Started in 2008 by Ryan Holmes, Hootsuite is a social media management program. It has become a favourite tool for posting and monitoring social media content, plus it provides social listening, enabling brands to track brand sentiment. Holmes was part of an ad agency that needed a tool to manage its clients' social media. As the agency couldn't find a program to suit it, it created its own which became known as Hootsuite. Hootsuite groups together your different social media networks, so you can monitor them all at the same time. With its headquarters in Vancouver, Canada, Hootsuite has over 1,500 employees in Australia, the USA, Mexico and across Europe (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Romania, Spain, UK). The estimated annual revenue is over $400m. The program is used by nearly 20 million companies worldwide, including Dominos (pizzas), Melia (hotels) and Longchamp (luxury goods). One of the reasons for its success is the integration as the program connects to many third-party tools including: (Continued) Social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin Online tools such as Canva (image creation), Adobe stock images Website programs such as Magento, Shopify, WooCommerce Integration means that companies need fewer systems to manage and this is an area where the Hootsuite software developers have excelled. There are so many integrations with third-party tools that they have a dedicated website (apps.hootsuite.com) that lists what's available. Hootsuite offers a free starter plan which provides basic monitoring and scheduling of social media content. Reporting is included in the Professional, Team, Business and Enterprise accounts, allowing results to be viewed on a dashboard: Customer volume: Number related to content, such as views Customer value: Engagement, such as the mentions, comments and tags for one brand account or many Customer value and enthusiasm: Sentiment analysis (see Key Term in Chapter 5) The reports provide insights based on the data and indicate the best times to post, when great- est engagement will be achieved. Although there are dashboards online, there is the ability to export the data to Excel files which enables greater longitudinal and comparative analysis. The program is available on the desktop and the app. In an average month, there are around 30,000 downloads of the app. To encourage many people to learn more about the program, Hootsuite has a freemium version. So you can try it to see if you like it and keep the free version if you're a small business (or a student trying it out!). One industry analyst on the Techcrunch website commented: 'One challenge that Hoot- suite has had over the years has been the company's focus on the freemium model, and how to convert its initially non-paying users into paying tiers with more premium offerings. This is a competitive marketplace with many new companies entering the space and offering different features (search online for social media dashboard to see the latest list) but Hootsuite is a trusted brand with perhaps more to offer. Case questions 0 What measures would you take to convert more of the freemium members to paying members? Hootsuite offers integration with many third-party apps. Which apps do you believe are critical to integrate for an organisation that wants to better connect its marketing tools? How would you assess which monitoring and reporting system to use for your univer- sity? What elements would be included in your assessment criteria?