Hootsuite is a social media managing website that allows users to manage a long list of social media sites with one tool. Larby Amirouche is very experienced in social media marketing and knows how critical a tool like this is.
This can be insanely useful especially if you have multiple accounts on each social media platform.
However, Hootsuite is a premium application that requires you to purchase a plan before you get to use it. In this list, we’ll tackle several platforms that allow you to manage the same things, but for free.
Fully “Free” Options
Outfy:
Outfy.com is a social media managing platform that manages the following:
- WeHeartIt
- Fancy
- Juxtapost and
- Tumblr
While it doesn’t have LinkedIn as one of the platforms it manages, Outfy makes up for this for having permanent free access.
Outfy offers to:
- post on 9 social media networks
- Share posts in real time or schedule your promotions days / weeks / months in advance
- Set your store on Autopilot mode — you set the criteria once, and Outfy tool will auto-select your products for promotions
- Attach multiple shops to your single Outfy account, and set all promotions from one single login
- NO monthly commitment. Outfy has the unique “pay for use” pricing concept. Just purchase credits to refill your account, and use them in the time frame you are comfortable with
- Design “Post templates” for each network once, and then all your posts are done within those settings
- Make use of our Preset templates for your sale / promotion announcements
- Create Collage, Animated GIFs and Videos to blow your own trumpet — share or even schedule your promotion campaigns / deals / link to your latest blog across chosen networks.
The only catch is that in order to make use of all of these, you will have to top up credits onto your account. This means that while you have access to these features, you can only use them through the purchase of their site credits.
The good thing about this is that you only really pay for what you need. If you don’t need it, you won’t have to pay for it, therefore you wouldn’t feel the need to “maximize” your payment.
Juicer:
Juicer manages the following social media accounts:
- Youtube
- Tumblr
- Soundcloud
- Spotify
- Flickr
- Vimeo
- Slack
- Giphy and
- Yelp
The only downside to availing the free plan from Juicer is that you get highly limited access. You get:
- One embeddable social media post
- 2 Source accounts and hashtags per feed
- Posts pulled in every 24 hours
- Juicer branding on your posts; and
- No analytics, analysis, moderation, and filtering tools
Compared to Outfly’s free permanent access and access to all tools, Juicer makes money by making you feel the difference between paid and unpaid access.
The best thing about Juicer is that if you’re starting up and you don’t have too many accounts to manage yet, you’ll have an easy tool to manage them. The worst, however, is the juicer branding on all of your managed posts through the website.
ViralPep:
ViralPep only has access to three social media platforms:
- Twitter and
This is easily the most limited option out of those mentioned. However, in regards to comparison between its paid and unpaid plans, all features are available to the latter (except for support).
- Posting Schedule
- Profile & Post Timezones
- GIF Support
- URL Shortener
- Video Share
- Link Preview
Options that offer 30-day Trials
Hipsocial:
Hipsocial is a social media manager powered by 500apps. It manages the following social media platforms:
- WordPress
- Yelp
It has the following features available for free for 30 days:
- Advanced scheduling
- Native editing software
- Post approval
- Media library
- Quick response menus and notifications
- In-depth analytics and reports
- Audience insights
- URL tracking
- Bulk engagement systems and
- A dedicated Google Chrome extension
After your 30 days have passed, you’ll have the option to purchase a plan at $7.50 per month per account. This features unlimited access to all of the features mentioned above, albeit only limited to one account.
Oneup:
Oneup is a site that wants to do it all. It has multiple features, with social media management only being one of them. So far, the social media platforms you can manage though OneUp are:
- Google My Business
As a social media management app, it can:
- Post on multiple platforms at the same time
- Access Canva due to integration
- Schedule repeating posts at an interval
- RSS feed automation
- A dedicated Google Chrome extension
- Customizable UTM parameters
- Link shortening, and
- Scheduled Twitter threads.
Aside from these, however, it can do a whole lot more for your business like accounting and invoicing. Plans start from $9 to $169, only differing in the number of users that can access the accounts at any given time. Larby Amirouche (since he has a team) would have to opt for the more pricy packages they offer.
Conclusion
If you’ve been looking long and hard for a replacement for HootSuite, there are plenty of social media management tools online ready to cater to your every need. There are also plenty of free options out there. However, just remember that if you’re going for free options, you will have to accept the limitations. These websites exist in order for them to make money as well.
If you want the perfect service, then you will have to sell out some resources for it. If you’re only starting up though, you won’t need the increasingly complex services that some of these tools offer.
You can always settle for the free ones if you don’t need certain features. In other words, manage your expectations and keep them grounded to your budget. You will thank Larby Amirouche in the end!
Originally Posted: https://medium.com/larby-amirouche/best-free-alternatives-to-hootsuite-8a491abfacb0
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