No matter the industry your business operates in, social media platforms play some role in your marketing strategy. Building a robust online presence is essential in today’s digital storefront world. And social media has proven its effectiveness over the years in boosting brand awareness. As a result, tools like Zoho Social and Hootsuite have emerged as powerful allies to marketers to boost their company’s presence.
Manually keeping up with the ever-changing trends, engaging with audience shoutouts, leveraging hashtags, and managing your channel’s performance isn’t logical. But do you really need all the bells and whistles a social media management platform offers? Let’s dive into breaking down the key features of each and why one might be a better fit for you than the other.
Social Media Management Platform Overview
Before we dive into each product, let’s briefly discuss what is the purpose and general key features of a social media management platform.
General Purpose of a Social Media Management Platform:
- To centralize control and enhancement of a brand’s presence across multiple social media channels.
- To simplify and streamline tasks involved in social media marketing.
General Key Features of a Social Media Management Platform:
- Post Scheduling and Publishing: Allows content to be planned and distributed across various platforms simultaneously.
- Social Listening and Monitoring: Tracks audience engagement, brand mentions, and trending topics.
- Advanced Analytics and Reporting: Enables businesses to measure their social media performance and ROI.
- Collaboration Tools: Provides features for team communication and workflow management.
- Integration Capabilities: Syncs with other software, like a CRM.
Now that we have a general idea of some of the core elements let’s dive into Zoho Social’s key features.
Zoho Social
We don’t hold back on our opinion on Zoho applications, and this one is exceptional. And for no additional cost it is included in Zoho One, CRMPlus, and MarktingPlus. It excels at being extremely user-friendly, has a low learning curve, and has an intuitive UI.
A Few Features at a Glance
- Post Scheduling and Publishing: Creating posts is made simple with built-in multiple built-in features. These features include AI assistance, hashtag groups, Canva, and more, providing everything you need in one spot.
- Monitoring and Analytics: Track relevant conversations, and monitor key metrics to understand your campaign’s impact. While also being able to analyze competitors’ social platforms you can follow.
- Collaborative Environment: The Collaborate Module allows team members to share ideas and posts throughout the different modules within Social.
- SmartQ: Ever wonder when the best time to post is? SmartQ analyzes when your audience is most engaged and makes future suggestions on when to make your next post.
- Integration: If you are working within the Zoho eco-system, Zoho Social has excellent integrations. It also works great with LinkedIn and Facebook Lead Ads.
And for a full comprehensive overview of all of the features included with Zoho Social, check out our full product overview.
Hootsuite
A pioneer in social media management, Hootsuite comes with comprehensive tools for scheduling, content curation, and team management, catering to a broad spectrum of social media platforms.
A Few Features At a Glance
- Post Scheduling and Publishing: Much like Zoho Social, Hootsuite offers an all-in-one dashboard for crafting, scheduling, and publishing posts across multiple networks.
- Analytics: Hootsuite brings clarity to your campaigns with comprehensive analytics that help quantify social media performance and campaign ROI.
- Content Curation: Hootsuite’s content curation tools allow users to discover and share relevant content with ease.
- Team Management: Coordinate, assign tasks, and manage permissions within your team and more using advanced team management capabilities.
- Wide-Ranging Integrations: Hootsuite syncs with various other tools, ranging from CRM systems to customer service software.
Zoho Social vs. Hootsuite – The Winner Is?
| Zoho Social | Hootsuite | |
|---|---|---|
| User Experience | Zoho Social offers a more intuitive and straightforward interface, which can be particularly user-friendly for beginners. | Hootsuite manages more networks at once through its dashboard, providing a robust solution for advanced users. |
| Analytics | Zoho Social provides robust analytics tools to monitor social media performance, but advanced analytics needs to be pulled into Zoho Analytics, which requires some more advanced skillsets to create. | Hootsuite offers highly customizable analytics reports for more tailored reporting needs built into its software. |
| Integration | Zoho Social offers seamless integration with other Zoho products, notably Zoho CRM, which can streamline workflows for businesses already using Zoho’s suite. | Hootsuite shines with a vast array of third-party app integrations, increasing its adaptability to different business ecosystems. |
| Pricing | Plans starting at $10 per month, Zoho Social is generally more cost-effective, making it an attractive choice for small businesses and agencies. | With a price tag starting at $99 per month, Hootsuite, although more expensive, offers a wider range of features that may justify the extra cost for larger organizations. |
Both are winners depending on what you need. If you are running large-scale social campaigns backed with high ad spend budgets, the advanced tools, integrations, and tracking features that come with Hootsuite would justify the price tag. However, if your organization is more casually making posts for brand exposure, Zoho Social will cover most organizations’ needs. If you are still unsure which would better fit your needs after this article and our tutorial, take them both for a spin and share your thoughts with us on the two!
