Social media is an invaluable channel for brands today, but effectively managing multiple accounts requires significant time and resources. As social media evolves to fill even more consumer screen time, the demand for sophisticated management platforms has boomed.
The global social media management software industry is projected to grow at an astounding 29% CAGR, reaching a valuation of $18.7 billion by 2026 according to research from Fortune Business Insights. With this exponential growth, how do market-leading platforms like Loomly and Hootsuite compare when it comes to simplifying social media management?
In this comprehensive 2,800+ word guide, we‘ll explore all aspects of Loomly and Hootsuite in depth to determine which solution best meets your social media needs and preferred workflow. Let‘s start by defining social media management software:
What is Social Media Management Software?
Social media management software (SMMS) encompasses a range of tools designed to streamline, automate, analyze and collaborate on key social media marketing activities. This includes content planning, creation and scheduling, community engagement, analytics/reporting, and more across social platforms.
Leading benefits of SMMS adoption include:
- Major time savings through bulk posting/scheduling instead of manual efforts
- Brand consistency from centralized content workflows and calendars
- Higher-impact content powered by integrated analytics and creation tools
- Improved collaboration by enabling multi-user permissions and reviews
- Faster community response times through notifications and omnichannel publishing
Now that we‘ve defined the SMMS category, let‘s dive deeper into Loomly and Hootsuite, two of the most prominent solutions:
Loomly: Intuitive Social Media Management for Personal Use
Loomly is a newer yet fast-growing SMMS founded in 2018 that focuses on no-fuss usability for entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, and freelancers. After a $16 million Series A funding round in late 2021, Loomly is investing heavily in refining its core social media scheduling and collaboration capabilities. The startup now serves over 500,000 users globally.
Loomly prioritizes ease-of-use for non-technical solo users all the way up to small teams. The interface features clean, almost self-explanatory menus perfect for first-time SMMS users. A key early user of Loomly, virtual assistant startup Smith.ai shared:
"I don’t have a big social media or marketing team. With Loomly I‘m able to manage all my clients’ social media calendars and campaigns."
Loomly also stands out with its polished media creation studio and robust asset manager – areas that many personal-use focused SMMS overlook in keeping simplicity.
Let‘s look at Loomly‘s pricing and capabilities across its plans:
Essential Plan – $26/month
- 2 User Seats
- 10 Social Accounts
- Content Library: 50 Assets
- Post Limit: 100/month
- Support: Email
Professional Plan – $66/month
- 5 User Seats
- 25 Social Accounts
- Content Library: 200 Assets
- Post Limit: 500/month
- Support: Priority Email
Business Plan – $166/month
- 15 User Seats
- 50 Social Accounts
- 1,000 Assets
- 2,000 Posts/month
- Premium Support
Pro Tip: Go annual on any plan for 2 months free!
With its latest winter 2022 product update, Loomly introduced nifty new post templating, enhanced collaboration workflows, Google Analytics integration, and more scheduled calendar views to reinforce its strengths of simplicity and seamlessness.
Hootsuite: The Social Media Management Leader
In stark contrast to Loomly‘s targeting of personal workflows, Hootsuite is the SMMS pioneer and current market leader focused completely on robust offerings tailored for large enterprises. Founded in 2008 and currently numbering over 200,000 paid accounts globally, you‘ve likely heard of Hootsuite before.
Unlike most SaaS startups, Hootsuite remains focused on steady SMMS innovation rather than rapid growth and fundraising. However, Hootsuite did make a strategic acquisition in 2021 – acquiring conversation marketing platform Heyday for $60M. Representative customers include industry titans like Hilton, TikTok, Samsung, IBM, and The Gap who take advantage of Hootsuite‘s sophisticated collaboration and omnichannel publishing capabilities.
Financial services firm AQR Capital, managing over $135 billion in assets, explained Hootsuite‘s value:
"Hootsuite has enabled us to build stronger relationships with our audiences around the globe. The ability to plan, engage, listen and report—in real-time and in one secure dashboard—positions us to respond with agility."
Given Hootsuite‘s enterprise DNA, its capabilities and pricing are extensive. Let‘s analyze some details across the key plans:
Professional
- $49/month (annual billing)
- 1 user
- 10 social profiles
Team
- $129/month (annual billing)
- 3 users
- 20 social profiles
- Additional user seats $49/month
Business
- Custom Quoting
- Unlimited users
- Unlimited social profiles
- Premium support
Noteworthy features exclusive to Hootsuite enterprise plans include superior permission/control capabilities, single sign-on integration, advanced message segmentation, call transcription and savings, enhanced analytics algorithm, and over 200+ App Directory integrations.
Hootsuite also stands alone with its SocialCXM certification course – a self-paced $600 training promising to teach enterprise SMMS best practices.
Now that we’ve covered capabilities and ideal use cases for Loomly and Hootsuite at a high-level, how do they stack up across key features?
Side-by-Side Features Comparison
While Loomly and Hootsuite solve similar root problems around streamlining social media posting, their approaches and ideal customers couldn’t differ more drastically. Let’s analyze how core platform functionality compares:
| Feature | Loomly | Hootsuite |
|---|---|---|
| Content Creation Tools | Advanced integrated studio for assets and post mockups | Light capabilities through Canva partnership |
| Post Ideation and Templates | Curated templates and some automation via Recipes | Basic libraries and guidance |
| Post Scheduling and Publishing | Easy-to-use calendar across networks | Advanced options for timing optimization |
| Account and User Management | Roles only, limits exist on lower plans | Advanced permissions across functions |
| Reporting and Analytics | Standard post performance reporting | Customized reporting plus deep audience segmentation |
| Monitoring and Listening | Basic monitoring functions | Comprehensive tools and AI triage |
| Collaboration Tools | Real-time posting and task communication | Assignable streams plus CRM style workflow |
| Campaigns Management | Basic ability to group Schedules | Advanced cross-channel and segmented campaigns |
| Mobile App | Optimized experience across iOS and Android | Core scheduling features only |
| Technical Support | Limited to Email and Chat depending on plan | VIP 24/7 phone support for Enterprise plans |
From this comparison, you can observe significant differences across most aspects:
-
Loomly prioritizes ease-of-adoption for non-technical users. Its simplified workflow focuses only on core posting yet still offers polished media tools.
-
Hootsuite caters to enterprise-scale complexity. Sophisticated collaboration, analytics, integrations enable large team efficiency but raises the learning curve.
Determining which solution better meets your requirements depends significantly on the size and needs of your business. Before we move to recommendations, let‘s analyze some common use cases where Loomly and Hootsuite excel.
Ideal Use Cases
While features provide insight into platform alignment, real-world examples of stellar results better indicate which tool matches a given organization and intended workflow.
Loomly Succeeds For:
Solo influencers, creators, consultants or coaches who manage their own brand presence and want to save hours each week on manual posting.
Cassie Piasecki, a full-time blogger and social media manager loves Loomly for the hours it gave back to focus on content creation vs posting:
“It has seriously changed my business. I probably save 10 hours a week using Loomly.”
Small eCommerce sites, local boutiques, restaurants or travel companies who lack dedicated marketing resources but want to punch above their weight on social – especially Instagram and Facebook.
Christie Merritt, owner of craft boutique Annie Selke‘s FabulousYarn, has seen excellent return on time investment from transferring her Instagram growth efforts to Loomly:
"Loomly is user-friendly and saves me about five hours per week, which allows me to concentrate on other areas of my business."
Startups or agile teams who need to cost-effectively mix sophisticated collaboration with easy multi-platform posting to reinforce their positioning and voice.
For example, mobile-first banking startup MoneyLion relies on Loomly to ensure their PR/marketing teams andgrowing in-house creative team stay aligned in delivering engaging fintech focused social content daily.
Hootsuite Wins With:
Heavily regulated industries like healthcare, banking, insurance and higher education that require advanced approvals, archiving and audit trail capabilities no lightweight SMMS matches.
Global organizations who need localized content publishing plus compliance features like 24/7 real-time message translation across Chinese, Japanese, Spanish and 7 other languages.
Sophisticated social advertising teams who wish to closely track campaign KPIs across channels while collaborating with creative teams – avoiding siloed workflows.
Agencies or marketing consultancies responsible for securely managing a high volume of brand accounts with a range of specific permissions and sophisticated governance requirements.
Key Takeaways: When Loomly Edges Ahead
While Hootsuite probably offers more overall capability breadth, most typical small business social media needs faced by entrepreneurs, local brands and budding eCommerce managers fit neatly into Loomly’s purpose-driven feature set.
You gain tremendous time and consistency efficiency from Loomly’s intuitive single dashboard. The tool also costs at least 80% less than Hootsuite depending on plan comparisons. Loomly allocates product development resources directly into enhancing ease-of-use – rather than building sophisticated enterprise functionality which most users fail to leverage or require extensive customer success guidance to navigate and analyze reporting.
Unless you specifically need advanced analytics, workflows, messaging integrations or advertising campaign management, Loomly likely serves your daily social media management requirements perfectly. From UX to pricing, Loomly simply exceeds Hootsuite for 80%+ of everyday business scenarios.
Key Takeaways: When Hootsuite Proves Superior
If you bear responsibility for the global brand presence or regulated communications of largemultinational corporations – Hootsuite stands miles ahead as the gold enterprise standard. The breadth, depth and control across both Hootsuite’s owned channel integrations and App Directory partnerships has no equal. Enterprise marketing teams sleep soundly knowing one dashboard centralizes core workflows.
Hootsuite also shines if you‘re an agency or consultant managing up to hundreds of brand accounts. Client onboarding to offboarding transitions become seamless. Hootsuite Campaigns introduce one-click client deliverable reporting powered by custom analytics funnels years ahead of lightweight scheduling tools. The ability to instantly monitor threats and crises across owned, earned and paid channels provides immense security for brand reputation. If part of your deliverables includes advising clients on multi-channel paid strategy or measuring influencer program ROI – Hootsuite again emerges the easy victor.
Key Recommendations Summarized
In closing, what broad recommendations should you follow based on your current state?
If you are an individual or startup lacking dedicated marketing resources, choose Loomly. The simplicity, affordability and polish stand above any enterprise SMMS tool overdesigned for complex workflows.
If you need to scale coordination for a brand across regions or business units, Hootsuite excels. Only robust enterprise permission and controls can facilitate seamless global collaboration dentroitized by executives.
If tracking the ROI of individual social initiatives matters, Hootsuite‘s analytics shine. Though Loomly delivers core metrics, capturing campaign value through custom funnel reporting requires mature tools.
I hope mapping out the respective strengths, ideal use cases and recommendations for Loomly vs Hootsuite dispels any confusion in determining the right platform for your current and future social media management needs. Simplifying workflows is what both solutions promise – though through vastly different sophisticated or simplified means.
With social screen time soaring over 3 hours for average users daily, streamlining posting is now a universal priority. Should simplicity or scalability drive your selection decision?
