GETTING THE WORD OUT ON THE STREET - TOUT SUITE

Hootsuite is a social media platform, created in 2008.  The systems user interface (home page if you will) takes the form of a dashboard( see the below image) and allows the user to integrate their own social media preferences; currently supported are Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google+, You Tube and many more.

Hootsuite Dashboard

Hootsuite was born when it's creator Ryan Holmes needed a tool to manage multiple social media networks at his digital services agency.  When Holmes realised that no such beast existed he went about developing a platform of his own and the launch went ahead in 2008 under the guise of "BrightKit".

This software was the solution to many of the hiccups and headaches businesses were facing with regards to organising their own social networks and improving their clients web engagement.

I must confess I'd never heard of Hootsuite..... and why would I?  I'm not a brand nor am I a business keen to promote self and services.  Therefore when assigned our week 10 homework of registering for a hootsuite account... I found myself treading candidly .......

Having taken my first step into the unknown and registering (truth be told, quite straight forward and user friendly) we needed to add our compulsory 3 (no more than 3 as it would incur a cost) social media networks.  This I also did with ease, adding Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook.  First impression was that the dashboard was a little busy (refer to the above photo), I didn't like it, couldn't warm to it and was about to dismiss it when I realised I was reviewing Hootsuite as an individual rather than an enterprise or business. I needed to rethink and review Hootsuite through the eyes of a small business.....

Now, reviewing Hootsuite with entrepreneur hat on .....here's my review.....

Hootsuite delivers as promised.  It puts all of the clients web engagement in one place for ease of access, functionality and updates.  Hootsuite is for business what Outlook is for the office administrator.  Granted, I'm not a real business an I have no need to promote my brand accross social media.......however if I did, what could it do for me???? what are the good and the bad points?  these are my honest laymans' thoughts.....

HOOTSUITE POSITIVES 

Connects 35 Social Networks in one place

Scheduled Updates

Social medial analytics (Influences & Insights)

Social Media Monitoring (What am I getting right and what am I getting wrong?)

Free plans available

30 day free Pro Trial

Single click reply 

Identify Leads and Influences

Pre-empt.... you can write responses to regular questions in advance.

Upload bulk social media messages (time saver!!)

Mobile Apps for Android and apple

Social media management tool

HOOTSUITE NEGATIVES

The Pro Plan (Post free trial) is billed annually

30 day free trial sucks you in

Dashboard is a little busy

Expensive analytical report

No thumbnail or summary previews in facebook.

No data in facebook insights

Lower facebook insight

Reviewing the above lists.... there are more positives than there are negatives..... but is Hootsuite the creme de la creme ............ the answer to that is that its all dependant upon what you're after as a business.  Since the Birth of BrightKit and now Hootsuite there has been an emerging market of similar software and social media management tools. Some examples of the competition are :

TweetDeck

SproutSocial

Agorapulse

Oktopost

Mavsocial

and

Jollo

My advice would be to trial each one and then decide which glass slipper fits best. 

Finally to sumise, here is an honest Hootsuite review that chimes with some of my thinking