Paul Sackmann, Social Marketing & Community Coordinator, EMEA at Hootsuite talks us through getting your customers to build your business.

1. 5 Steps to Building your Advocate
Community
Getting your customers to build your business

2. Paul Sackmann
Social Marketing & Community - Hootsuite
@paulsackmann

3. #CvHNY
Hootsuite
10M+
Users
worldwide
1600+
Enterprise
Customers
800
out of the
Fortune 1000

10. Community Impact on Business
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**

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

17. 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

18. 1 Define the Purpose

20. The Hootsuite Ambassador Program
Amplification
Product releases shared
with ambassadors to drive
200% more engagement &
reviews
Localisation
Translate into new
languages 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
events in 5 target
cities each quarter

21. 2 Identify your best customers

22. Focus on customers, not influencers

23. © 2015 Hootsuite Media Inc
Consume
Curate
Create
90-9-1

25. 3 Integrate rituals in community life

27. 4Merge offline & promote cyclic events, like
meetups and conferences

28. 67%
of 2014 Hootups led by Hootsuite
Ambassadors
15,780
2014 attendees
57
participating countries
250+
2014 Hootups

29. 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

30. 2014 Attendee Types
13% of prospects in 2014 Hootups
converted to Hootsuite customers.

31. 5 Show Your Listening - #FeedbackLoop

34. Beta test our new mobile app!

35. 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 Ambassadors
● Total Twitter reach of
#HootAmb: 4.5 million!

36. 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

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

38. Key Takeaways
• Define a clear purpose and set of objectives for advocates
• Target the super-user/super-fan (not the ‘influencer’) to launch
your advocate community
• Focus on long-term, repeatable actions to create a sustainable
community
• Layer in offline initiatives aligned with shared interests of the
advocate community (education, inspiration, entertainment)
• Develop a feedback loop and adjust strategy on-going

39. Thank You!
Paul Sackmann
Let’s be friends   @paulsackmann