Background

Hootsuite is the global leader in social media management, trusted by more than 18 million customers in 80% of the Fortune 1000, with over 4,000 enterprise customers. The company has the broadest dataset in the marketplace, used in more languages and in more countries than any other social media management platform. Forward-thinking businesses and organizations turn to Hootsuite for unparalleled expertise, customer insights and a collaborative ecosystem that helps people and organizations succeed with social media.  

Although widely known and used around the world, Hootsuite believed company recognition, thought leadership and brand visibility in the U.S. should be elevated and their platform more differentiated. Hootsuite hired Karbo Communications as their U.S. agency of record based on the team’s strategic counsel, creative approach to PR and proven, successful track record in representing a mixture of B2B tech, social, B2B advertising, and martech companies.

Objectives

• Raise Hootsuite brand visibility, differentiation, and leadership in the U.S.
• Drive effective message delivery to achieve Hootsuite ROI and generate sales
• Increase strategic thought leadership for the Hootsuite executive team

Execution

Karbo Communications hit the ground running, offering strategic counsel and teaming up with Hootsuite on various media campaigns and product launches. Simultaneously, the agency began pursuing a thought leadership program for Hootsuite executives to discuss the role of social media in societal and business communication. Karbo Communications also began securing contributed articles and introductory interviews with top tier journalists to amplify U.S. market awareness. 

Throughout its four and half year partnership, the agency worked closely with Hootsuite to leverage the company’s social listening tool, Insights powered by Brandwatch, to drive strategic thought and market leadership, leading various proactive media campaigns tied to timely industry news and events. The campaigns have centered around the Presidential elections, midterm elections, and key holidays and moments in time including the Super Bowl, Valentine’s Day, World Mental Health Day, the World Cup, The Academy Awards, and more. Throughout the years, Karbo has identified trending topics and hashtags on social, working with Hootsuite to pull relevant data from its platform. Karbo Communications then worked to analyze the findings, identify compelling trends within the data and pitch out the data findings to top-tier business and marketing reporters to supplement breaking news and trend stories. During the span of its 4+ year partnership, Karbo Communications has secured proactive data coverage in CNN, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, Adweek, USA Today, among other top-tier outlets, and established Hootsuite as the go-to source for social media consumer data. 

In July 2020, when Hootsuite announced its newly appointed CEO, Tom Keiser, Karbo Communications developed an aggressive media outreach strategy, offering Tom to discuss his vision for the company and his perspective on hot-button social media issues in an exclusive interview with a top-tier business reporter. As a result, Karbo Communications secured an exclusive feature story in Fortune Magazine. To further elevate his thought leadership platform, Karbo Communications pursued timely media opportunities for Tom to discuss breaking news in the social media market, including TikTok’s potential sale back in 2020. As a result, Tom’s commentary was featured in publications like Fortune and The New York Times. Beyond breaking news, Karbo Communications identified opportunities to showcase Tom’s leadership principles and values and Hootsuite’s new direction, which resulted in two feature-style articles in Forbes and Insider. 

In December 2020, Tara Ataya was named Hootsuite’s first Chief People and Diversity Officer. Karbo Communications tied the news to Hootsuite’s strong focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace, and secured coverage in Fortune, HR Dive, BetaKit, GeekWire, and HR Daily Advisor. Throughout the years, Karbo has worked closely with Tara to drive thought leadership and raise awareness of Hootsuite’s new workplace and DE&I initiatives. In May 2021, Hootsuite announced Wellness Week, an initiative that grants all employees one paid week off in addition to PTO allotment. Karbo Communications used this news to raise an important discussion in the media about mental health in the workplace and positioned Tara as the spokesperson to discuss the initiative and how Hootsuite is rethinking the future of work. As a result, Karbo Communications secured a two-month span of coverage in top news outlets, including Fortune, NPR Marketplace, CNBC, Insider, The New York Times, Vogue, Forbes, CBS News, The Wall Street Journal, and more. Karbo Communications also executed new hire announcements for Hootsuite’s Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Financial Officer, resulting in coverage in Fortune, PR News, GeekWire, The Drum, and CFO.com. 

To raise executive and brand visibility, Karbo Communications executed a robust speaking program for Hootsuite’s CEO, Chief People and Diversity Officer, Chief Technology Officer, Chief Marketing Officer, and Chief Revenue Officer. Through this program, Karbo Communications developed speaker applications, curated panel recommendations, drafted speeches, and held strategy prep sessions in advance. Top conferences at which Hootsuite executives have presented include Social Media Week, SXSW, Collision, Ascent, SaaStr, Web Summit, Ad World, and more. 

Karbo Communications continues to drive various news announcements for Hootsuite. When Hootsuite acquired Heyday and Sparkcentral in 2021, Karbo Communications worked side-by-side with the company to identify key market trends, recommend topics for discussion, analyze key executive and corporate messages, and recommend a media outreach strategy that would raise visibility amongst Canadian and U.S. press. As a result, Karbo Communications secured broadcast opportunities for the CEO in Bloomberg, The Financial Post, and Cheddar, in addition to top-tier business press coverage in Axios, Crunchbase News, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, and more. In July 2022, when Hootsuite announced their rebrand, Karbo Communications worked with the brand to execute an integrated communications strategy, securing an exclusive feature story with Hootsuite CMO, Maggie Lower in Adweek.

In 2023 alone, Karbo Communications drove proactive media and thought leadership efforts for Hootsuite’s executive team, generating 85+ factual and positive placements across top-tier business, tech, and influential marketing outlets, while driving and influencing industry conversations on topics related to AI in social media marketing, the power of building 1:1 relationships with customers on social media, and the value of social media marketers in the workplace.

Results

Within the four and half years of working together, Karbo Communications elevated Hootsuite’s market standing, securing a total of 424 unique articles or media mentions, totaling over 2B+ impressions. Specifically, the agency significantly increased consistent earned media coverage for Hootsuite in top business, marketing, and technology publications including Inc., Fast Company, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes, Fortune, VentureBeat, Adweek, Ad Age, ZDNet, and Bloomberg. 

In June 2020, Hootsuite was named a winner in the Social/Influencer: Social Marketing Management category for Adweek Reader’s Choice: Best of Tech Partner Awards. 

In 2021, Hootsuite was named one of the top 100 Software Companies by The Software Report and recognized as the Best Social Media Scheduling Software at the MarTech Breakthrough Awards. The company was named a finalist for the Canadian HR Awards in the Excellence in Diversity & Inclusion category and for the Digiday Tech Awards in the “Best Social Analytics Platform” category. Later that year, Chief People & Diversity Officer, Tara Ataya was recognized on Insider’s DEI Changemakers List, a list selected by the Insider editorial team and that champions DEI executives who are making significant, positive changes within their own companies.

In 2022, Hootsuite was named a winner of Human Resource Director’s Innovative HR Teams, a report that recognizes companies that are breaking boundaries to move the HR industry forward. In June 2022, Adweek’s editorial team selected Hootsuite CMO, Maggie Lower as a winner of Adweek’s annual Pride Stars award, which recognizes remarkable LGBTQ+ leaders across media, marketing, and tech industries, who have a long track record of doing impactful work. In August 2022, Hootsuite was crowned the Best Social Media Scheduling Software at the 2022 MarTech Breakthrough Awards.

In 2023, Hootsuite was recognized by Built In’s 2023 Best Places to Work Awards, was awarded ‘Best Social Listening Solution’ at the MarTech Breakthrough Awards, won two social media-related categories at The Shorty Awards, and was recognized by Digiday’s 2023 Worklife Awards, where Chief People & Diversity Officer, Tara Ataya was crowned HR Leader of the Year. 

In 2023, Karbo Communications worked with Hootsuite to launch three-large scale integrated PR and marketing campaigns, generating 35+ placements in top-tier business and marketing press including Forbes, Ad Age, and Fast Company, while establishing Hootsuite’s newly appointed CMO, Elina Vilk as a strategic thought leader on timely social media marketing trends and CMO-level insights. As a result of Karbo Communications efforts, Elina was featured in publications such as Ad Age, MediaPost, and podcasts including The Digital Marketing Podcast, the Top CMO Podcast, CMO Insights, and more.