Hootsuite FAQ | Frequently asked questions
Hootsuite is an all-in-one social media management tool. It lets you schedule, post, and track performance across all your social media networks from one dashboard.
Anyone who uses social media can use Hootsuite! There are Hootsuite plans for individuals, small social media teams, and enterprise businesses. You can use Hootsuite to grow your budding presence as an influencer or join the 80 percent of Fortune 1000 businesses that trust it to manage multiple profiles at once.
Professionals in every industry use Hootsuite to manage social media. It’s a good choice for those who work in highly regulated industries, including government* health care, finance, and higher education.
*Hootsuite is FedRAMP certified to help ensure the security of the U.S. government's cloud services. This makes it an excellent option for public agencies looking for more secure ways to engage with their communities.
Hootsuite helps you grow your business and save time on social media by bringing it all together on one easy-to-use platform.
Here are a few of the top benefits of Hootsuite:
Grow your followers and improve reach with analytics that show you the exact best time to post on social media based on your audience.
Save time by scheduling posts on several social media channels at once and handling all your messages in one place.
Post better content with content inspiration, hashtag ideas, built-in templates, and advanced spelling and grammar suggestions from Grammarly.
Get inspired by setting up Streams with industry trends and top accounts.
See what's working with analytics and custom reports showing which posts perform the best and why.
Stay on top of everything with listening streams and a single inbox that pulls all your messages from every network into a single inbox.
Improve efficiency with streamlined content approval workflows, a visually pleasing content calendar, and a unified inbox.
Protect your brand’s reputation and monitor negative mentions and reviews with user-friendly social listening tools.
Stay ahead of the competition by monitoring relevant trends, accounts, and conversations in your industry.
Hootsuite has many tools and features that help you go further on social media. It can:
Tell you exactly when to post on social media to get more engagement
Post to multiple social media networks from one place
Bulk schedule hundreds of posts in advance
Schedule social media posts across all your networks in one place
Save you time with content inspiration and templates
Engage customers and respond to comments and mentions across all your platforms in one place
Track mentions, reviews, and conversations about your brand
Listen in on competitors and follow trends in your industry
Identify and fill gaps in your content calendar
Track your performance on social media and quickly generate reports
Learn which posts perform better than others and why
And much more.
✨Pro tip: The best way to see everything Hootsuite can do is to sign up for a free trial and check it out for yourself.
To use Hootsuite, start by creating an account and choosing a plan that works for you. Once you've signed up, you'll be prompted to connect your social media profiles to your dashboard. From there, you'll be able to plan, schedule, post, and track performance from a single tab. Here’s a quick flyby of the Hootsuite Dashboard to get you started.
Want to see Hootsuite in all its social media magic-making action? Request a demo here.
The Hootsuite team would love to build you a quote to suit your enterprise needs. Request a quote here!
Features & Products
The Hootsuite dashboard is packed with features that help you grow your business on social media.
The best way to see all of Hootsuite’s features in action is to give it a try.
Until then, here’s a quick rundown of Hootsuite’s main features.
Composer lets you draft, schedule, and publish content across all your social media channels. Some of its features include:
Built-in Canva templates right at your fingertips
Hashtag suggestions generated based on your captions
Hashtag suggestions based on your image or video
Easily attach files and other media to your posts from your computer or the cloud
OwlyWriter AI is an AI-powered writing tool designed just for social media professionals. It can:
Instantly generate captions for every social media network
Come up with an endless supply of post ideas
Save time repurposing top-performing content
Turn web content into social media posts
Automatically generate captions for upcoming holidays
Planner is a user-friendly content calendar that displays all your posts across each channel. Some of its features include:
A birds-eye view of all your published and scheduled content
The ability to duplicate published content and turn it into new posts
A place to create drafts and get feedback from team members
Analytics is where you can monitor and track your performance across all your social media networks. Some of its features include:
A heatmap showing the best time to post based on your audience
Tracking of hundreds of metrics across all social media channels
A snapshot of key metrics, like post reach, impressions, likes, and more
Customizable reports with the metrics you choose
The ability to see your top-performing posts instantly
Streams lets you listen in on what people are saying about your brand or industry across social media. Some of its features include:
Streams to monitor and reply to comments on your posts
Streams to listen in on conversations about you and competitors
Streams for finding relevant content to share and discover trends
Inbox is where you can monitor and reply to messages and comments across all your social media channels in one place. Some of its features include:
A view of all your public and private messages, including comments
The ability to assign messages to team members so they can respond
Saved replies to speed up responding to common questions
Amplify is an employee advocacy tool that makes it easy for your team to share your content, ensuring it gets more views. Some of its features include:
The ability to share approved content in just a few clicks
Weekly share goals to encourage employees to post
Advertise is your space for streamlining ad campaigns across social media. Some of its features include:
Campaign management for ads on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn
Automatic boosting to extend the reach of your best content
Advanced audience targeting to ensure the right people see your ads
These are just a few of Hootsuite’s features. Want to see everything Hootsuite has to offer? ➡️Try it for free right now.
Yep! Hootsuite Analytics is one of the best tools for creating customized social media reports.
You can quickly create attractive reports showing the metrics you select. Edit the title, choose your preferred visualization style, and select your metrics. For a professional flair—and to impress your boss 😉—you can even add your logo. When you’re done, export it into a PDF, PowerPoint, Excel, or .csv file.
You can even automatically generate scheduled reports that go straight to your email on a recurring schedule.
Yes. Hootsuite offers industry-leading social listening and brand monitoring tools. They can help you protect your reputation, maintain your competitive edge, and improve your social media strategy.
All Hootsuite plans include Listening Basics, which allows you to search mentions, trending topics, and more from the past seven days as well as compare two searches side by side. From within the Hootsuite dashboard, you can instantly view sampled results from news sites, newsletters, blogs, forums, Reddit, X, and Quora.
For deeper social listening, Enterprise users can upgrade to Hootsuite Listening powered by Talkwalker. Get the broadest social listening data coverage on the market and monitor up to 150 million websites, 30 social media channels, and 187 languages. Hootsuite Listening features Blue Silk™ AI, a proprietary AI model tailored to the specific needs of social marketers. It instantly summarizes complex results, predicts topic volumes, and identifies peaks.
Hootsuite Streams is also available to all Hootsuite users. Here you can set up feeds to monitor mentions, retweets, and specific hashtags. You’ll be able to see what people are saying about your brand across multiple social media platforms in one place.
Learn more.
How to use Hootsuite
Want a quick and dirty rundown of how to use Hootsuite? Head over to YouTube and check out these videos: What is Hootsuiteand How to Use Hootsuite. (And don’t forget to subscribe to Hootsuite and Hootsuite Labs for a constant stream of helpful content).
For free Hootsuite training, visit the Hootsuite Academy. There you’ll find courses in social media, social selling, and how to use Hootsuite. Complete them and you’ll even get a shiny new certification to slap on your LinkedIn profile.
We’re so glad you asked! To sign up for a Hootsuite webinar, keep an eye on our webinars page. There you’ll be able to register for any upcoming webinars and watch previously recorded ones. Make sure to follow Hootsuite on all your social channels to learn about upcoming events and webinars.
Yes, Hootsuite webinars are always free. Visit our webinars page to discover a treasure trove of upcoming and previously recorded free webinars on social media marketing, social selling, customer advocacy, brand protection, and more.
You’ll find tons of past webinars on our webinars page. Browse free webinars on topics such as social marketing, social selling, social customer advocacy, social ROI, and brand protection.
First things first: sign up for a Hootsuite account. If you’re a brand-new user, the dashboard will walk you through the setup process. If you’ve already connected an account, you can add another one by clicking on the add account button at the top of the dashboard home page.
Hootsuite Integrations
Hootsuite supports Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, WhatsApp, and Threads (beta).
Yes! Hootsuite is an official Instagram Partner.
Yes. You can use Hootsuite to create, schedule, and post Instagram feed posts, carousels, and Reels. Plus, thanks to Hootsuite Analytics, you can track your performance across the app and see exactly when to post to get the most engagement.
Note: You’ll need an Instagram Business account to access certain Hootsuite features. Don’t worry—it’s easy and free to turn your personal Instagram account into a Business account. Here’s how.
Yes. You can use Hootsuite to create, schedule, and post content on Facebook. Hootsuite also comes with in-depth Facebook analytics tools that show you how your content is performing and when to post on Facebook to get the most views. With Hootsuite, you can schedule and post to Facebook profiles, Pages, and groups.
Note: To schedule posts on Facebook Pages, you need to be a Page Admin or Editor. To schedule posts on Facebook groups, you need to be a group Admin.
Yes. You can use Hootsuite to post and schedule TikToks. It’s also a great tool to use if you want to see the best time to publish TikTok videos to increase your chances of going viral. With Hootsuite Analytics, you’ll be able to schedule your TikToks right alongside your other social media channels.
Note: To schedule TikToks with Hootsuite, you’ll need to have a TikTok Business account. It’s quick and free to convert your personal TikTok account into a business account. Here’s how.
Yes. You can use Hootsuite to post and schedule Tweets. Hootsuite also features Twitter analytics to help you track your performance across the app and see the best times to Tweet based on when your audience is the most active.
Yes. Hootsuite lets you post and schedule LinkedIn posts right alongside content for your other social media channels. See the best time to post on LinkedIn, promote your best-performing content, and use Hootsuite Analytics to measure your performance.
Yes. Hootsuite provides a simple way to manage YouTube content alongside your other social media channels. Use it to schedule YouTube videos to go live at the ideal time, to track your results across the platform, or to streamline your video approval workflow.
Yes. Hootsuite provides tools for managing Pinterest alongside all your other social media networks. Use it to create and schedule Pins on all your public, private, and shared boards.
Yes. Hootsuite has a Google My Business app that lets you manage your Google My Business page right from your Hootsuite dashboard. With Hootsuite, you can create posts, respond to reviews, and answer questions from a single tab.
While there is no Tripadvisor app for Hootsuite, you can still monitor and manage your Tripadvisor reviews from your dashboard if you have a ReviewTrackers account. Install the ReviewTrackers app to monitor dozens of review websites—including Tripadvisor—in one place.
Hootsuite does not currently integrate with Glassdoor. Have a suggestion about a feature you’d like to see on Hootsuite? Get in touch!
Hootsuite does not currently integrate with Facebook Shops. Have a suggestion about a feature you’d like to see on Hootsuite? Get in touch!
Yes! Turn social media help requests into support tickets by pairing Hootsuite and Zendesk. Install the Zendesk app for Hootsuite to view a stream of Zendesk Tickets within your Hootsuite dashboard and manage them in one place!
Yes. If you want to listen for brand mentions or relevant topics on Reddit, install the Reddit app for Hootsuite. This app allows you to set up a Stream to monitor brand mentions on thousands of subreddits so you never miss important conversations.
Yes. Hootsuite Advanced Analytics users can connect a Google Analytics account to better track the full funnel of customer journey. You'll be able to track which organic and paid content generates the best conversions on leads or revenue.
Yes. The Salesforce app for Hootsuite lets you turn social messages into sales leads. Use it to view opportunities, accounts, cases, and contact information right from the Hootsuite dashboard.
Yes. The monday.com app for Hootsuite helps you streamline your social media workflow across two of your most-used tools. It offers a two-way data sync so you can see your Hootsuite scheduled posts and change when posts are shared right from your monday.com tab.
Hootsuite does not currently integrate with Outlook. Have a suggestion about a feature you’d like to see on Hootsuite? Get in touch!
Yes. You can quickly link your social media management and CRM with the Hootsuite app for HubSpot. Create more effective marketing campaigns by adding social interaction data to HubSpot and refining segments to target the right audience.
Yes. Install the Slack for Hootsuite app to better collaborate with team members on your social media campaigns and strategies. The Slack app lets you grab posts, comments, and more to quickly share with your team in Slack.
Yes. You can connect your Dropbox account to Hootsuite to get easy access to your cloud-based files, images, and videos. With the Dropbox app for Hootsuite, you’ll be able to pull from your Dropbox to create high-quality social media posts from anywhere.
Yes. Forget saving all your files to your phone or computer. Cloudview, the Google Drive app for Hootsuite, lets you add images, files, and videos to your social media posts without ever leaving the Hootsuite dashboard.
Yes. If you already have a custom Bit.ly link shortener, a super admin can add it to Hootsuite for you and your team to use in Composer. To enable an external shortener, contact your customer success manager.
Psst… Did you know Hootsuite has its own URL shortener, Ow.ly, that provides in-depth insights on the traffic from your links? Give it a try!
Yes. Canva is built into Hootsuite Composer so it’s always right at your fingertips. Tap the Canva logo within Composer to discover hundreds of customizable templates. Add images or custom text to templates optimized for Instagram feed posts and Stories, Facebook ads and posts, Twitter posts, and more. Plus, with the Canva integration, you’ll be able to add files you’ve already created and saved natively in Canva.
Yes. The Shopview for Shopify app makes it a breeze to share products from your Shopify stores to social media. Shopview lets you see products from your shops right in Hootsuite Streams, share attractive product posts with images to all your social media channels, and much more.
Hootsuite works with hundreds of apps that help you enhance your social media presence, streamline your workflow, collaborate with team members, and combine important data. Explore the Hootsuite App Directory to find all your favorite tools ready to integrate with Hootsuite!
Hootsuite works with all of the major social media apps, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Pinterest.
Yes. All Hootsuite plans include publishing, scheduling, and drafting content for Threads.
Hootsuite Partners
The Hootsuite plan that’s best for your agency depends on a few things, including the number of user seats you need and the number of social accounts you manage. If your agency posts to more than 20 social media account for your clients, consider signing up for a Hootsuite Business or Enterprise plan.
Yes, we sure do! Hootsuite affiliates can earn a commission when they refer people who sign up for a Hootsuite Professional or Team Plan. For more information, and to submit a request to become an affiliate, check out the Hootsuite Affiliate Program page.
We sure do! If you want to learn how to make some extra cash promoting your favourite social media management tool, become a Hootsuite partner.