Which Social Media Tool is Best? Brasco /// Compares Sprout Social, Hootsuite, and Later

Gone are the days of scheduling your content natively within social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. Today, marketers and businesses rely on social automation tools to streamline the process of publishing, engaging, and analyzing social media content.

Social automation optimizes social interactions by reducing the manual labor required to manage social accounts via software solutions. 

Social media automation tools provide: 

  • Scheduling and publishing content optimization by reducing time spent and increasing efficiency;
  • Convenient reporting and analytics are accessible in a one-stop shop for all social networks (depending on the automation platform);
  • Increased ability to engage with your audience; 
  • Increased ability to understand the conversation/sentiment of your brand, industry, and competitors on social media.

Suppose your business is trying to remain consistent on social media. In that case, there is an opportunity to have a social automation platform on your side to make social media management more convenient. Reach out to a Brasco/// specialist for more recommendations to remain competitive in your business social media tactics.

Let’s break down three popular social automation platforms to understand which best suits you and your business. 

Sprout Social

Price: Starting at $249/mo

Best for: Overall social media automation

Social Network Integrations: Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Youtube

Top Features:

Monitor & Engage

Streamline and scale social monitoring and engagement.

  • Smart Inbox
    • Monitor and engage with messages across social platforms in one unified social inbox.
  • Review Management
    • Monitor and manage social reviews across platforms in one suitable stream.
  • Message Tasking
    • Turn received social messages into actionable items for an internal team member to follow up. 

Plan & Publish 

Plan, create, and manage social media content as a team.

  • Collaborative Content Calendar
    • View and manage posts across multiple social profiles all in one place.
  • Send Time Optimization 
    • Deliver/ schedule content at optimal times utilizing Sprout Socials send time optimization technology.

Report & Analyze

Collect meaningful insights utilizing the Sprout Social analytics platform to drive strategic decision-making.

  • Group, Profile & Post-Level Reporting
    • Pull unlimited PDF/CSV export reporting on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
  • Sent Messages Report
    • Track post-level performance with KPIs such as reach, impressions, click, and engagement metrics.

Overall, Sprout Social is a highly comprehensive social media management platform. Offering vast reporting capabilities, a user-friendly interface, and add-on options such as Social Listening to digest the sentiment regarding your brand easily. 

Sprout Social is a beneficial social automation platform for larger companies that need more robust options to stay on the pulse of what is being said about their company and desire to engage with their audience. 

Hootsuite

Price: Starting at $99/mo

Best for: Automating social media marketing

Social Network Integrations: Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Youtube

Top Features:

Create & Plan

Craft new posts and schedule across multiple social networks.

  • Hootsuite Planner
    • Includes a social media content calendar to help visualize all platform posts in one place. Determines an optimal publishing time suited to build audience engagement.
  • Composer
    • Create on-brand posts easily with access to content libraries, image editing tools, and simple video adjusting tools that auto-adjust bitrate, height, and width to match social network requirements. 

Social Performance

Digestible social performance KPIs

  • 360-Degree Reporting 
    • Set performance benchmarks, and monitor your brand’s improved performance over time. 
  • Hootsuite Impact
    • Find your social media ROI. Impact helps demonstrate how social media channels and campaigns drive leads, conversions, and sales. 

Overall, Hootsuite offers extensive features for publishing, engaging, and analyzing your brand’s social media networks. Hootsuite provides a highly flexible interface, so you only see what is relevant to your business. In addition, the bulk scheduler option significantly cuts down on publishing cross-network content. 

Hootsuite is a beneficial social media automation tool for small to medium-sized businesses that need social media post-scheduling capabilities and a reliable social reporting suite for all social networks.

Later

Price: Starting at $18/mo

Best for: Automating post publishing

Social Network Integrations: Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest

Top Features:

Plan & Schedule

Easily schedule photos, videos, and carousel post

  • Streamline Workflow
    • Manage all social networks in one app and schedule content to publish automatically.
  • Visual Planner
    • Preview and rearrange upcoming posts to curate the perfect feed for your business.

Instagram Analytics

Compare Instagram posts to discover your brand’s most engaging content. 

  • Automatically calculated engagement rate.
  • Ranks posts by engagement rate—a visual of what works and is not.
  • See your best-performing post at a glance.

Linkin.bio

Drive traffic anywhere

  • Located in the bio of Instagram or TikTok, followers can click to find the page, product, or article they’re looking for.

Overall, Later offers users a beneficial platform for automating post publishing in a streamlined interface that is easy to learn and use. 

Later technologies may be worthwhile for an influencer or a small company looking for an easy way to schedule content across social networks.

Wrapping Up

Social media management has changed significantly over the last few years, making it essential for businesses to deploy social automation platforms like Sprout Social, Hootsuite, or Later to make social media management more attainable and practical. 

Unsure which social automation platform might be the best fit for your business? Chat with a Brasco /// specialist today.