Tool Reviews
Yasmina Akni Ebourki
Last updated: Jul 31, 2024
Managing multiple social media platforms at the same time and having to adapt the content to every social media platform, and schedule it can be quite time-consuming.
One of the top and most comprehensive tools for this task, and a long-standing favorite, is Hootsuite.
In this blog post, I'll dive into its features, particularly from the perspective of LinkedIn content creators.
We'll explore who can benefit most from using Hootsuite and whether it's worth using for LinkedIn.
TLDR: Hootsuite is an all-in-one social media management platform that allows you to schedule, analyze, create, and even conduct market research. However, its major drawback is the high cost, which is better suited for agencies rather than individual users.
What is Hootsuite?
Hootsuite presents itself as a social media management platform designed to help businesses streamline their social media presence across various networks from a single dashboard.
These networks include Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
It’s widely recognized for its capabilities in scheduling posts, tracking analytics, engaging with followers, creating advertising posts.
This analysis will focus on content creation for LinkedIn, as Hootsuite also includes an artificial intelligence tool for generating content.
That said, let’s examine how it performs from the perspective of a LinkedIn content creator.
Hootsuite pros and cons
Pros:
Multi-profile scheduling dashboard.
Social listening feature.
30-day free trial.
App integrations with Canva, Dropbox, and Google Drive.
Cons:
Higher-tier features start at €99 per month.
Free trial requires credit card details.
Advanced tools require a learning curve.
Interface can be challenging to navigate, with some features lacking clear descriptions.
Hootsuite Features
Hootsuite comes across as a comprehensive app, but from the extensive features they offer, I decided to focus on the ones that seem most important for content creation.
OwlyWriter AI
I was particularly interested in exploring OwlyWriter AI to see how it could assist with LinkedIn content creation.
As we know, writing on LinkedIn has its own rules and formats, and nowadays, there are many AI tools to help craft that content.
OwlyWriter AI is presented as Hootsuite's content generator.
I tested it with the prompt "Marketing tools and their benefits for small businesses," and the result was not suitable for LinkedIn.
The content felt more like a caption for Instagram or Facebook—either too short or too long, with hashtags and everything crammed into one single paragraph, making it less reader-friendly.
Next to the content generator, there's a preview of your post.
I thought this feature was decent, but it doesn't show where the "see more" cut-off point would be on LinkedIn.
Knowing this is crucial, as it impacts your posts by allowing you to craft an effective hook that encourages readers to click and read more.
Finally, I noticed they offer various enhancements under the "Speed up your content creation" section.
This includes different AI tools such as repurpose your posts, start from scratch, get inspired, or turn your web content into posts.
I gave the "Get Inspired" tool a try for the previous post, and here's what I obtained:
Unfortunately, once again, the results were not what I hoped for.
From a LinkedIn perspective, OwlyWriter doesn't offer any tailored options.
The AI-generated content was very generic, more suited for platforms like Instagram, as seen in the images before.
I tried crafting my own post to see how well the improvement options worked.
The app offers several features, including grammar and spelling correction, length optimization, tone adjustment, and the addition of engagement elements like CTAs.
However, I found that the length optimization often made the content too lengthy and not ideal for LinkedIn, while the CTAS were too generic.
Among these features, the grammar correction proved to be the most useful.
Publish and Schedule
Another standout feature of Hootsuite is its ability to schedule posts across multiple social media platforms from a single interface.
While I wasn't impressed with the AI's performance and didn't use the scheduling feature myself, the preview function is quite comprehensive.
You can view your editorial calendar by month or week and track your posting volume.
Additionally, the platform allows you to filter by social media network or post status.
For community managers or businesses deeply invested in their social media presence, having all your content visible in one calendar is an invaluable feature.
Social Listening
The Social Listening feature is one of the standout aspects of Hootsuite that really caught my attention.
For those unfamiliar, social listening involves monitoring online conversations to gauge public sentiment, track trends, and gather insights about your brand.
I decided to put Hootsuite's social listening to the test to see how effective it really is.
The tool provides key metrics such as the number of mentions, engagement levels, sentiment analysis, and the sources of these mentions.
I tested it with keywords like "MagicPost" and "marketing." And while "MagicPost" did not give me any relevant results, "marketing" offered valuable insights, though it was somewhat overwhelming.
You can filter results by sentiment, media type, region, and language, but unfortunately, there isn't a LinkedIn-specific filter, which limits its effectiveness in that area.
Additionally, having a guide or training would be beneficial to fully use these features and better understand the data, as interpreting the results can be challenging without some context.
Analytics
Finally, I tested Hootsuite’s analytics feature.
In today’s market, regardless of your industry, understanding the impact of your posts—such as engagement and reactions—is essential for refining your strategy.
Hootsuite provides an extensive analytics section to assist with this.
The initial dashboard gives you an overview of key metrics and insights, offering a clear picture of how your content is performing.
Among the various tools offered, you'll find:
Benchmarking, this feature lets you track and analyze your competitors' activities.
However, to use it effectively, you need to connect accounts from Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter and link your Instagram Business account.
As a LinkedIn-focused creator, I found this feature somewhat limited, given that my competitors are only active on LinkedIn.
The need to connect multiple accounts and navigate through various setup steps made this process a bit cumbersome.
It seems that Hootsuite's benchmarking is better suited for businesses with a broad social media presence rather than individual LinkedIn content creators.
Organic Reporting: This tool provides insights into post performance and the best times to publish.
Once again, it's available only for LinkedIn Pages and not personal accounts.
Post Engagement Tool: This feature tracks key metrics to analyze audience interaction with your content.
However, it only works if you schedule your LinkedIn posts directly on the platform. Even though I connected my LinkedIn account, I didn’t receive any results about interactions with posts published on the same day.
Among the various tools offered, you'll find:
Benchmarking: This feature lets you track and analyze your competitors' activities.
Despite that, to use it effectively, you need to connect accounts from Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter and link your Instagram Business account.
As a LinkedIn-focused creator, I found this feature somewhat limited, given that my competitors are only active on LinkedIn.
The need to connect multiple accounts and navigate through various setup steps made this process a bit Inefficient.
Organic Reporting: This tool provides insights into post performance and the best times to publish.
Still, it's available only for LinkedIn Pages and not personal accounts.
In summary, these analytics features are not particularly well-suited for LinkedIn content creators, especially those using personal accounts.
They are more relevant for LinkedIn Pages and business accounts on platforms like Instagram and Facebook.
The verdict
Hootsuite’s lack of adaptation for LinkedIn wasn’t surprising; the tool is primarily created for Instagram and Facebook posts.
Although, I was still curious to test it out since LinkedIn is listed as one of the social media platforms it manages.
Unfortunately, I thought the app wasn’t very intuitive.
But what really stands out about Hootsuite is its pricing.
The lowest plan for a solopreneur costs €99 per month for just one user and 10 accounts. This would translate into nearly €1,188 a year to manage only your own social media accounts, not including any client accounts.
What I was hoping to see was how Hootsuite could enhance LinkedIn content creation, but I was a bit disappointed.
There are other tools that are much better suited for LinkedIn, offering more precise assistance with idea generation, crafting hooks, and tailoring posts specifically for the platform, such as MagicPost.
Feel free to give it a try and see for yourself, but don’t forget to cancel your free trial if it doesn’t meet your needs.
