Hootsuite and Hubspot are two very popular and powerful tools for managing inbound and social media marketing activities. They have tools that overlap, and it can get confusing for a marketer shopping for the right tools for their team to know if they can get away with one or if they need the power of both tools combined.
The first thing to point out is that these tools are very different. Hubspot is an all-in-one marketing software system, and Hootsuite is a social media monitoring dashboard. We want to compare the features of the Hubspot social tool to the features of a Hootsuite Pro account and decide if marketers should invest in one, the other, or proceed with both tools.
Part of the Hubspot software is a kick-butt social media tool. This tool has some powerful features that allow you to easily share and schedule blog posts and landing pages all from within the same system. Since the social tool is integrated into Hubspot, all tweets, Facebook posts, and updates to LinkedIn Groups are all tied to campaigns. If someone from a LinkedIn Group clicks on a link to a landing page and downloads a piece of content, that contact information is tied to the social update. If that lead becomes a sale later on, it is easy to track that revenue right back to a social first touch point.
The Hootsuite dashboard allows a marketing team to build a social listening station. By adding keywords to streams, marketers and sales people can listen to the social conversation happening around their products, brand, and industry. The streams within Hootsuite presents this mass of information in a consumable and concise way. By building an organization in Hootsuite, teams can easily communicate within the dashboard and assign tasks like @mention replies and scheduling updates. An organization gives the whole team access to the company profiles that are necessary to do their job.
Each tool is good on its own, but combining the two can put a marketing team on the road to measurable success.