Dan Spicer from HootSuite shares tips for building an advocate community for your brand.

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

2. Dan Spicer
Community Lead, EMEA, Hootsuite
@DanSpicer

3. #CvHNY
Hootsuite
10M+
Users
worldwide
1600+
Enterprise
Customers
744
out of the
Fortune 1000

4. #CvHNY
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

5. 80%
It costs 80% less to retain
a customer than acquire
one
95%
Increasing retention rate by
5% can increase profits by
95% over long-term*
*Harvard Business Study
** MSI Study
25%
Increased engagement on
community sites can result in
25% increase in revenue**
Community Impact on Business

6. just 20% of brands use advocate and
experts programs in their marketing
YET…

7. Source: Brian Solis
Dynamic Customer Decision Journey

8. How Do We Adapt?

9. "Learning from cavemen who formed communities for survival,
you need to form communities for the survival of your biz."
@Hootsuite #FBSprint

12. 2014/15
2012
2013

18. 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

19. Steps Towards Building An Advocate Community
Feedback
Define a set of clear objectives for advocates
Utilise a set of targeting techniques to identify fans/super-fans in
order to build/grow an advocate community
Layer in offline initiatives to complement online activities (targeted to
specific shared interests/values within the community)
Develop a feedback loop/program and utilise advocate
knowledge to improve brand/product/service
Implement long-term actions (gamification, exclusivity options,
evergreen content etc.) to create a sustainable community
Identification
Action
Offline
Purpose

20. 1 Define the purpose

22. 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 22+
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 in 62
countries
Empower engaged users to act as brand advocates to help build and grow Hootsuite’s global community

23. Measuring Success
Engagement
Advocacy
Community Health
● Volume of conversations, sentiment, SOV
● User-generated content posts and shares
● Hootup 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

24. 2 Identify your best customers

25. © 2014 HootSuite Media Inc
Consume
Curate
Create
90-9-1

27. Focus on customers, not influencers

31. NPS POP UP

32. 3 Integrate rituals in community life

36. Ambassador Growth

37. .
Hootsuite Community Support Forum
● 15,000 HS customers signed into the Community Forum
● Nearly 10,000 active discussions
● 70,000 unique pageviews per month
● Ambassadors respond to x% of support queries

38. 4Merge offline & promote cyclic events, like
meetups and conferences

40. 92%
of 2014 Hootups led by Hootsuite
Ambassadors
9,000+
2014 attendees
29
participating countries
250+
2014 Hootups

41. 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

42. 2014 Attendee Types
13% of prospects in 2014 Hootups
converted to Hootsuite customers.

43. 5 Show Your Listening - #FeedbackLoop

46. 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!

47. 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.
Community Insight Drives Smarter Business Decisions
Smarter Business Decisions

48. Key Takeaways
• Define a clear purpose and set of objectives for advocates
• Target the superuser, the superfan in order to grow advocate
communities
• Focus on long-term, repeatable actions to create a sustainable
community
• Layer in offline initiatives aligned with share interests
• Develop a feedback loop and adjust strategy on-going

49. 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?

50. Thank You!
Dan Spicer
Let’s be friends  -> @DanSpicer