Consider dropping hootsuite

[starbelly]

We signed up for hootsuite, but we noticed after some initial tweets went out, they go out marked with "by Hootsuite inc" etc. I found no way to disable this either. That's a huge turn off, so we decided to just use tweet deck. That only leaves one medium that validates it's use, which is linkedin. I'm starting to think hootsuite is not a good fit for us for the following reasons :

• The advertisement if you will for hootsuite when we send out tweets, I assume it does this for linkedin posts as well, if so I would not want to use it for that..
• It is clunky, slow, and has bad UX IMO.
• It's very expensive for what it is and with what I stated above, I personally can not justify it.

I would like us to discuss the possibility of dropping hootsuite to cut costs. We may find another tool is a better fit for us, we may also even decide that at the moment we need no such tool. I think we can say it might be more useful if in the future, but I feel like there's probably better and cheaper offerings than hootsuite out there.

I want to include the marcom team in this discussion as they will be the ones primarily using hootsuite or another tool.

[benoitc]

if we are interrested by scheduling, cross-media posting and analytics buffer maybe an alternative to test https://buffer.com/. they have also great values as a company.

[LuDominguez]

Regarding Hootsuite: We used it yesterday for our first post on LinkedIn and we weren't able to use tags. We definitely agree with all the arguments.

If you're interested in metrics, we've heard that https://www.socialgest.net/ may be better than Buffer. Personally, we don't care about metrics, so Buffer would be a good choice for us. Even the free version may work. And we've also heard that it has a better UI than SocialGest.

Regarding the possible addition of other social networks: We've been advised not to use these types of platforms for Facebook and Instagram, they usually fail. In the potential event that we start using Facebook, Creator Studio may be all we need.

Regarding all of the above: another good fit for us would be to keep using Tweetdeck for Twitter and to have direct access to LinkedIn.

[starbelly]

Let me expand on my thoughts : I think metrics CAN be important, but it depends. I'm not a marketing or an analytics person by trade, so that must be made clear. I think we have better metrics that aren't tied to things such as twitter impressions, etc. This can be very important when you're trying to market a product I believe. For us, I think we have solid metrics such as :

• total number of members
• total number of paying members
• total number of sponsors
• and the rate of change to go along with the above.

I also think if we have a heart beat metric if you will, one big one is the website itself. It is evolving? If it's not that can be a strong indicator that we're doing something wrong.

So I think metrics for an association like ourselves, birds eye view metrics probably serve us best, and I don't believe that can be captured in social media analytics platforms and when we do care to view those, they are available on the social media platforms themselves. All IMHO.

[benoitc]

Who can do more can do less :) But looking at what @LuDominguez is saying I would suggest to find a tool allowing cross-platform post with a simple UI. And possibly having good metrics with.

I do think using one tool to post on all media is quite better than many tools for the following reasons:

• no copy-paste issue
• tracking: it's easy to know what have been sent, by who
• easy collaboration.
• easy archiving
• easy reporting

We should to start to compare the tools. We already know Hootsuite, I proopose buffer. What else should we compare?

Thoughts?

[benoitc]

also @LuDominguez maybe you can describe what would simplify your life in term of UI ?

[starbelly]

tracking: it's easy to know what have been sent, by who

☝️ That's actually pretty important. For the most part marcom should be responsible for getting out communications, but there will be times when others from the marketing wg need to jump in and get something out. Even before marcom was onboarded we had a few times where there would be confusion as to who posted what, etc.

[LuDominguez]

So, regarding copy-paste issues: it's really rare to use the same post on all social networks since each one has its own language. And also, we work with monthly planning, which prevents these types of problems.
I totally agree with everything else. The thing is that not all tools work equally well with all social media (as I said before, we were recommended not to use these platforms for Facebook and Instagram for example).

In terms of UI, something like Tweetdeck or even Hootsuite would work for us!

I think that if you want us to use a platform, Buffer would be a good choice. We can always try it out and discard it if it doesn't work. And we can even start with the free version before we decide if investing in it is worth it.