Hootsuite is one of the oldest and largest social media management platforms, used by millions of individuals and organizations to schedule posts, monitor conversations, and manage multiple social media accounts from a single dashboard. Ryan Holmes founded it in 2008 in Vancouver, originally under the name BrightKit.
The platform supports scheduling and publishing across Instagram, Facebook, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, and Pinterest. Its grid-based calendar view was one of the first tools to give social media managers a clear overview of upcoming content across all channels.
Hootsuite Streams let you monitor brand mentions, hashtags, keywords, and competitor activity in real time — organized into customizable columns. The analytics dashboard aggregates performance metrics across platforms, and the Hootsuite Insights tool (powered by Brandwatch) provides deeper social listening capabilities.
The company has gone through significant transitions. After reaching “unicorn” status with a $750 million valuation, Hootsuite went through layoffs in 2022 and 2023, and CEO Tom Keiser departed. The company was acquired by Informa in 2024 for a reported $200 million — a fraction of its peak valuation.
Despite the corporate turbulence, Hootsuite remains widely used. It claims over 18 million users, though the majority are on free or lower-tier plans. Enterprise clients use the platform for team collaboration features, approval workflows, and compliance controls that matter in regulated industries. Competition from Sprout Social, Buffer, and Later has intensified, but Hootsuite’s brand recognition and deep integrations keep it relevant.
