02 May 2023 Aspire to Tech – Hootsuite
Tell me about your company. When were you founded? What do you do? And where are you located?
Hootsuite has led the social media space since 2008. It was founded out of the need our founder saw for his agency, so it was really a needs-based birth. Since then, social media has just been a rocket engine of online culture, connectivity, and now commerce as well. So naturally, that’s where you go to meet your customers, get information, and download insights that maybe your competitors or industry users don’t have. Hootsuite is a one-stop-shop for everything from marketing and engagement tools to AI powered social commerce, and customer care.
We are headquartered in Vancouver, but we’re really a global company across the board. Over 170,000 paying customers around the globe log into Hootsuite to tell their stories, go to their audience and make business goals come true. Many universities, non-profits, small businesses, also use our tools and universities use our tools to teach in their marketing classes. There are a lot of different use-cases for social, and our goal as a company is to help customers run at that fast-pace of online culture and to help them go wherever that goes next.
What is the big problem that your company is tackling?
We are enabling our customers to build enduring brands, one social connection at a time. The key word there is enduring. Change happens quickly, and we are constantly faced with new problems that our customers must overcome on a day-to-day basis. We help them calm those waters and find solutions through social media. That could be governments combating misinformation on social, employee advocacy, or helping businesses engage with their customers and build their brands. Hootsuite helps organizations deepen those relationships through the power of social media.
What are you most proud of in terms of company Milestones?
From a company perspective, I was at Hootsuite in 2018 when we hit 10 years as a company, and we hit the 16 million sign-ups milestone. To be able to see our customers grow as well as our company grow was great. Additionally, throughout Covid, a lot of businesses shifted to online marketplaces and shifted their strategy to cope with restrictions brough about by the pandemic. We were able to help a lot of small businesses and non-profits use social to help them. That was an amazing way to be able to connect what was happening in the world with what we try to do as a company to help those customers use social.
How would you describe your company culture?
Our guiding principles are:
- Step up
- One team
- Be customer-obsessed
- Go fast, be agile
- Play to win
- Neighbors and allies
A lot of our culture is enabling each other to be able to make the right decisions, while also maintaining who we are as neighbors and allies. The ones that standout to me are around agility, and being one team, and working very closely with products. I’ve seen a lot of different iterations of Hootsuite over the past few years, but one thing I can say for sure is that we hire really great, smart people, and I think that’s one of our strengths. I really do believe that with the right people and the right focus, we can do just about anything, and that to me is what is great about our culture.
What are three words you would use to describe your company culture?
Passionate.
Hustle.
Customer-obsessed.
Our people are our backbone, and that’s what enables us to be such a good company. Within that, it takes someone who genuinely cares about the work that they do to be effective and take us that step further. That’s why passionate came to mind. We have people that genuinely care, and they’re not necessarily just there to get the paycheck.
Hustle because you have to be able to pivot, move quickly, push the right things forward, be able to work, see that end goal across the line.
Customer-obsessed, because no two customers look the same. People have different needs from their social, so we always try to put ourselves in the shoes of the customer. Are we accomplishing what we set out to accomplish? For me, that’s obviously from a product standpoint, but even for our sales teams and customer account teams, they truly have such a passion for those customers, and they really are those advocates internally for our customers.
What is it like to work for your company, and why is it a great place to work?
Hootsuite is a people-focused company, and that’s evident, both internally and externally. We are focused on our customers and what they need, as well as our people internally, and what we need to be good at our jobs and to achieve longevity in this industry. So, I think that people-obsession is what makes it a great place to work. I often say in interviews that I would hang out with 99% of my co-workers after work, and honestly, not a lot of people can say that. We all come from different situations, but we share a common passion, and we can connect genuinely over it. That ability to connect with the people I work with is what makes it great to work here.
In their own words, what do your employees say?
Are you hiring?
Check out the Hootsuite careers page.