How To Get Your Customers Raving About You Building an Advocate Community for Your Brand

Dan Spicer @Hootsuite

Dan Spicer

Community Lead, EMEA, Hootsuite

@DanSpicer

#CvHNY

Hootsuite

11M+ Users

worldwide

1600+ Enterprise Customers

744 out of the

Fortune 1000

#CvHNY

#CvHNY

#CvHNY

2014/15

2012

2013

Hootsuite Vision

Revolutionize Communications via Social

Community Vision Be the most loved brand in social media by building lasting relationships with our users and inspiring Hootsuite fans

around the World

just 20% of brands use advocate and experts programs in their marketing

YET…

*MarketingCharts2014

The State Of Customer Experience, Management, 2013

Companies view customer experience as one of their top priorities

Use customer experiences as a

competitive differentiator

92%

© 2014 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

60%

Yet, few companies deliver an outstanding experience

© 2014 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

53%

1%

1%

42% 37%

11%

Very Poor (0 to 54)

Poor (55 to 64)

OK (65 to 74)

Good (75 to 84)

Excellent (85+)

Source: January 121, 2014, “The Customer Experience Index, 2014” Forrester report

How Do We Adapt?

Brand Ambassadors 875 Ambassadors in 67 countries

Being a Hootsuite Ambassador makes you part of a growing global community. Regardless of what country you are in, each local Hootsuite community is built by the same grassroots efforts that has made them such a huge success. - Danielle Hatfield -Hootsuite Ambassador, North Carolina

7%

22%

Ambassador Highlights

Steps Toward Building An Advocate Community

Purpose

Utilise a set of targeting techniques to identify fans/super-fans in order to build/grow an advocate community

Develop a feedback loop/program and utilise advocate knowledge to improve brand/product/service

Layer in offline initiatives to complement online activities (targeted to specific shared interests/values within the community)

Define a purpose and a set of clear objectives for advocates

Implement long-term actions (gamification, exclusivity options, evergreen content etc.) to create a sustainable community

Feedback

Action

Offline

Identify

1 Define the purpose

Ambassadors Increase our Global Reach

Amplification Product releases shared with ambassadors to drive 200% more engagement & reviews

Insights Share regional insights, offer product feedback and support initiatives in 15 languages

Support Engage and support our 15,000 registered customers in the Support Forum with 80% response rate

Events Drive localisation efforts by hosting 200 events

Empower engaged users to act as brand advocates to help build and grow Hootsuite’s global community

Measuring Success

Engagement

Advocacy

Community Health

●  Volume of conversations, sentiment, SOV ●  User-generated content posts and shares ●  Event attendance in target cities & customer conversion

●  Participation in Community Forum ●  Community self-solve rate ●  Active follower base to our social channels

●  # of Ambassadors in key local markets ●  Ambassador engagement and participation in challenges ●  Positive sentiment conversations and content sharing

2 Identify your best customers

Focus on customers, not influencers

© 2014 HootSuite Media Inc

Consume

Curate

Create

90-9-1

TIP

TIP

3 Integrate rituals in community life

TIP

Ambassador Growth

.

Hootsuite Community Support Forum

●  18,000 HS customers signed into the Community Forum

●  Nearly 11,000 active discussions

●  70,000 unique pageviews per month

●  Ambassadors respond to 41% of support queries

4 Merge offline & promote cyclic events, like meetups and conferences

67% of 2014 Hootups led by Hootsuite Ambassadors

15,780 2014 attendees

57 participating countries

250+ 2014 Hootups

Steps to establishing our Hootup presence •  Identify existing presence in key markets - #LandAndExpand

•  Find advocates to lead activities and evangelise for brand

•  Establish an incentive program for organisers

•  Confirm activity format and relevant content for attendees

•  Develop repeatable and scalable activity model (consider frequency, bandwidth, budgets, and grassroots efforts)

•  Start in one region and expand over time

2014 Attendee Types

13% of prospects in 2014 Hootups converted to Hootsuite customers.

5 Show Your Listening - #FeedbackLoop

TIP

TIP

TIP

Beta test our new mobile app!

The Outcome: Engaged Advocates Who Review Our Product

●  Over 200+ blog posts written by our ambassadors in Q3/4

●  10% of app reviews on iTunes contributed by Ambs.

●  Total Twitter reach of #HootAmb: 4.5 million!

02  

01   03

Deepen Customer Profiles Progressive profiling to learn more and more about your customers over time. Collaborate and combine meaningful data from existing business systems to complete customer segment profiles.

Engaging Community Experiences

Distribution of localised and highly target content relevant to

your target audiences Better Insight for Better Business Decisions Increased research efficiency + Long-term relationships with customers and insights built over time and fed back into your go-to-market strategy.

Advocate Insight Drives Smarter Business Decisions

Smarter Business Decisions

Key Takeaways •  Define a clear purpose and set of objectives for advocates •  Target the super-user/super-fan (not the ‘influencer’) to launch

your advocate community •  Focus on long-term, repeatable actions to create a sustainable

community •  Layer in offline initiatives aligned with shared interests of the

advocate community (education, inspiration, entertainment) •  Develop a feedback loop and adjust strategy on-going

Hootsuite University

https://learn.hootsuite.com/

http://signup.hootsuite.com/ambassador/ Hootsuite Ambassador Program

@hootsuite

/hootsuite

/company/hootsuite

/+hootsuite

Want To Learn More? Want To Learn More?

Thank You! Dan Spicer

Let’s be friends ☺ -> @DanSpicer