Social media users numbered 4.26 billion people globally in 2021, and this number might increase to approximately 6 billion in 2027. As the number of social media users increases, businesses are adopting tools to manage their platforms and engage audiences.
This Loomly vs. Hootsuite comparison looks at how these social media management tools can benefit digital marketers. Companies need to manage multiple social network profiles; therefore, they require automated tools.
Loomly and Hootsuite can help with scheduling posts weeks in advance to boost marketing campaigns.
Both popular social media management tools help digital marketers with scheduling management. But what sets them apart?
This post will examine how Loomly and Hootsuite compare, their pricing structure, features, integrations, and user experience.
What is Loomly?
Loomly is an all-in-one platform for all your social media marketing needs. Two digital marketers – Thibaud and Noemie Clement- introduced this tool to help with social media management workflow issues.
While Loomly started as a social media calendar, it now has multiple features, making it popular among marketers globally.
If you use Loomly in your business, you can save time spent on social media posts, improve the quality of work and collaborate with your team more effectively. In addition, the easy-to-use social media management platform helps businesses reach new audiences. Today, Loomly is trusted by more than 18,500 marketing teams globally.
What is Hootsuite?
Established in 2008, Hootsuite is one of the first social media management platforms globally. Initially, the platform got created for Twitter to allow users to manage multiple accounts from a single tool. Today, Hootsuite works on multiple platforms, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube.
Having been in the industry for over a decade, Hootsuite has over 25 million users in different sectors. Their social media tools simplify your marketing, streamline customer service, and accelerate your sales.
Hootsuite allows you to plan content, post on time, track social media performance, stay on top of the trends, run ads, and improve your online presence. It automates the entire process, making it easy for businesses and marketers to reach more audiences.
Loomly vs. Hootsuite
If you are considering taking up Loomly or Hootsuite for your business, you need to know how the two tools perform to make an informed decision. Here’s a comparison between Loomly and Hootsuite.
Features for Loomly and Hootsuite
Since they offer the same service, both Loomly and Hootsuite have some common features. By comparing the different features, you can make an informed decision about the ideal tool for your business. Let’s examine the similarities.
Scheduling
Social media management tools are used mainly by marketers to schedule posts. This is common, especially if you need to schedule posts for multiple social media profiles simultaneously.
Both Hootsuite and Loomly have features that help you manage several social media profiles from one place. Therefore, if you want to schedule posts for the next weeks, you can use one of them. Fortunately, these two tools don’t have a limit on how many posts you can schedule.
To schedule posts on Loomly, you must go through a short process. You’ll need to select the social media platform, draft the posts and choose a time to publish.
On the other hand, Hootsuite does not require a lot of steps to schedule posts. They have a Hootsuite scheduler that you can use to schedule and publish content from a single dashboard. It also allows you to post urgent posts and temporarily cancel scheduled ones.
You can use Bulk Composer to help you post more seamlessly if you are handling multiple platforms. Additionally, you can collaborate on the calendar and create a content schedule if you are working with a team. Use the editor to check for any mistakes to avoid posting posts with errors.
The drag-and-drop feature allows you to move things around. You can change up posts if you have new updates from clients.
Engagement Management
Social media engagement is essential for any digital marketing campaign. You need to respond to customer messages, read comments, and provide feedback for your brand to be successful. Because of this, Loomly and Hootsuite have features that boost audience engagement.
With Loomly, you can see the comments, messages, and mentions from the dashboard. This feature allows you to view conversations from Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. The unread comments and messages will be highlighted to keep you in the loop about the interactions that need a response. Every Loomly user can access the Interactions feature.
Hootsuite also has the “Inbox” feature that allows you to communicate with your audience and see all the messages in one location. The conversations will be threaded to allow you to respond to all comments and messages. You can only access this feature if you pay for the Team or Business plan.
However, Hootsuite will filter messages that require action and assign others to team members.
Media Editing Features
Social media content requires you to have the best visuals. Both Loomly and Hootsuite have media editing features to resize, crop, or add filters to your photos.
Hootsuite has media editing features that allow you to add filters to change the appearance of images. However, Loomly has better features in the Loomly Studio. This media feature allows editing images using the Loomly post builder. Therefore, if you mostly post photos, you can use these features to edit your images.
Link Shortener
If you have long links, you need to shorten them to post on social media. Fortunately, both Loomly and Hootsuite have features that allow users to shorten URLs.
You can use Loom.ly to shorten your long web addresses into short URLs as you create social media posts. On the other hand, for Hootsuite, you can access Ow.ly for link shortening and tracking. You don’t have to leave the Hootsuite dashboard to shorten these links.
Ads Manager
Social media ad spending is expected to surpass 200 billion by 2024. This increase is due to changing consumer behaviors; more people are shopping on social media platforms. Therefore, marketers need a tool that allows them to create ads to reach the target audience.
Hootsuite makes it easy to monitor and analyze the performance of your campaigns. You can boost posts and create reports from Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn from the Hootsuite dashboard. Thanks to multi-channel reporting and analytics, you can monitor your boosted posts and strategize how to improve them.
On the other hand, with Loomly, you can create, preview, and publish ads on Facebook and Instagram in different formats. Loomly Ads Manager provides optimization tips to guide you as you create ads.
Social Listening
Hootsuite has a Social Listening feature that allows users to monitor their social media platforms. This feature makes it possible to check mentions and conversations about the brand.
Social Listening goes beyond the engagement rates and the numbers; therefore, you can learn more about your performance and the competition.
Post Ideas
Loomly has this feature that provides users with ideas on what to post. You can check the different ideas provided on each date to help you customize your posts.
Supported Social Media Platforms
Loomly and Hootsuite support similar social media networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. However, despite this, there’s a slight difference between the two platforms. Loomly is more inclusive because it supports TikTok and Snapchat, while Hootsuite does not.
Therefore, if your business relies on TikTok, Hootsuite is not an ideal platform. It might be better to use Loomly in this case because it integrates with the social media platform.
Account Sign Up
To register for an account on Hootsuite, follow these steps;
● Tap on the “Start Your Free 30-day Trial” button
● Choose a plan depending on whether its an individual account or a team account
● Fill in your full name, business email address, and password in the next tab
● Add your billing details to complete the sign-up process
Keep in mind that Hootsuite offers a 30-day free trial period. During the sign-up process, you can also choose to skip the free trial and get a 20% discount.
On the other hand, signing up for Loomly takes a few steps. Here’s how to go about it;
● Click on the “Try It For Free” button at the top of the homepage.
● On the next tab, fill in your full name, work email, and password.
● Loomly will send you an email to confirm the account.
● Fill in the company name, company type, and time zone on the next tab.
Once logged in, you can create a calendar to start.
User Experience and Dashboard
Loomly and Hootsuite have distinct dashboards, each with benefits and downsides. For instance, Hootsuite has an easy-to-use dashboard. You can view your Instagram hashtags, Twitter accounts, and Facebook mentions from one place.
Hootsuite surpasses Loomly because it has Streams that make it easy to monitor all social media posts. However, if your priority is social media scheduling and calendar management, the Hootsuite dashboard may not be the best because you might be unable to view all your scheduled posts.
The interface is more complex but has all the necessary features like reporting, streams, advertising, and calendars. If you are a beginner, you can use the onboarding features to get started. The downside is that it can get confusing if you have multiple accounts.
Loomly, on the other hand, has a streamlined social media calendar and tools for audience engagement. Its dashboard has multiple features that allow users to see the social marketing calendar. There are also workflow insights and post ideas.
Integration
Hootsuite and Loomly integrate with several social media platforms. On top of this, they also integrate with other popular apps that require social media.
For instance, Loomly integrates with over 4,000 apps via Zapier workflow management. Additionally, it also works well with Google Business Profile, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Unsplash, and Giphy. Thanks to this, marketers can get photos from Unsplash and Gifs from Giphy to use on social media posts.
Hootsuite also connects with more than 250 apps and integrations. These apps will help you create content from one unified dashboard. Some of the Hootsuite integrations include HubSpot, Canva, Shopify, Google My Business, Spotify, Slack, and Zendesk Pro. However, keep in mind that most integrations need a paid Hootsuite plan.
Reporting and Analytics
It would help if you had reporting and analytics tools to measure the performance of your business. Both Loomly and Hootsuite have analytical tools showing your posts are doing well.
Hootsuite’s analytics features come in handy if you have multiple social media platforms with multiple clients. The analytics check for individual post-performance, brand awareness information, a 360-degree view of your results on all social networks from a single platform, and post-engagement rate.
As one of the most robust platforms in terms of analytics, Hootsuite gets you actionable insights on the best times to post, whether your goal is to boost engagement, build awareness, or drive traffic. It has the best reporting tools in the market.
On the other hand, Loomly’s Basic Analytics feature provides engagement metrics and value for any posts published through the software. You can also pay for the Advanced Analytics feature on the premium pricing plans to get stats like Instagram followers and Facebook page likes. You’ll also get details like impressions, reach, and engagement rates.
Additionally, you can filter data and compare reporting periods to determine if your numbers are growing. This Advanced Analytics feature works for all social media posts.
Team Management
Loomly has a “Calendar Workflow” feature that you can use to assign work to your team members. This feature is perfect if you are collaborating in a group. There’s an option to approve posts before publishing them. This feature makes collaborating easy if you have a social media department.
On the other hand, Hootsuite has a range of options to divide team members into groups. It’s an ideal tool for large-scale digital marketing teams because you can assign tasks to different team members – in-house and external teams.
Pricing
When looking at the differences between Loomly and Hootsuite, ensure you compare the prices. Let’s look at how these two tools compare.
Hootsuite has four different pricing plans: Professional, Team, Business, and Enterprise. They have higher prices than their competitors due to the greater number of services they provide and the wide range of features.
● The professional option costs $49 per month if you need the tool for yourself. This is a good alternative if you are starting out. It has features such as ten social accounts, unlimited posts, and post scheduling.
● The team option is suitable for businesses and accommodates three users at $249 per month. It works best if you have people on your social media marketing team. You get the features from the Professional plan plus collaboration tools.
● The business plan is ideal for five users and costs $739 per month. You’ll get basic features from the Team and Professional plan plus additional ones like approval workflows, inbound/outbound tagging, content & asset library, and Hootsuite customer support.
● Enterprise plan is for businesses looking for a customized plan. If the other three subscriptions don’t meet your needs, you can contact the Hootsuite team for a customized plan. The Enterprise plan allows 50 social media accounts, making it a good option if you have multiple clients.
Hootsuite has a free 30-day trial period. You also need to provide your credit card details during registration.
Loomly has five pricing plans: Base, Standard, Advanced, Premium, and Enterprise. Here’s a breakdown of these plans;
● Base plan: This subscription plan costs $26 per month and accommodates two users. You can have ten social media accounts. The core features of this plan include post analytics, post sponsoring, unlimited content, hashtag suggestions, and customer support.
● Standard plan: This plan will cost you $59 per month for six users and up to 20 social media accounts. You can access the features from the Base plan and additional ones such as Advanced analytics, content export, and Slack and Teams integration.
● Advanced plan: This plan costs $129 per month for 14 users. You can have up to 35 social media accounts. If you pay for this plan, you get additional features like custom roles and custom workflows.
● Premium plan: You’ll pay $269 monthly for this plan. The premium version accommodates 30 users and 50 social media accounts. With this option, you unlock all the features.
● Enterprise: You can also get all features by choosing the Enterprise option. However, you must contact the Loomly team for a customized plan and price. You can have more than 30 users and over 50 accounts on this option.
Customer Support
With Hootsuite, you can access the help center from the website. They also provide their social media handles on Facebook and Twitter in case you want to contact them. However, they have long wait times, which can be discouraging for users.
On the other hand, Loomly has an FAQ and tutorial section if you have any questions. You can also contact the customer support team via email or chat. Their team is easier to reach than Hootsuite.
So, What’s the Verdict?
Loomly and Hootsuite are popular social media management tools. Although they have some common features, they are also quite different.
This Loomly vs. Hootsuite comparison shows that Hootsuite is more costly but has more robust features. Loomly is affordable but has fewer features.
Now that you know the similarities and differences between the two platforms, you should be able to choose the one that’s a perfect fit for your business.
FAQs
Is Hootsuite Better Than Loomly?
Both tools have pros and cons. Hootsuite has a wide range of features; therefore, it might be ideal if you are managing multiple clients. However, it will cost you more than Loomly.
Does Loomly Post on Instagram?
Previously, Loomly users had to use their Facebook business pages to post to Instagram. However, Loomly introduced features that make it possible to post directly to Instagram from their dashboard. Therefore, you can create, preview, schedule, and publish photos and video posts from Loomly to Instagram.