Get started with Hootsuite

You can use Hootsuite to publish and promote content on social media, increase brand awareness, engage with your audience, and generate leads. With Hootsuite, you can manage all of your social accounts, across different social networks, in one place.

Choose a plan

Hootsuite offers flexible pricing and several plan options to meet your needs. Consider the number of social accounts you want to manage, the average number of posts you'll publish, and whether you'll work with a team. The plan you choose determines your allowances for these tasks. Higher-level plans offer access to more powerful features, such as content campaigns and advanced metrics. Learn more about our plan offerings.

Start a trial or request a demo

After deciding on a plan, you can sign up for a free 30-day trial or request a demo.

• Professional and Team plans - Select Free 30-Day Trial to start your one time free trial. You can change your Hootsuite trial to a different paid plan at any time during your trial period. You can delete your account within 30 days to avoid any charges. We'll send you an email reminder before the end of your trial. 
• Business and Enterprise plans - Select Request a Demo. After you fill out a two-step form, a Hootsuite team member will contact you to discuss your needs and set up your plan.

For information on changing plans, managing billing, or deleting your account, see Manage your Hootsuite plan and account.

Sign in to Hootsuite and visit your home page

Sign in to hootsuite.com and go to your Hootsuite home page to see what's new at Hootsuite, check your progress, and act on your personalized recommendations.

Connect your social accounts

The first time you sign in, Hootsuite prompts you to connect your social accounts and set permissions. The number of social accounts you can add depends on your plan type, but we recommend adding at least two or three. As an example, an Instagram account, a Twitter account, and a Facebook Page make up a total of three social accounts.

For detailed information and a short video about connecting social accounts, see Add a social account to Hootsuite.

Create, schedule, and publish your content

You can create, schedule, and publish your social media content to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, Pinterest, and YouTube from one place at the same time.

To get started, select Composer, and then select an option.

Select your social accounts, and then create your post. In addition to text, you can include mentions or tags, links, images, videos, GIFs, emoji, and hashtags.

As you compose your post, you can preview how it will look on the right. When you're ready, you can publish it, save it as a draft, or schedule it for later.

For more information, see:

• Create and publish posts
• Create engaging and effective social media content
• Save and edit drafts
• Schedule a post

View and manage your scheduled posts in a calendar

To view or manage your scheduled content, go to Planner . You can create new posts and organize, edit, or delete existing posts right from the calendar.

• Review and manage your scheduled content in a list view, or a weekly or monthly calendar view. Select a time block in the calendar to create new content to publish at that selected time.
• Work on draft posts from a list of all drafts, or view drafts with scheduled dates alongside your other scheduled content in the calendar.

Monitor and engage with social accounts using streams

Hootsuite streams are feeds that display the content from your connected social accounts and let you take part in industry conversations. You can use streams to monitor activity across all of your accounts; engage with your audience; and monitor keywords, topics, hashtags, brand mentions, and competitors in one place.

After you've connected your social accounts to Hootsuite, you can go to Streams and select Add Stream to create a new stream. To organize or categorize your streams, add boards by selecting New board and choosing a stream type.

Create a few boards and streams and scroll through them to see what works best for you. You can easily create and delete streams, so don't be afraid to explore.

• To learn more about the experience of adding streams, see Your first boards and streams.
• To learn about using boards, see Use boards to organize your streams.

Here are a few other things you can do with streams:

• Engage with your audience in Streams
• Share stream content
• Use boards to organize your streams
• Edit or delete published content in Streams

Review your results with Analytics

Discover which social networks work best for your brand as well as which types of posts grab attention, drive engagement, and grow your audience with Hootsuite Analytics . You can review your top performing posts in Analytics or on your Hootsuite home page . Learn more about Analytics in Hootsuite.

Next steps

Here are some great ways to get even more out of Hootsuite and advance your Hootsuite knowledge.

Extend your Hootsuite functionality with apps

Visit Hootsuite Apps to select from a library of free and third-party apps developed to increase your productivity with Hootsuite.

Select My profile , and then select Install Hootsuite apps to explore the app library.

For more information, see:

• Install or uninstall apps
• Popular apps

Manage social media on the go with Hootsuite mobile

Download Hootsuite mobile apps for iPhone, iPad, and Android from your device's app store to manage your social media on the go. For more information, see Hootsuite Mobile Apps.

Advance your skills with Hootsuite Academy

Master new social media skills and expand your Hootsuite knowledge with free online courses. Visit Hootsuite Academy to explore our courses and certification options.