Hubspot vs. HootSuite: Which Social Tool is Better?

There are plenty of social media tools out there to help your business manage and improve its social media efforts. Whether you’re a small business with limited resources or a large organization with a full marketing team, there is a tool out there for you. 

But with so many options, it can be hard to know which tool is right for your social media needs and overall business goals. That’s why we wanted to compare two popular tools to help you decide: HubSpot and Hootsuite. 

First, it’s good to know the overall purpose of these two platforms.

Hootsuite is designed specifically for social media management. All its capabilities and features are built solely around social media marketing and engagement.

HubSpot, on the other hand, is an all-in-one marketing software that integrates marketing, sales, service, and operations tools to create a seamless, delightful experience for customers. 

We further break down the user experience, reporting capabilities, features, and pricing for Hootsuite and HubSpot below. 

HubSpot

Best for: Marketers and Medium-Large Organizations

hubspot Overview

The HubSpot platform is a CRM tool built around the inbound marketing methodology. Essentially, HubSpot aims to attract, convert, close, and delight customers by aligning marketing, sales, customer service, and operations under one platform. Within HubSpot are different types of software or “hubs” that your business can utilize. The social media tool is located within the “Marketing Hub” in HubSpot. 

In HubSpot’s words from their website: 

“Use HubSpot social media management software to publish content to social networks from the same place you build campaigns; set up keyword monitoring so you never miss a mention; and link all your interactions back to your CRM so you have contextual conversations and can report on social media ROI.”

The hubspot User Experience

Overall, HubSpot’s social media tool is simple to use when it comes to publishing and tracking social media campaigns, monitoring social interactions such as comments and mentions, and analyzing the success of your social media efforts. The publishing tool is particularly easy to use for scheduling out content and optimizing for each social media platform. 

One downside of HubSpot is the inability to view different platform feeds the way you can in Hootsuite. This makes it more difficult to dig deep into each channel’s strategy and engagement. 

hubspot Reporting Capabilities

HubSpot has comprehensive reporting capabilities when it comes to social media. Since HubSpot’s model allows you to connect all of your marketing efforts, depending on which plan you have, you’re able to track campaigns and follow customers along the buyer’s journey.

Other reports available in HubSpot’s social tool include: 

• Audience report
• Published posts report
• Interactions report
• Clicks report
• Top posts report
• New contacts report
• Shares report
• Impressions report
• Sessions report

Having access to this information and insight allows you to dig deeper into your social efforts, better improve your strategy, and demonstrate the value social media brings to your business. 

HubSpot Social Platform Features

Some of HubSpot’s noteworthy social media management features include: 

• “Manage” tab, where you can create, schedule, and publish content across all your social media channels. 
• Option to create a social media publishing schedule, schedule posts in bulk, and compare social posts
• “Monitor” tab, where you can monitor and respond to social media interactions such as comments and mentions
• “Analyze” tab where you can view analytics on your social efforts, including top posts and new contacts generated from social media. 
• Ability to connect your social posts to campaigns, landing pages, blogs, and more, making it easier to attribute business value and success to social media
• Social listening options, including the ability to monitor competitors and streams with keywords or mentions
• Ad creation and management tools specifically for Facebook advertising

HubSpot Pricing

HubSpot has one of the best free CRM plans out there. In their free plan, you can create landing pages, manage contacts, build email campaigns, and more. Unfortunately, social media management is not included in the free package. However, the free plan does allow you to use their social ad tools to create ads for Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. 

If you want to use HubSpot for social media management, you'll need to sign up for the Professional Package, which starts at $800/month. It includes social media management, blogging, SEO, marketing automation, and more features, built right on top of your CRM, to help take your marketing efforts to the next level. 

Hootsuite

Best For: Soloprenuers and Small-scale Marketing Teams

hootsuite Overview

Hootsuite is one of the world’s leading social media management software, with more than 18 million professionals and 800 of the Fortune 1,000 companies choosing the platform to manage social media. Its tools help you find prospects and serve customers. This all-in-one social media management tool has a wide range of plans available, making it a great solution for anyone from small businesses to large corporations.  

In Hootsuite’s words on their website: 

“From smart social listening and engagement to AI-powered social commerce and customer care, Hootsuite has the scalable platform, deep expertise, strong industry partnerships, and bold vision to help your organization deliver world-class digital experiences to your customers at every stage of their journey—today and tomorrow.”

The hootsuite User Experience

Hootsuite’s user experience is arguably one of its stronger aspects. Hootsuite appears as a sort of dashboard with customizable “streams” of content such as specific hashtags, certain social profiles, trending topics, and more. In your “main dashboard” you can see an overview of all your social feeds and scheduled content. You can customize these dashboards based on what’s most important to your business. It also has an easy-to-use content planner allowing you to schedule out content across different social channels. 

Also, within Hootsuite’s dashboards, you’re able to view feeds from your different channels. For example, you can monitor your LinkedIn feed next to your Facebook feed. In HubSpot, you aren’t able to view feeds in this visual way.

hootsuite Reporting Capabilities

Hootsuite’s reporting capabilities are helpful in giving you a full picture of performance on social media.

Types of reports Hootsuite provides include: 

• Post performance, such as reach and engagement
• Best days and times to post for your audience
• Audience growth
• Link clicks
• Overview reports that break down results by platform
• Posting trends
• Team performance

Hootsuite also has “add-on features” you can pay for in addition to your plan. For example, there’s a feature called “Hootsuite Impact” that helps you better analyze the impact of your social media efforts on your overall business goals. With this feature, you can track results beyond social media and demonstrate how the impact of your social campaigns on leads, conversions, and sales. 

Hootsuite Features

Some of Hootsuite’s noteworthy social media management features include: 

• Publishing tools that allow you to schedule out content on all your social media channels and optimize with images, videos, hashtags, mentions, geotagging, and more
• Ability to read and reply to incoming social media messages 
• Customizable streams of content such as scheduled posts, trending topics, hashtags, and anything else that’s important or helpful to your business
• Access to analytics so you can measure and improve results across all social networks
• Option to boost social media posts through Hootsuite. The ability to create social media advertising campaigns is only available with the social advertising add-on. 
• Additional features like Hootsuite Impact and Hootsuite Insights provide the opportunity to expand your employee advocacy efforts on social, stay on top of current trends, prove the business ROI of social, and manage your social and search ads. 

HootSuite Pricing 

Hootsuite’s pricing appears a bit more budget-friendly than HubSpot. However, as we said, Hootsuite is strictly for social media management, so it doesn’t have other additional features such as email marketing or SEO. 

The free Hootsuite plan allows you to only connect 2 social accounts and schedule out 5 social posts at a time. Once you start paying, a lot more of Hootsuite’s features start becoming available. Even within the Professional plan, you’re able to connect 10 social accounts, schedule unlimited posts, and access messages. The next plans up from there will open up the option for more users and social accounts, as well as other features to support larger teams. 

And the winner is… 

As with any tool, there are going to be pros and cons and a lot of it comes down to personal preference and business goals. Both HubSpot and Hootsuite are fantastic tools that have the potential to become a huge asset to your social media efforts.

But, for the sake of choosing a winner, Hootsuite wins. 

However, it’s important to keep in mind the overall purpose of these two platforms. Hootsuite is built only for social media management, while HubSpot is focused on connecting all your inbound marketing efforts under one platform. Because of this, HubSpot is ideal for marketing teams and growing businesses who want their social media tool to seamlessly integrate with their other marketing efforts. Hootsuite, on the other hand, is best for smaller businesses who really just need a helpful tool to manage their social media efforts.

For some businesses, it might make sense to have both in order to support your comprehensive marketing strategy. 

No matter which platform you choose to use, or if you choose to use both, it’s important to have a social media strategy to back your efforts.