Updated: Jun 13
Which Social Media Management Tool I Choose and Why
Social media management tools are vital for individuals and businesses looking to streamline their online presence. As a mid-tier company, our social media needs are similar to a lot of other businesses. We strive to put out informative content that engages our target clientele. The main issue is the amount of time it takes to create and manage our platforms - so we outsource to social scheduling apps.
As the marketing manager, I made the decision to work with Hootsuite first but now am fully sold on Loomly. In this blog I will compare the two and let you know why I ended up working with Loomly.
Plan, Pricing, Basic features:
Hootsuite:
I had originally bought Hootsuite Basic for $50/ Month. After a few months the prices increased to $150/ month. At this time I really valued Hootsuite and stayed with them with the price increase. Now you can see the price for the basic plan is currently at 99$/ month.
Loomly: I purchased Loomly for $26/ month upfront for $312 for the year.
When you really get into the apps you will see the main functions of each are pretty similar. There are a few that stand out though and they make a big difference to me. Loomly gives you the ability to have multiple users which is perfect for small business collaboration. It isn't listed here but Loomly gives you some basic inspiration for your posts. I have some more on these features later.
Interface/ Ease of Use:
I found it easy to learn both of these apps. I pick things up pretty easily but think anyone can learn these quickly.
Hootsuite: The overall look of the interface is nice. Everything is where it needs to be and flows well. The main scheduling screen is your calendar where you click directly on a date you want to create a post on. The different sections of calendar and analytics are clearly distinguishable and easy to navigate. I can see it being a little overwhelming for a true beginner but overall pretty solid once you get the hang of it.
Loomly’s look is very simple and clean compared to Hootsuite. The platform is well-organized and makes it easier for beginners to get accustomed to the features quickly.
Post Scheduling Workflow:
Hootsuite and Loomly’s post process is very similar with some minor differences.
For Hootsuite, you click the day of the month you want to create and then you select the platforms you want to include. Then a text box pops up where you type the copy of your post and you can drag and drop the media to upload from our computer, which Loomly doesn’t allow. You can click between your selected platforms at this point and customize each. Within each specific platform you will be able to tag other accounts. From this screen you can weather schedule for a specific time or save as draft to edit later. Hootsuite does have a bulk scheduler, which allows you to schedule multiple posts at once which is better for larger companies managing high volumes of content.
One key difference in the post scheduling process is that Loomly has a clear 7-step process. This honestly does the same thing as Hootsuite but when you schedule or draft a post and want to edit it later, you are able to do so for all the platforms at once. With Hootsuite, you need to individually edit each post for the specific platform, which I personally find annoying. Some stand out features in Loomly's process include:
Loomly also provides post-optimization tips, which is great for users new to social media marketing or if you just need some inspiration. These are easily displayed while you are typing the copy for your captions.
Loomly is better for collaboration because it allows for its multiple users to have different roles and permissions during the post generation process. This lets one person draft and another person approve it to post. Or one person can upload the media and the other can create the caption. This is not possible with Hootsuite basic.
Analytics:
Hootsuite definitely has more robust analytics compared to Loomly. Stats include things like impressions and engagement rate for each post as well as averages for each platform overall. They have a lot of different analytic options and ways to display and compare them. But I did notice that sometimes my numbers were off because Hootsuite was missing data from certain time periods. More on this later. Also includes tracking on your shortened “Owly” links.
With my current version of Loomly, I am only able to access the basic analytics. These include stats you can find on your page like comments, likes, and shares. But for Facebook and Linkedin I am able to see overall engagement rates. Not for Twitter though. There is also a tracking section for your Loomly shortened links just like Hootsuite.
If advanced analytics are what you are looking for then go with Hootsuite over Loomly. I don’t need anything wild so Loomly is enough for my company.
The Last Straw:
My Hootsuite experience started great. I was just getting enough information to put together some in depth performance reports and was loving the in depth statistics. But in the span of a month I had 4 separate scheduled posts “fail to post”. This is annoying because I expected my content to post automatically so I don’t have to do it myself. I spent a lot of time chatting with Hootsuite customer service to get to the bottom of the issue but they simply wrote it off as a bug. I understand bugs, but at the frequency that this was happening, it was impossible to trust it. As a scheduling app it failed to post on time about 8 separate times. Sometimes my posts would go out 45 minutes late and other times, not post at all. There was never a true solution to this issue, so that's when I made the switch that made my job so much easier.
After trying both of these applications and writing this, I hands down give my vote to Loomly. It is way easier to use compared to Hootsuite and has stand out features that are more useful in my workflow. All of this for a quarter of the price. Analyze your social media goals and see which is right for your company.
Overall, here are my results:
- Optimum Films
