Home Social Media Buffer Vs Hootsuite: Which One Is Best For You?

Buffer Vs Hootsuite: Which One Is Best For You?

by Louise W. Rice
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In today’s world, your social media presence is almost the only presence you do have. As businesses and companies move their work online, every aspect of running a business too moves online, from providing services to marketing your goods and services. Several social media platforms each provide numerous benefits and different demographics of potential customers.

In order to not lose out on any viewers, it is advisable to have a profile and page on most of the heavily frequented social media sites. These would be Facebook – with over two billion active users, Instagram with over one billion active users. Twitter, with 330 million active users, LinkedIn with 310 active users, among the many others. Maintaining a business blog on WordPress or Blogspot would additionally be recommended. 

Managing each social media site may be cumbersome, and hard to maintain equal growth on each site. To maintain an equal presence on these varied social media platforms, it becomes imperative to use a tool such as Hootsuite or Buffer, which allows you to manage all your social media sites on one unified site, and schedule and manage posts on your page. These also help have organic Instagram followers and have again in real followers as well as on other sites.

You would have to make an informed decision or an account provider like Accsmarket, as for example, you would like to invest in, in order to manage your social media profiles. Here, we present a few comparisons that will help you make a calculated choice and invest in your growth. 

The Features provided

Hootsuite is more geared towards being used for a team, and at the most basic level, already allows for three users. The major features such as planning a campaign, social listening, and reporting are only provided on Hootsuite with a payment. 

However, Buffer provides all its basic features to paid users, although some key features such as publishing Instagram stories and hashtag management are only provided on higher payment tiers.

A comparison of pricing plans 

Both these tools follow a similar pricing plan, adhering to a structure with a free version and different tiers of paid versions. The free version on both these tools allows for up to three social media accounts to be added to the dashboard. 

However, Hootsuite allows you to have up to 30 posts a month on the free version, while Buffer limits you to only 10 posts per month on its free version. 

They have a pro version that is priced at $15 for Buffer and $29 for Hootsuite, and this is for the period of one month. The price difference is easily justified, as Hootsuite allows you up to fifty social media sites that can be added to the dashboard, and it provides no limit on the number of posts you can post per month. On the other hand, Buffer only allows for 8 social media profiles and 100 posts per month. Thus, Hootsuite will be a more beneficial site for the pro level as it would be much more economical. 

However, once reaching the next tier, the business plans, Buffer begins its plans at $99 per month, while Hootsuite only begins its plans at $599 per month. Thus Buffer might be the more economical tool for you to use if you intend to use it for a team or company. 

Ease-of-use

In terms of which tool is easier to use and makes itself more understandable, Buffer would come out the victor. Buffer has a clean interface and is less complicated. Paired with its analysis tool, it provides data to you about different strategies you can use to boost your social media profiles and handle them beneficially, by creating reports based on your social media performance. 

However, the analysis tool is an additional cost of $50 per month, which would be more than the cost of Hootsuite, which provides this tool inbuilt. Thus it would be less economical, although the analysis tool is a more robust in-depth one than the one provided by Hootsuite. 

Reaching out to followers

Both tools provide a ‘conversation manager’ that allows you to converse with real followers and engage with them directly. You can reply directly to comments across various social media sites in one unified place. You can reply to direct messages, too, across all your social media profiles. 

However, both have differing manners in which their tool works. Hootsuite provides this tool inbuilt, although it is not created in a very user-friendly manner, it is hard to manage and confusing to use. Buffer’s version of this tool is more thoughtfully designed and is helpful to use and engage with real Instagram followers. This feature is an add-on and comes with a price tag of a further $50 per month. Thus it may not be the most economical decision. 

The choice of social media managing tool is eventually completely based on your preferences and what you are looking for. While the base plan of Hootsuite may be more than Buffer, it provides for all the basic features available. On the other hand, Buffer has a cheaper base plan, but many features come with further price tags that may be more expensive for you to invest in. 

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