TweetDeck vs. HootSuite: The Similarities and Differences

TweetDeck and HootSuite thank you for being amazing and making my life easier. I have no idea why it took me this long to give in. I've always seen people using these two services but thought it was irrelevant and a waste of time. Little did I know that it could change my life!

 

These two services allows you to manage your twitter, @mentions, direct messages, your LinkedIn and Facebook profile. I've navigated through both services and came up with some similarities and differences :) 

Layout: 

Both TweetDeck and HootSuite have similar layout in the sense that they both offer separate columns on the dashboard to manage your messages, @mentions, streams, #hashtags etc.  

Layout of HootSuite and TweetDeck

However, HootSuite seems very intimidating at first because there is a lot more icons and features in contrast to TweetDeck. TweetDeck is much easier on the eye. 

TweetDeck has a little pop up function every time a new tweet is posted , so that you can constantly stay updated. I found this function really cool as I would type my assignments, keep TweetDeck open and just look over to see the new updates. 

However, with HootSuite you constantly have to "refresh stream" in order to see new updates. 

Social media networks: 

HootSuite can be integrated with Facebook profiles/pages/groups, Twitter, Google+ pages, LinkedIn profiles/groups/companies, Foursquare, WordPress, MySpace, and Mixi accounts. Although Hootsuite can connect to many more social networks than Tweetdeck can, a free account with HootSuite will only allow you to have up to five social profiles. You need to upgrade to a Pro account if you need to manage more than five profiles.

TweetDeck is limited in this sense. I was not able to connect my Facebook and LinkedIn profile to TweetDeck. However, with HootSuite it was much easier. All I did was click on the "Add Social Network" button on the top right and a list of social networks appeared that I could add. I could choose from Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Foursquare, WordPress, MySpace and mixi

One of the primary benefits of HootSuite, is that it is a web-based application, which means there is no need to download anything onto your computer. This feature makes it much easier for different people to use it on multiple computers.

The desktop application for TweetDeck needs to be downloaded and cannot be used on multiple computers unless it is downloaded on each and every computer.

Personally, TweetDeck was much easier at first but now that I have explored HootSuite I think I will use it more as there are more features to play around with!