In order to create consistent and better quality social media content, a social media scheduling tool is a MUST. In my training sessions, I explain that a tool like Buffer or Hootsuites gives you the ability to create a batch of posts, post them across multiple platforms at once, and schedule them in advance. It’s vital for time management.

There are plenty of options to choose from, but the two names you’ll see popping up most often in this category are Buffer and Hootsuite. Both Buffer and Hootsuite have plenty to offer, like scheduling, analytics and overall management. But they cater to different tastes. Let’s explore what makes Buffer and Hootsuite different, so you can pick the one that suits your business best.

Buffer

Buffer is designed to help small to medium businesses, solopreneurs and creators manage their social media accounts with ease. Here are the plans you can choose from:

• Free Plan: Juggle up to 3 social media accounts/channels without spending a penny.
• Essentials Plan: $6 per channel per month (or $5 per channel if you commit for a year).
• Team Plan: $12 per channel per month (or $10 per channel annually).

You can try the Essentials and Teams plans with a 14-day free trial before subscribing.

Buffer is super user-friendly, making it easy to set up and manage multiple social media accounts. The Ideas Hub is your go-to place to add content ideas, text and media until you’re ready to hit that publish button.

With Buffer’s engagement tools, keeping track of comments on Facebook and Instagram is simple. Plus, you can filter comments based on sentiments like ‘negativity,’ ‘order’ and ‘question’ to make sure you respond to the most important ones first.

For those on the Teams and Agency plans, Buffer allows an unlimited number of users. You can grant full posting access, where users’ posts and ideas are published as scheduled, or set up approval-required access for a bit more control. You can even limit user access to specific social media accounts if needed.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite is here to help larger social media marketing teams at bigger businesses. A quick rundown of the plans:

• Professional Plan: £89 per month (billed annually)
• Team Plan: £249 per month (billed annually)
• Enterprise Plan: Contact for pricing

Both the Professional and Team plans come with a 30-day free trial, just enough time to try it out!

Hootsuite is packed with handy social media management tools, like bulk scheduling and paid posts. Plus, if you’re on the Team plan or higher, you’ll get access to the Content Library to store all your media files.

Managing your social media interactions is simple with Hootsuite’s Inbox. It keeps tabs on Facebook Pages’ private messages, comments, replies, visitor posts, X’s direct messages and LinkedIn Pages’ comments and replies.

For tracking mentions and sentiment towards your company or brand, Hootsuite provides social listening tools. The basic features are available to all but full access requires the Enterprise plan.

Designed for large teams, Hootsuite allows users to set detailed permissions on who can see and access content. It supports complex team management with organisations, teams and channels, letting superusers assign tasks, route messages and control access to social accounts.

Keep in mind that large teams will need to pay extra if they require more than five users per account, even on the premium Enterprise plan.

 

Choosing between Buffer and Hootsuite really does depend on what you and your business requires. One isn’t better than the other but one might work better for you.