just guessing:

[https://github.com/socioboard/socioboard](https://github.com/socioboard/socioboard)

~~~
devNoise
This project looks interesting, but the source code looks to be for Visual
Studio. Which would limit the DIY option to windows users. They do offer a
SaaS option which could run costs even higher.

~~~
socioboard
Hi, you can setup socioboard on linux using mono framework. We are porting it
to mono for the linux community.

Also an open source desktop version is under the works in python so it will be
cross platform.

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AdelDM
I've been using Hootsuite for about two years now and I loved it so much that
I decided to do the Hootsuite university course and get certified too. With
Hootsuite there are so much more to it than just scheduling posts and getting
analytics - you can track keywords, URL's, see tweets in your area, see tweets
or conversations in any area actually. You can integrate different apps into
Hootsuite like youtube, instagram, tumblr etc so you can literally manage
EVERYTHING from ONE dashboard. Is it worth $10 per month? Absolutely! P.s -
complete the Hootsuite university course to learn about everything you can do
with this great social media tool :)

