Hootsuite: Manage All Your Social Media In One Place

Social media has changed the world!

4.2 billion people currently use social media worldwide, up almost double from 2.07 billion in 2015 with the +13% annual growth in 2020.

As part of the Digital Marketing Seminar Series at George Brown College, we got the chance to talk with two representatives from Hootsuite, Alex Wedderburn and Shelby Dorfman.

The seminar was packed with a ton of information revolving around the world of social media marketing and its management. Both the speakers covered various topics including risk management, digital listening + ROI analytics & social media management.

Throughout this article, I will cover a few of my key learnings from the seminar.

So, how has social media evolved today?

Facebook, the largest social media platform in the world, has 2.4 billion users. Other social media platforms including Youtube and Whatsapp also have more than one billion users each. 

TikTok, for example, launched in September 2016 and by mid-2018 it had already reached half a billion users. To put this in perspective: TikTok gained on average about 20 million new users per month over this period.

I've learned that in today’s competitive marketplace, harnessing the power of social media is a must to expand your business and your brand.

It’s no surprise that engaging with your followers on social media is crucial to success.

But to stand out from the crowd, companies have focused on building a relationship with their potential customers based on meeting their needs and wants.

What are the best ways to engage social media users?

• Talk about your topic (Not Just Your Brand)
• Share other people’s content.
• Build a strong relationship with the users.
• Measure your success with analytics tools like Hootsuite.

Between building effective strategies and overseeing multiple social media accounts, you need to find new opportunities for marketing growth and report on your performance, this is where social media management kicks in.

What Is Social Media Management?

It is the process of managing your online presence on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter by creating, publishing, and analyzing content you post.

Hootsuite is one of the top social media management and marketing tools available. It integrates with multiple social media accounts (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Youtube, and LinkedIn)

Hootsuite has an open ecosystem with more than 200+ partners by integrating social media initiatives into existing publishing, CRM, analytics, reputation, and collaboration solutions, and countless tools to help brands work smarter.

The Centre of Your Social Communication Structure

In the conversation with Alex, he described the importance of social communication infrastructure and the key to the success on social are:

• Listen
• Learn
• Optimize
• Repeat

Hootsuite with the help of these tools offers brands to achieve success across all the various social media platforms and stay ahead of the competition in the market.

The Raptors Case Study

At the end of the session, we were divided into break-out rooms to discuss a case study on the Toronto Raptors and build a social media campaign for an upcoming contest. My biggest learning from this activity was to work in a team and creatively come up with a campaign that resonates with the brand Raptors has built around the team and highlight the key factors on social media to boost the contest for the upcoming championship final.

Questions I prepared for the speakers

Importance of social media in today's world of marketing?

What if the one-day government decides to ban major social media platforms due to piracy violations?

The second question comes to my mind after hearing the tussle between India and social media giants Facebook, Twitter and Instagram which may face a ban in India if they do not comply with the new Intermediary Guidelines.

Final Thoughts

It was a wonderful experience learning about social media management and the Hootsuite platform from both speakers.

“Building a successful brand isn’t just about ROI, Its about building authentic relationship with people”

- Ryan Holmes, Chairman and Co-founder at Hootsuite

Social media today plays the most vital part in brands marketing efforts to reach its potential customers and no matter what industry your business is in, social media offers the opportunity to establish your brand as a thought leader—the go-to source for information on topics related to your niche. In terms of career options, I have been working as a social media coordinator for AQ Network for the past year.

Working in social media builds a broad range of transferable skills. Research, analytics, creativity and communication all provide strong foundations for careers in social media.

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