All posts by daveo

What Don’t You Know About Hootsuite? via The Marketing Mentress

What Don’t You Know About Hootsuite?

Aug 1, 2011

Dave Olson is the Community Marketing Director for social media dashboard maker HootSuite. Working in the internet space since 1996, Dave’s experience includes ISP’s, e-commerce, open source web communities, movie promotion, a green business directory and an alternative accreditation program during the Vancouver Olympics. A graduate of Evergreen College in Inter-disciplinary Studies, he frequently presents at events and to the media discussion technology, art, and culture. After living and traveling worldwide, Dave now enjoys exploring his local North Vancouver mountains and forests.

We discuss how Hootsuite was a huge asset to getting the word out about the Egyptian uprisings in January. That country had set up roadblocks to Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. However, with the use of Hootsuite and all its assets, the messages were broadcast in spite of the roadblocks the Egyptian Government tried to set up on the internet.

Hootsuite also was a big part of helping with the Japanese Earthquakes this year. You will find out how this all happened in this inspiring interview with Dave Olson.

Source: The Marketing Mentress » What Don’t You Know About Hootsuite? Dave Olson

HootSuite’s Dave Olson draws a crowd of newspaper editors in New Orleans via Georgia Straight

HootSuite’s Dave Olson draws a crowd of newspaper editors in New Orleans

by Charlie Smith on July 21st, 2011

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 At a convention in New Orleans, Dave Olson talked about hashtags, including those used by supporters of the Egyptian revolution.

Sometimes, you have to make it big elsewhere before you start getting noticed in your hometown.

That’s what Dave Olson, community marketing director for Vancouver-based HootSuite, said with a smile when I ran into him today in New Orleans.

He was there to give a presentation on social media at the annual convention of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. Several in the room were newspaper editors.

He told the audience that it took two years before HootSuite had one million people signed up to its social-media-dashboard service. The next million signed up in seven months.

HootSuite, a privately owned company based in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, attracted global attention during the Egyptian uprising when then-dictator Hosni Mubarak blocked Twitter and Facebook.

Rebels were still able to get messages out through HootSuite. This prompted Olson to remark that for 36 glorious hours, his company became the voice of the revolution. He quickly mentioned that it also became the voice of the counterrevolution.

The company has also attracted celebrity users, including President Barack Obama, Oprah, and Martha Stewart, according to Olson.

“Christiane Amanpour live-tweeted through HootSuite,” he stated.

After his company created an infographic, the Voice of America called and asked if it could be translated into Farsi.

That was followed by calls from the U.S. State Department andNational Geographic.

He said the greatest number of tweets per second came when Japan won the Women’s World Cup. Ranking number two was the massive Japanese earthquake earlier this year.

“Japan is our number two market,” Olson noted. Referring to his company’s mascot, he added: “Some of it is attributable to the fact that we have a really cute owl.”

Follow Charlie Smith on Twitter at twitter.com/csmithstraight.

Source: HootSuite’s Dave Olson draws a crowd of newspaper editors in New Orleans | Georgia Straight Vancouver’s News & Entertainment Weekly

HootSuite: A software-as-a-service success story via The Next Web

Source: HootSuite: A software-as-a-service success story By Mike Vardy,  July 6, 2011

HootSuite may just be a Twitter client to some, but there’s no denying that its software-as-a-service model as served it and its users well.

Earlier this week, The Next Web covered HootSuite’s achievement of reaching the 2 million user milestone. Considering that the Vancouver-based company has stood the test of time while other social media and Twitter clients have either sold out or bowed out, this is a remarkable accomplishment. But there’s a lot more to HootSuite’s success than just being a great Twitter client; HootSuite’s rise is a testament to how a great idea that stays the course can reach great heights. And the heights it has reached compares with that of some pretty stellar companies that are also part of the software-as-a-service/freemium business realm.

HootSuite has seen growth to date that is on a similar trajectory to the widely popular Evernote, Yammer and Dropbox. The data below outlining Evernote’s, Yammer’s and HootSuite’s rise to 2 million users illustrates that there is significant market success of SaaS tools and Freemium business models.

 

Evernote and Dropbox have continued to grow rapidly after the 2 million user mark, and HootSutie shows definite signs of trending in the same manner. International growth is a key contributor to HootSuite’s user base, having sped this via community building, outreach and crowd-sourced translation.

HootSuite’s reach and trends (courtesy of Alexa) also rank with that of the aforementioned companies, as well as Dropbox and SalesForce, other examples of business using the SaaS and Freemium models:

Also worth noting is the relative growth rate of users on each of these services:

HootSuite beta Launch: December 2009
HootSuite 1 Million: November 2010
HootSuite 2 Million: June 2011

Evernote Launch: June 2008
Evernote 1 Million: May 2009
Evernote 2 Million: December 2009

Yammer Launch: September 2008
Yammer 1 Million: July 2010
Yammer 2 Million: Feb 2011

Dropbox Launch: April 2008
Dropbox 1 Million: May 2009
Dropbox 2 Million: Sept 2009

While the data clearly shows that SaaS and Freemium models are fast becoming a widely used solution for many users, it also foreshadows something for HootSuite in particular: it may be the only third-party social media client left standing in the future because of how it has done — and continues to do — business.

Hootsuite Celebrates Japan 日本 Anniversary (with message from CEO Ryan Holmes and Owly), 2011

A spontaneous video to recap the localization activities done for Japan by HootSuite led by Dave Olson including: app translation, customer support system, social media channels, kei-teinphone version, mixi app integration, Owly stickers – and a visit by the CEO to Japan to meet with companies, partners, ambassadors and media.