Likelihood to Recommend I really like that I can just go into hootsuite, connect all the our social channels and be able to have a great overview on what our social feeds look like. It's super handy not having to spend time going into each social platform to do the same post, and I can spend one day scheduling out that month's social plan. I much prefer sorting out boosting post from Hootsuite, the only downside is that they have a limit to what you can boost a month so a lot of the time I have to grin and bear it and use Meta Business Suite instead for boosting posts.
Read full review I think Shoutlet is an excellent tool for any mid-sized to larger company looking to improve their social strategy. While it does have some minor improvements that can be made, it's overall an impressive way to mass post to multiple networks and interact and engage with your followers in the social space. I feel at this time that a smaller company could probably benefit from a lesser in-depth version of this tool at this time
Read full review Pros Scheduling of content. The ease of use for Hootsuite's planner abilities is top of the industry. It is simple and effective in posting content to different channels and accounts. Analytics are superior on Hootsuite. Their custom reports allow you to view very specific KPI's that you can adjust for each channel or account. The reports are also exportable to be used for others in the company. Inbox management. The inbox manager is superior to any in the industry. Hootsuite allows you to tag certain phrases or keywords to better filter messages based on importance or topic. Read full review The ability to manage and publish to various social accounts from one platform. This feature helped us to have a cohesive social strategy and saved us a lot of time having to go back and forth between accounts. The module that allowed us to build contests and custom landing pages was perhaps my favorite part. For the contests, it proved to be ultra convenient to be able to build, host and run social promotions through the same platform that housed our social accounts and lists. From a landing-page-design standpoint, it was also wonderful and time-effective for each individual department to be able to build professional and dynamic pages themselves rather than tasking it to our web designers who really didn't have the time. I was also very pleased with the customer service we received from the Shoulet team. From the original demo, to the training sessions, all the way through to back-end service maintenance, everyone we dealt with was available, accommodating and friendly. Not entirely common in this day in age. Read full review Cons Because of the way algorithms works, we would have loved to be able to automate making a post with no link and posting the first comment with a link (hello LinkedIn) We would have loved an easy way to post from a main account and repost the post for other accounts we administrate, for instance a corporate post reposted by individuals for LinkedIn, or retweets from one main account by child accounts Read full review I would like to see Shoutlet improve the usability of their "Shoutlet Profiles" module. It has improved over time, but I would like to see more individual user metrics such as affinity, time spent engaged per user, and monthly interactions by user. I would also like to see Shoutlet redesign their "manage urls" module and URL shortener. The shortener works well, but I would like the interface to be more user friendly, and be able to access it throughout the rest of the tool. Perhaps in a slide out drawer. Unfortunately, Shoutlet does not offer a Pin scheduling tool at this time. This would be a HUGE asset for them to have. Read full review Likelihood to Renew At this time we are satisfied that Hootsuite offers the most of what we are looking for at the most reasonable price point. As the social media landscape and monitoring/scheduling software changes, so do our needs. We re-evaluate our tools semi-annually or as new tools emerge onto the market. If we find at any point that we aren't gaining an advantage, then we are open to switching products.
Read full review While I do not have direct control over the renewal of our contract, I am definitely lobbying to not only renew the contract, but expand our contract with Shoutlet to include more of our company's accounts in our Shoutlet account for the many reasons already stated. By pulling all of our accounts, pages and platforms into one media management tool, we'll be able to better serve our fans, members, patients and employees. It will cut down time it takes for us to post across our entire company's breadth of social media options while sharing more easily between locations and entities. For medium and large scale enterprises, Shoutlet is hard to beat.
Read full review Usability Hootsuite is probably the easiest to use social media scheduler of all the ones that I've used. It's been easy to teach clients how to use the software themselves and it can be accessed easily on anyone's phone through their mobile app. Highly recommend for anyone that wants a software that is easy to learn!
Read full review While some things do require a little training, a quick phone training session or reading an online guide usually suffices. I've never needed multiple training sessions for any part of Shoutlet. As someone with very little coding/programming background (read: absolutely none), I am always able to accomplish what is needed without feeling over my head or needing help.
Read full review Reliability and Availability Any outages are communicated in advance and have not been a problem. We let our clients know based on communications from HootSuite. Since we operate 24/7 with multiple shifts, planned outages can interfere with our operations, but we can always work around it.
Read full review Performance Hootsuite makes passing on articles from the web very easy- when it works! I have had a number of gliches with Chrome where it does not open properly and the solution (after some toing and froing with support) was to uninstall and reinstall. The support staff are always very helpful (which is great!) but the gliches..... well, they suck when you are already busy!
Read full review In general, the software works really well. I get weird errors for time to time. Tech Therapy does a great job helping when things go awry
Read full review Support Rating I can manage all of my accounts on one site! It's absolutely amazing! The dashboard is helpful to see how you are doing as well. Still getting to understand the analytics and may need to reach out for help on this
Read full review I feel that the level of support I get from Shoutlet is far beyond the level of support I've received from other companies in a variety of services. It would be nice to have a regular update from Tech Therapy that lists out any potential bugs they're working to fix for the various browsers they support. Sometimes I wonder if I'm experiencing an issue simply because I use Firefox vs. Chrome.
Read full review In-Person Training Very easy to teach and learn
Read full review Online Training The online training is decent; however, it takes a lot more time to search for answers to my questions. Having a training session with a live person was much more effective as they were able to quickly address the business needs I have.
Read full review Implementation Rating • Combination of vendor and internal. The vendor bumped up our account to the Enterprise version (quite simple and easy) and then set up our organization and team structure. We then had to log in and set up team members and assign members to social media accounts. This was pretty easy to do as they have a great user interface. We simply had to drag and drop people into the correct team giving them access to specific social media accounts.
Read full review Alternatives Considered Hootsuite's free account was sufficient for use on behalf of our client. When they restructured their pricing model and eliminated free and affordable subscriptions suitable for a small business, we found that
Zoho Social was an excellent replacement. The interface was simpler and the pricing was affordable and suitable for a small business.
Read full review Shoutlet is infinitely more advanced than SocialMadeSimple. It is a much more complex and in-depth platform. We actually changed to SocialMadeSimple after Shoutlet and I miss how easy to use and advanced it was in comparison. It was a money decision but if they were the same price, I would absolutely insist we go back
Read full review Scalability We are only using in marketing and have been able to scale.
Read full review Return on Investment I have been able to evaluate which posts, in general, do well and figure out what types of posts to make (content) It's been harder however to compare on social medial platform compared to another because it's hard to duplicate a post with a new owly (I think you used to be able to) but more so, you also can't assign it a custom owly link so I can see at a glance which owly link was associated with what platform. HEIDI KAY Director of Social Media and Brand Management
Read full review Allows our small staff to provide our clients with world-class service and data. Exponentially improved fan base expansion for our clients. Rapid response for customer service issues for clients - allowing us to help our clients prevent their social media presence from becoming the Complaint Department, rather a true community of fans and supporters of a brand. Read full review ScreenShots