Scheduling tools you need to know: Hootsuite vs Sprout Social

Nowadays, it can be hard to keep tabs on all your business’ social media platforms. From YouTube, to LinkedIn and everything in between, digital marketing is overwhelmingly awash in data, only compounded by a pandemic-induced upsurge in online activity.

Why you should make social tools part of your content plan

Social media management tools allow you to organise this information in one place. From this ‘control room’, you can analyse the reach of your content and advertising, examine consumer trends and even coordinate your social content across your many platforms. What’s more, the ability to schedule content publication across multiple social channels at once enables you to maintain the consistency of your brand. Both Hootsuite and Sprout Social make this possible but one might suit your business or brand better than the other.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite espouses the idea that “social is your superpower.” In harnessing this superpower, Hootsuite improves how you coordinate social content with your team from production to delivery to post-production. Hootsuite’s dashboard, available on mobile, tablet and desktop, connects your business with over 35 social networks to better engage with your social audience. Hootsuite streamlines the entire process of social content creation while doing so in a collaborative, team-centric environment.

MAIN FEATURES

• Organise your social media content in one calendar
• Schedule posts for all your social platforms
• Examine real-time audience engagement including demographics and location
• Get a glimpse of trends by aggregating all your profiles on a custom social stream
• Collaborative tools allow team members to create and edit drafts before they go live
• Create a comprehensive library of all your organisation’s branded content
• Fashion and manage your advertising campaigns
• Integrate other applications like Adobe Stock and Canva into your dashboard

HELPFUL TOOLS

• Auto Scheduler: Save time by scheduling all your social content in advance to be published automatically
• Hootsuite Impact: Generate the ROI of your social media efforts to justify your business’ investment in social networks
• Composer: Create posts within Hootsuite that automatically adjust production parameters like image and video size to each social platform’s requirements

PLANS & PRICING 

Free: 1 user, 3 social profiles (AU$0) *limited scheduling

Professional: 1 user, 10 social profiles (AU$39/month)

Team: 3 users, 20 social profiles (AU$169/month)

Business: 5-10 users, 35 social profiles (AU$785/month)

Enterprise: large teams, custom curation (Contact Hootsuite for pricing)

*30-day free trial available for professional and team plans. Prices accurate on 20/10/20.

Access to product features increases as you upgrade your Hootsuite plan. Click here for a more detailed comparison of Hootsuite’s plans.

Sprout Social

Sprout Social provides users access to “a sophisticated, yet simple solution that empowers you to easily navigate the data that matters most to you all in one place.” Sprout is an intuitive tool helping both novices and experts to better navigate social media management. Like Hootsuite, Sprout gathers all your important social metrics in the one place and visualises these in easily digestible analytics reports for you and your team either on the computer screen or on the go.

MAIN FEATURES

• Plan your social media strategy using the visual calendar as a blueprint
• Schedule times to automatically publish content using Sprout’s recommendations
• Identify consumer trends including spikes in keywords and hashtags
• View network-specific metrics or combine them in a cross-network assessment
• Collaborative tools simplify how your team works together
• Access chat histories to personalise your conversations with customers
• Detailed educational materials and customer support available
• Compare your social performance with your business’ competitors

HELPFUL TOOLS

• Team Reports: Performance metrics accompanied by visual representations make it easier to analyse your social audience engagement
• Smart Inbox: Consolidate your social networks in one stream to manage incoming messages and provide swift responses
• Learning Resources: A wide-ranging set of blogs, webinars, resource centres and a learning portal available for all abilities

PLANS & PRICING

Standard: 5 social profiles (US$99/user/month)

Professional: 10 social profiles (US$149/user/month)

Advanced: 10 social profiles (US$249/user/month)

*30-day free trial available. Prices accurate on 20/10/20.

Much like Hootsuite, you unlock more of Sprout Social’s capabilities as you upgrade your plan, as explored in more detail here.

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