Why I chose Loomly over Hootsuite
It’s no secret that the world of social media management is pretty much dominated by Hootsuite and Hubspot. However, I have recently discovered Loomly- a great alternative!
As a new social media manager for a company that had not previously had any social media presence, I had months of planning ahead of me. So, I purchased a Hootsuite subscription and started working. Hootsuite was great initially! It allowed me to create and schedule posts, manage streams, and track topics on top of automatically publishing my posts (even to Instagram!)
However, I was left wishing that I could add collaborators with the ability to engage in an approval/editing process on the platform. In order to add this feature on Hootsuite I would need to upgrade from $29/mo to $129/mo which didn’t seem worth it for my situation. I would be adding so many features I did not need in order to manage a relatively simple social presence. Hootsuite is an amazing tool and I can see how managing a bigger brand could be made much easier with all the features included but, I simply didn’t need them.
So the search began. I started free trials with Buffer, Planable, Coschedule, and Loomly to begin testing how effectively these services would suite my needs. It became immediately evident that I would need to sacrifice automatic publishing to Instagram, but in the end I was okay with that. Obviously, many of these smaller social media management services end up being very similar. So, the decision came down to price, usability, and bonus features.
Bonus Features
Lets start with the fun part, bonus features! The elements that set Loomly apart from the competition are “approval workflow” and “tips/ideas.” Approval workflow was the main reason I was looking to switch from Hootsuite, and Loomly did it right! When you first start your Loomly account you are able to choose from fantastically pre-designed workflows which modify how your management will work. (Note: you can change your workflow at any time) They allow collaborators to be assigned roles such as Editors, Clients, Viewers, or Contributors. With some of the more expensive plans- you can even create custom roles!
What I was not expecting when I started using Loomly was the ideas/tips that they provide. As a social media manager, a constant flow of ideas is required but not necessarily possible… Loomly helps by providing a calendar of relevant content topics for example: holidays, including the silly ones as well as a stream of post ideas/topics. Furthermore, as you create your post or campaign, Loomly provides feedback on your chosen time of day, day of the week, content length, etc. in order to help optimize your post.
Overall, Loomly’s personal touches really make the difference here. With all the tips and ideas, it feels less like a service and more like another collaborator on my team!
Usability
In general, Loomly is pretty user friendly. When you first log in Loomly greets me with an always friendly “Happy Tuesday, Elizabeth!” To the right of the greeting a standard bar continues with new post, search, help, notifications, and profile buttons. Below that is the dashboard. Loomly packs their dashboard into a tight 6 panel layout. It displays your calendars, a “post overview” (which lists the amount of posts in each state: draft, pending approval, requires edits, approved, scheduled, published, passed, and failed), On the radar (displays next posts to go out), Post ideas, Quick Links, and Useful Info (Which seems to be a new feature that has not been added yet.)
From here, I almost always take a glance at the Post Overview, scroll through a few post ideas, and then click on my calendar. The calendar can be viewed in a classic calendar view or in a list which displays more content and information about each post. Now that we are in calendar, a new toolbar has popped up below the primary one. It packs a lot of features into one bar but displays them through clean icons which make it quick to navigate.
Ultimately I do sometimes miss the left menu of Hootsuite from which you can navigate anywhere on the whole site. But, the dashboard on Loomly is a great and their team did a good job of organizing features, creating icons, and making sure the site is not overwhelming.
Price
All Loomly plan details and pricing can be found at https://www.loomly.com/pricing
I chose the Base Plan at $25/mo which provides me with everything I need. I track my analytics through Google Analyticsand Search Console so I do not feel like I am missing out on Loomly’s analytics features. The one thing I miss from the trial period is custom roles. It was really convenient to be able to assign exactly what you want your collaborators to see and do. For my little team of two, it’s probably not worth the upgrade but, for a larger team it would definitely be a helpful feature!
