Tighter Regulations Could Render Hootsuite Dead

You’ve heard of the Facebook Data Breach, the biggest scandal in current news.

In 2013, Cambridge Analytica researcher Aleksandr Kogan created a personality test launched through Facebook. Around 300,000 people signed up to this test and agreed to giving their information – however Kogan gathered information from user’s entire networks of friends, unknowingly to them, and was able to see details of around 87 million users. This data was used to tailor campaigns to different target users and influence who they voted for in the US election, supported by Donald Trump’s campaign. Mark Zuckerberg discovered this was happening in 2015 and his failure to warn users of how their data had been stolen and misused has landed him at the front and centre of a highly publicised and fiery scandal.

In lieu of this data breach, Facebook has tightened their restrictions in an attempt to regain the public’s trust and frantically demonstrate a change in their behaviour. This has impacted on how their partner Hootsuite, a social media marketers right hand, is able to access data. On the 5th of April, Hootsuite released a list as long as Zuckerberg’s Senate hearing that detailed how these changes have impacted Facebook and Instagram. So, what does this mean for Hootsuite’s 16 million customers?

Hootsuite was once renowned for allowing its customers to stay organised, see conversations easily and make highly personal connections through their online platforms. With the changes now in place, search streams used to find social activity around specific keywords, users and locations will no longer display identifiable user information such as their username or profile picture. This means that businesses can no longer hear or see who’s saying what about their brand, competitors and their industry. What’s more is that Hootsuite doesn’t support mentioning Instagram users, Facebook pages or Facebook users in posts, liking or commenting on other Instagram profiles, meaning businesses cannot start or continue a conversation with prospective customers. Hootsuite is redundant, and it is now up to businesses to go out and find where these conversations are happening and make connections. Without Hootsuite’s ability to connect businesses to their customers on social media they have lost their core USP and attraction.

Responding to clients and leads quickly is crucial for business opportunities, which is sometimes not possible if you’re out of office, in a meeting or too busy to respond to a situation immediately. Hootsuite had you covered through their messaging functions, such as being able to redirect social messaging to the appropriate person in a different department be it customer service, sales, public relations and more. Devastatingly, the new Hootsuite will no longer support message streams for Facebook pages and automation and assignments for private messages is no longer available either. Businesses will miss being able to reap the time saving benefits and efficiency of this, and this aspect will require time and careful management of a staff member to ensure messages are being responded to timely and to prevent any messages from being missed.

Amidst the list of restrictions, Hootsuite left one privilege that remains for Instagram Business profiles; they can still comment on their own Instagram posts… We are left unconvinced that it is worth paying the monthly fees to still be able to comment on your own posts.