Image of Innovators from BC Business

Continuing on with the News Round-up catch up … in late April, Invoke Media / HootSuite were listed at #5 in BC Business Magazine’s 2010 Guide to Innovation which included B.C.’s 20 best companies at executing world-changing technology. The Invoke team covered the event in the post: Breaking The Top 5: Invoke & HootSuite recognized as innovators.

Certainly we’re pleased to share the list from our home province with companies in diverse industries from urban development, space exploration, pollsters, computer chip makers, citizen news aggregation, e-commerce, alternative fuels, and global auctioneers.

Danielle Egan wrote an in-depth piece after an interview with CEO Ryan Holmes and members of the HootSuite Board of Directors. She chronicles our relationship with founding agency Invoke and  the big picture of the changing paradigms of media creation. Here are a few snippets:

Within six months of launching, HootSuite was the app of choice for 100,000 tweeters, and a year later it had received numerous awards. The company has adapted it for LinkedIn, Wordpress and Facebook’s estimated 350 million users, as well as a mobile app for iPhone. HootSuite now has 400,000 users including Disney, Fox, the U.S. Army and Dell, along with thousands of individuals from power-bloggers to amateurs.

Hear Ryan Holmes and other BC innovators discuss other innovators at the award gala

“Today everyone is a media channel,” says Holmes, who starts each day groping for his iPhone and uses words like “truthiness” and “stickiness” when describing effective social media brands and technologies. “Corporations need tools to deal with that constant stream of information quickly.”

Of course, like Twitter and Facebook, HootSuite is feeling the pressure to monetize. Until recently it was bankrolled by Invoke Media, which Holmes co-founded in 2000, but this past January HootSuite became an independent company. That’s when HootSuite received $1.9 million in financing from venture-capital firms including Hearst Interactive and Blumberg Capital (Holmes became the new company’s CEO, while maintaining his stake and position with Invoke). HootSuite aims to turn a profit by mid-2010, with new apps and mobile partnerships in the pipeline and plans to charge corporate users a nominal fee.

Members of HootSuite Media Inc.’s Board of Directors add their comments saying:

“Hootsuite will still be the fastest, cheapest and easiest way to get a grip on disruptive mass communication platforms like Twitter and Facebook,” says investor David Blumberg, the 50-year-old managing partner of Blumberg Capital and a specialist in social media technologies, who compares his pre-HootSuite Twitter experiences to “drinking from a fire hose.” By contrast, “Hootsuite filters that torrent of information and makes it useful whether you’re an individual or a corporation.”

Tools like Twitter have levelled the playing field, says Blumberg, who notes that as the debate on social media’s stickiness percolates, the pace and clout of online communities accelerates. “Younger generations live and swim in this soup. It has smashed traditional hierarchies. Corporations can’t hide out like dictators. They have to dive in.” Whether brands sink or swim, HootSuite is clearly riding the wave.

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Plenty going on here at HootSuite HQ but before we lose track, we’re continuing on with the News Round-up catch-up fest with a variety of remarks, reviews, accolades and anecdotes from magazine, websites, vidcast and lists. Enjoy and stay tuned for more announcements coming shortly.

It’s a Good Thing

Min Online (a “Media Industry Newsletter: Covering Magazines for 60 Years”) announced their Best of the Web Award Winners including Tweeter of the Year – Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia’s eponymous spokeswoman – Martha Stewart.

We mention this because The Martha Show use HootSuite to share musing with their audience and we think that is as tasty as homemade pie.

Here’s a snippet from Min’s article:

Not only is Martha Stewart far and away the magazine industry’s highest profile tweeter, her embrace of the microblogging platform early in its lifecycle helped Twitter itself break out of its niche. If Martha can bake, sew, garden, host a TV show, run a media empire and post multiple tweets a day, then so can the rest of us.

Made for Teams

Sport Marketing 2.0’s sports-centric vidcast, “The Row Show” talked about HootSuite while lounging on couches with laptops/iPads and coffee. After a smattering of interesting tech industry news, they give a comprehensive overview of features of the HootSuite’s web and mobile versions including real-world scenarios about how to utilize the tools with your team – for sports, biz or what have you. They even give a shout-out for the webinars. Thanks guys!

“Essential” Says Mashable

We’re always pleased when the uber-useful blog Mashable mentions us. This time Christina Warren includes HootSuite in a list of 10 Essential Social Media Tools for B2B Marketers:

HootSuite is a great tool not only for managing multiple Twitter accounts (or allowing multiple users access to an account), but also for managing multiple social networks. In November, HootSuite introduced support for LinkedIn and Facebook. HootSuite also now supports WordPress blogs, which works great if you want to have a way to schedule posts and messages to multiple networks. HootSuite also supports alerts and stats tracking. HootSuite is free.

Charted Up

Jamie Beckland wrote a comprehensive review of Twitter tools for businesses in The Four Best Social Media Management Platforms for Corporate Marketers. He compares HootSuite alongside CoTweet, SocialOomph and Spredfast. Under the “good” column, he mentions HootSuite’s “Great team permissions; stream views” and points out it’s best-suited for “cross-departmental teams” in his CC-licensed chart.

Top 10 Robots

Another HootSuite for Android review worth noting comes from Drew Alam of Top10.com in the aptly-named Top 10 Android apps of the year so far, ergo:

Hootsuite is a robust Twitter client for professional users. It allows you to manage multiple Twitter accounts, schedule tweets in advance and track statistics to measure the success of your tweets.

One of the unique features of this app is that you can create custom streams for specific tags and searches, which will display tweets matching those keywords – making keeping track of important topics a breeze.

Evolving URL Tools

Evolutionary Designs adds their thoughts in Hootsuite Adds New URL Shortener Options:

Although I haven’t had much time to test this new feature, I will be testing this overt he next few days to see if Ow.ly works better and I get more clicks using it now that they removed the social bar from it.

That’ll do for this News Round-up but more in the queue to share in between announcements of the new feature releases and tips and tricks for making the most of HootSuite. Need more HootSuite news? Consider following social bookmarks via Delicious.com/HootSuite and/or @hootwatch.

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A wee bit old but while we’re catching up on News Round-ups over the next few days, here’s an artifact from SXSWi back in March.

This time it’s a video interview with CEO Ryan Holmes with Folk Media. Ryan shares some insider info about how we build and promote HootSuite, the channels we use to spread the brand, and what we measure to gauge success.

Take a look and be sure to answer host Nichole Kelly’s question:

After you watch the video leave a comment below and let us know which category Ryan fits in and why…
1) Houdini – all smoke and mirrors
2) Miami Vice – definitely trendsetting
3) CSI – Crime Scene Investigator – so smart with social media measurement that NOTHING gets by.

Note: I chose 3) CSI cause i know (almost) no mention of “HootSuite” slips by on Twitter, web, or elsewhere thanks to a listening dashboard of feeds which diligently harvests mentions from the outer reaches of the Internet.

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Many customer service groups, support desks, and collaborative teams depend on social networks as a primary way to manage requests. With HootSuite’s new assignment feature, these teams can ensure all messages are handled quickly and efficiently by the correct personnel. When implemented, these tools will help teams assist customers and clients more quickly, more accurately, and with less redundancy.

Assign-ability

With the new tools, updates are quickly assigned to team members — along with a note if needed — plus responses are tracked for accuracy from a single view. Additionally, teams stay coordinated with shared columns, and responding is even easier with shared Drafts. Teams can share their workload and email updates to others — all without leaving the HootSuite social media dashboard.

Ready to Work

Imagine a scenario where hundreds of messages come in daily via a company’s multiple Twitter and Facebook accounts — some updates are comments or kudos, some are complaints, and others pertain to specific requests or projects. However, the one common trait is that each requires follow-up of some kind. The manager knows that some messages need a specific response, others require further investigation, while others need to be logged for sentiment analysis.

Using HootSuite, the team manager easily assigns the messages to the appropriate team member — perhaps one person manages support requests, another manages complaints, and someone else offers thanks for kind words. The messages are quickly answered by the team, who sees all their assignments in a single view rather than sorting through unfiltered columns and possibly providing redundant responses. Occasionally, a team member knows that a colleague could better handle the request, so she forwards the assignment to him with a explanatory note.

Meanwhile, the team manager keeps an eye on responses to ensure quality and to monitor how the team is performing. The team manager also notices the consistent reply messaging thanks to a shared Draft view, and even takes a moment to forward a few interesting updates to executives via email — all from within HootSuite.

The manager sends a team invitation to a new employee, granting him access to post from a few social network accounts. Starting at the “Launch” button, inviting a new user to the team only takes a moment. The new employee will be up to speed quickly, since columns are now shareable within the team.

The happy manager then sits back to admire the efficiency of the team’s collaboration and realizes these tools provide more time to pursue new initiatives — resulting in happier teams and happier customers.

The best part is, all this is possible and ready to go now using HootSuite.

Social Media Springboard

HootSuite’s new Launch Button puts all your account management and team management tools in one convenient new location. Click Launch Button in the lower-right of your Dashboard to quickly access your account settings, manage your team, view your assignments, drill down into your clickthrough stats, or jump back into your Streams to continue monitoring your brand.

Meet Your New Tools

• Message Assignment — Delegate Twitter and Facebook updates to team members via a pull-down menu
• Message Annotations — Add notes to the assigned messages to provide context or instructions
• Assignment Forwarding — Not the correct department? Re-assign a message to a colleague to ensure accurate reply
• Assignment Tracking — Quick view of a message’s status, including which are resolved, handed-off, or outstanding
• Shared Columns — Collaborate with team members by viewing the same set of columns and messages
• Shared Drafts — Utilize pre-written responses and share with your team to ensure consistency and efficiency
• Forward Updates by Email — Share messages outside of the team by forwarding to anyone by email
• New Launch Button — All options, settings, and tools are available from a single starting place for your convenience

Resources

Media kit: http://blog.hootsuite.com/media
Press release: http://blog.hootsuite.com/hootsuite-adds-assignments

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