This week on the Voices of CX Podcast, we talked to Matt Fingerhut, Senior VP of Hootsuite’s Global Customer Organization. We’ll dive into how Hootsuite teaches brands to serve customers better by wielding social media intentionally and responsibly.
About Matt Fingerhut
Matt’s grateful to be on this podcast, on our planet, at Hootsuite, and among his friends and family. He appreciates it all, and tries his best to listen, learn, connect, and pay it forward.
For Hootsuite, Matt is the Senior Vice President of their Global Customer Organization, responsible for all things connected to their customers’ post-sales experience. In his role, Matt’s priorities are simple: to nurture a culture in which his team can be their best, fearless, true selves; to build trust with Hootsuite’s customers, leading and enabling them to be wildly successful leveraging the power of social; to inspire his team to do better for each other and for customers every single day; and to ensure Hootsuite’s an ever-customer-obsessed place to work.
Matt’s journey in technology began painfully, at Andersen Consulting, writing awful COBOL code for accounts payable systems for a grocery chain. He quit that and decided to pursue a career in non-profit. When he found it impossible to get paid, he wandered into Apple Computer, and that’s when his career took off. In technology, Matt lucked into a fast-growing, dynamic, messy, and highly consequential field of work.
Since Apple, Matt’s had quite the fortunate career: 18 years at Microsoft as Partner and General Manager, time at Salesforce as SVP in Customer Success, at Nordstrom as SVP leading Customer Care, at Amperity leading Customer Success, and a few more. Matt’s seen, done, inquired, learned, taught, led, hated from time to time, loved, and grown. He has strong experience leading all things post-sales, and thrives working with executive teams to connect, and to win. While he appreciates software, he is truly passionate about helping unlock the magic and potential of those around him.
Matt has an undergraduate degree from Stanford University. He lives in Seattle with his wife, three kids, three dogs, and one cat.
Connect with Matt Fingerhut
Visit Hootsuite.com
Connect with the Voices of CX
Follow Worthix on LinkedIn
Follow Worthix on Instagram: @voicesofcx
Follow Mary Drumond on LinkedIn
Follow Mary Drumond on Twitter: @drumondmary
About Voices of CX Podcast
The Voices of CX Podcast is a podcast that covers all things business strategies, customer decision insight, empathetic leadership practices, and tips for sustainable profitability. With a little bit of geeking out on behavioral science, A.I. and other innovation sprinkled in here and there. The guests span multiple industries, but all of them have years of experience to bring to the table.
📩Got something to say about CX or want to be featured on the show? Let us know! Email the Producer ([email protected]).
Transcript
Mary Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, listeners and viewers of Voices of CX Podcast. Welcome back once again. Today I’m joined by Matt Fingerhut and Matt works at Hootsuite. He’s going to tell you all about it in a second. I just wanted to take the time to say thanks for continuing to stick with us through season eight. We still have some really interesting stuff in line, so don’t forget to check in next week as well.
With no further ado, I’d like to introduce our special guest today, Matt. Take it away.
Matt: Thanks, Mary. Pleasure to meet you. And thanks for having me on your podcast today.
Mary: It’s great. Can you tell our people, since they don’t know you? Yes, I know you tell. Tell them who you are and what you do and what you strive to accomplish in your mission, in your current role.
Matt: Yeah. Thanks. So, I lead all the post-sales activities at Hootsuite, a social media solution company located in Canada, and I joined Hootsuite June of 2020. So in the throes of COVID and despite the fact that we’re a company with over a thousand people, Mary I have met four people face to face.
I double that this week, but in a few weeks, I’ll be in Vancouver meeting many more. But it’s been a surreal moment for all of us. But that’s where I find myself at this moment in time.
Mary: And Hootsuite has really played a pivotal part. I’m going to say during the pandemic in maintaining a channel of communication for so many organizations, is that one of the things that drove you to maybe accept this role and become a part of the social media universe?
Matt: You know my journey like many has been, you know, a little bit unusual. I didn’t grow up wanting to be in software, although I guess nobody from my generation did that might be different these days. But I sort of grew up as somebody who was a curious middle child and somehow, I feel like I’ve been building on those strands that have been paid to be that writ large.
I remember when I was in high school, there was a baseball strike. And I was so confused and perplexed that people couldn’t solve their issues and work things out. So, I was actually considering going to Cornell’s Industrial and Labor Relations school to become like an arbitrator, because I felt like I could help bridge divides and help solve problems.
And while I didn’t choose that career path, the opportunity continued to present itself in technology to help to build on my strengths of, frankly, being a curious middle child. So, rolling the clock significantly ahead after a long 18-year tour at Microsoft and time at Salesforce and some time at Apple and a couple of startups, Hootsuite to me was this magical combination of a company that had an amazing culture we could talk more about, you know, what that means software can attract some less than delightful humans.
So, I’m grateful for the culture in which I’m working today. The market opportunity they’re in is sort of unbelievable. There are hundreds of millions of small businesses out there today. You know, of the seven and a half billion humans on the planet, four and a half billion are on social already. 400 million this year have joined social. And to be a part of a company that you know, we’re a 13-year-old.
So, we’ve hit adolescence for a company that in some way created the social media management segment to be in that company continuing to innovate and to also participate in the culture was meaningful for me. So that’s how I sort of found myself here at Hootsuite at this point in time.
Transforming social media from a hobby into a full-fledged career
Mary: Yeah. You know, I’ve, this company has been a Hootsuite customer for a really long time. So, I have long watched as this company has sort of progressed and developed in the world that we’re in. And this is something that you and I discussed in our pre-call but it’s really fascinating to me how Hootsuite played a role in the transformation of social media from just like a hobby or something that youth used to stay connected into a career.
And I mean, I do want to get into that a little bit more up ahead. But there is a responsibility that comes with that, don’t you think, of the way that Hootsuite is influencing not only the market, but marketing schools, universities and what people choose as career paths? How does that weigh on you?
Matt: You know, it’s true Mary and it’s hard not to, when I think about how to respond to that question, it’s hard for me not to be standing with you as a parent as well or as an employee as well as a citizen of planet Earth. And the explosion of social, accelerated by COVID, has exposed some of the magic of social and some of the complexity and challenges of social.
Anybody who’s a parent knows exactly what I’m talking about. Anybody who’s looked at the news knows what I’m talking about as well. And it’s exciting and terrifying to be in this space, but to have an opportunity to guide, coach, nurture, share our point of view is a meaningful place to be, in particular in this moment. You know, we have so many new companies born as a social company and then hundreds of millions who know that their customers are already there.
They’re researching there, they’re shopping there. They’re expecting to be supported with their issues via social, too. And so many of the customers with whom we talk every day know they need to get started because that’s where their customers are, and they don’t know-how. And they want to do it right. Because brands as we know, they’re not the provenance of our companies as much as they are providences of the universe that’s out there once, we release the brand into the wild.
So, you know Hootsuite began as a social media marketing platform. And of course, social has expanded well beyond and into things like care and commerce. But from a marketing perspective, as a marketer, you know, it’s a surreal and sort of untethered feeling to observe your brand being defined in the world around you so that what we work with our customers around is how we can support them as they frankly partner with the world of social to evolve their brand and their presence and grow their business.
Mary: Yeah. You know, interestingly, next week I’ll be at a career fair recruiting some new graduates from a Master’s program in a university here in Georgia. And while I was looking over the portfolio, let’s say, of all of the students that are going to be at the career fair, this is the first time that I noticed that all of them across the board have social media as a skill that they’ve already practiced and that they’ve they’re certified in school.
They’re coming out of school, certified for social media. It’s the first year that I see that. And it was really interesting for me to see this progression of social media in becoming a part of this generation of graduates. And Hootsuite has positioned itself as kind of a beacon of companies that are going into the next generation. So, is there a responsibility with that as well to kind of show people the way and guide small companies as they grow into the future?
Matt: I think we all have some degree of responsibility, but certainly Hootsuite in particular does. I heard a stat from our CMO this week that I’m sure I’ll butcher it a little bit, but more people want to be creators than astronauts. You know, so you’re right. There’s a generation of people coming up who have never had a customer care experience on the telephone, who have only done their research via social and we need to meet those people where they are.
And the brands with whom we work want to be successful and they want to do it right. And they see the risks inherent in social. And I do think that, again, one of the appeals of Hootsuite was to be a part of a company, which I think has a culture that I would describe as gritty but empathetic and kind.
I mean there’s something magical and unique about this company. We deeply care. You know, we’ll talk a bit more about what success means for Hootsuite, but fundamentally you know, success is defined in part by our customers, and we can coach and nurture them along the way. But I think every customer with whom we work recognizes the power of social and the risk of social.
Companies are just collections of humans, and their culture evolves over time. And I’ve observed Hootsuite’s culture in particular with Tom Kaiser, our CEO, joining in I think late June of 2020, continue to march towards being a company that listens to our customers deeply. And when we talk about the listening systems we have in place, it’s been in part through those listening systems that validated our acquisition sparks Central to dive deeper into social care and to Hay Day to dove deeper into social commerce because that is the future footprint of care.
That’s how companies are interacting with their customers or wanting to and part of our accountability and part of our courseware and certifications and coaching with customers is how to do it as how to do it right in part on the terms of our customers, how they want to show up to support them. You know, when you have a company with potentially hundreds of employees representing your brand, right?
Your hotel chain and every hotel that you have as people who are on social referring to their property right where you want to have each one of those humans be themselves authentically. Yet you also have a hotel brand that you want to service, and we coach humans to be humans and in alignment with the brand.
And we learn every day from our customers and it’s been an exciting evolution and you never know what the next day is going to bring Mary.
What does success mean and when can you consider that you have made your customers successful?
Mary: Yeah, but I’m, I’m right there with you because I believe very deeply that humans, they don’t follow brands, they follow humans and keeping the human-to-human element is so essential.
And when I do marketing, I’m constantly bringing that front and center and I’m using that concept as my North Star, you know, how would a human perceive this? I try to forget the concept of even B2B marketing as a concept because I disagree with it as a whole. At the end of the day, we’re all people.
And when you all have the same needs, we all have the same aspirations. Well, you know, slightly different. But ultimately, we’re all working towards the same thing. And when we are able to tap into that human connection, that’s when we can reach each other and that’s when the magic happens in authentic marketing, you know? And so it’s great to hear that you and Hootsuite have these same morals or values when it comes to marketing, you know, but a couple of minutes ago you talked about that, you know, but what is success mean to Hootsuite?
So, let’s get into that. What does success mean and when can you consider that you have made your customers successful?
Matt: Right. Well, I think the formal answer is we are always striving for our customers to achieve more next. And in part, that’s true, right? It’s a journey we never arrive at it. But our customers, they work with Hootsuite to achieve a certain outcome in social.
And we work with social marketers, you know, our very typical persona is a social media marketing manager, and they want to do a good job. They want to grow their brand, they want to drive advocacy, they want to support their company’s overall strategic objectives. So, when I think sort of zeroing in a little bit to how we engage with customers, you know, that the first thing we do is we build a success plan and that if we do it well, we already know most of it because the sales process has led us to we know why you’re here, welcome.
And then we begin to define milestones. Like would it be successful for you if at this moment in time, you know, whether you have an external required date to do something or whether we agree that it’ll take 90 days to achieve a certain level of market presence and we check-in and measure, but our customers are always looking for then what’s next.
And I would be the same and I am the same one. I am the customer. So, success is really defined by our customers. You know, I think that the challenge with metrics is it’s seductive to use them as the measuring points because you are able to measure so while I could measure and with a couple hundred thousand customers, we do measure somewhat maniacally incredible amounts of usage data customers didn’t buy us to use it.
They bought us for the outcome. And, and I have made a career off of the backs of amazing engineers. My first job out of school, I was doing COBOL code. If any of your listeners even know what COBOL is and I found that I was actually miserable at coding in COBOL and that my career needed to be elsewhere so as somebody who’s been in the world of technology, I am in awe of engineers.
They’re brilliant and amazing and I say this with all due respect to the engineers, but through the eyes of a customer, the tool is only a part of what they need to be successful. In particular, when somebody is trying to launch into social, there’s change management that’s very significant. Depending upon the size of your organization, there’s supporting adoption.
If I’m a marketing manager, I’m trying to influence the usage across whatever 100 properties. They don’t work for me. So, what can I do to influence and support and engage? So, when we work with customers on getting the most out of the tool, it’s all about change management, communication and governance and conversations and supporting a cultural shift to be successful in social.
So, so much of the I think in most in many SAAS companies that they sort of zero in on the data that they’re able to capture through their tools, and they sort of narrowcast that as the definition of success, which is the farthest thing from what customers really care about. And I say that with maybe a tiny bit of self-interest because it’s my job. But I also believe it’s actually true.
Mary: Yeah. Emotional connections and, you know, as you’re talking, I’m thinking here, I’m trying to empathize with the people on my team who report to me who are the social media managers and in what they’re trying to achieve when they’re using Hootsuite.
And I think that one of the things that possibly makes that relationship even more delicate is since it is a new career and not all companies are convinced of the worth of a social media manager, these individuals are trying to prove to their bosses, to the organization that they work for, that their job is worth their salaries, it’s worth the investment, it’s worth the time, it’s worth the effort. And they want to use Hootsuite to do that.
They see Hootsuite as a vehicle to prove their worth to the organization as well. And that’s pretty interesting to me because there is I would imagine that your customers have a lot of emotional expectations with your brand as well. And in reaching achieving success, and what’s riding on that, there’s probably some really powerful stuff in there.
Matt: Yes. So those are some really interesting points. Just beginning with the last one we, with respect to the emotional connection, feel emotionally connected with our customers too, means a lot to us for our customers to feel that we’re a trusted partner to them. But in terms of the social media marketing manager, I think marketing outside of the hard, cold math of pipe gen and conversion has always had a dimension of it.
Which has been a little bit tricky to sort of measure the ROI of. I mean, you would know this many times better than I would, given what you do, but I think that with social also extending into commerce and care, the ROI begins to be much more clear and measurable all right. So, when you are using care to resolve customer issues, you can compare that to the phone system of yesterday when, you know, we have a large furniture store customer who the thought of opening up more brick and mortar is pretty tough.
Mary: But when you could use AI and a bot in front of your site and in front of social to follow your customers into experiences where they’re talking with the salesperson and those convert, then you begin to actually have an ROI story that is measurable, I empathize with every marketer in moments with measuring the ROI, but as we do our own research and as we’ve read research, you know, I mean, are there any email marketers?
Matt: I mean, email marketing is continuing to decline as a percentage of the overall marketing dollar and phone support. I mean, I’m not sure the current generation even knows what phone I mean, I have three kids in that generation. If they ever use the phone for a phone call, I would think something incredibly wrong was happening.
Mary: They use it to FaceTime. You know, they’ll FaceTime each other you know, I can’t see them FaceTimeing a customer service rep to solve that issue.
Matt: So, I think it’s notable just how central social has become it with all of its, you know, weaknesses and strengths combined. But I think it’s our it’s our company’s obligation to meet our customers where they’re and then and then begin to lead them and show them what’s possible.
Mary: Yeah. Well, that’s an interesting point about meeting your customers, where you are, where they are. Yeah. It’s so, you know, you, you, you can fight it, or you cannot want people to use social media as a customer care channel. But that’s where they are and that’s where they’re reaching out to you. You know, we have a guest that’s been on the podcast a couple of times.
His name is Dan Gingiss and he’s a speaker and a customer experience coach. And he talks a lot about this, about meeting your customers where they are and having a presence on social media. Even if it isn’t your main channel, you have to be there because that’s where your customers are and your customers are going to reach out to you wherever they feel comfortable and then it’s your responsibility to be there if they do reach out, you know, and that’s really critical. And I think that’s where this product of Hootsuite plays a very strong role.
Matt: Yes. So many of our customers begin with a marketing use case. I want to get our brand out there and then guess what? Some people need help and they respond via the channel with which you’re communicating or they’re using Facebook Messenger and then the customer will say, hey, how can I expand, you know, the efficiency and the connection with customers. Now that marketing has become care and then in our smaller customers, the marketing and care teams are sort of one and the same and then as companies grow, there’s a care team separate from marketing.
And one of the challenges that customers have, I mean, social, it can be a bewildering place. And, you know, between the rising of news social networks from time to time, you know, now we have so we have new social networks arising from then. We have different departments using social H.R. departments you social to try to attract talent.
And then we have a situation where there’s so much data coming in from social through your commerce activities and your care activities and your marketing activities that without having it all being at one place, you run the risk of not being able to really see your customers understand what’s happening. So, one of the values of having a tool like Hootsuite is that siloed data can all come together in one place to really help inform better business decisions, and also customers have pretty high expectations.
I am. You know, I observe our customers as they work with us. You know, they will feel the energy of their customers on social and it’s the generation that expects responses quickly and brands want to be responsive to that. So, we have these sort of colliding sets of needs of brands, but brands know it’s hard and complicated, and having one place to go really simplifies and enables them to frankly grow their business.
Mary: Yeah. When it comes to Hootsuite, keeping up with the speed of customers’ ever-changing expectations, I am sure you have a very robust R&D department that’s constantly focusing on the next big thing and you know, looking back at my experience with Hootsuite, I remember when Hootsuite wasn’t integrated with Instagram, and then I remembered when they didn’t have Instagram stories, and then I remember when they weren’t on TikTok.
And so, you have to constantly keep up with this pace, right? Of what’s coming next. You and I, we promised that we weren’t going to talk about the metaverse on this podcast, so I’m not going to go there, but is there what is what would you say nowadays is the main way that Hootsuite keeps up with customers changing expectations?
Matt: You know, just about the rate of change I personally love it, and I would not want to be in an industry that didn’t have this rate of change in part of any company as culture is embracing and adopting change. And it’s fun to be in a culture that while we’re adolescent, [we] understand is that it’s exciting and thrilling and challenging to keep up with what’s happening.
So, we have an awful lot of listening systems. The base case is we have a couple of hundred thousand customers, and we have endless data around usage and activities. To your point about the R&D team, yes, they’re using that as insight because we get massive amounts of data pretty quickly to inform our UI. But beyond that, we have, and we can talk about this more, plenty of voice of customer survey instruments, which have their beauties and their limitations.
So, we know how we’re doing with respect to a support case or how the implementation experience went, or how a webinar went. We also have a team of people talking to customers every day and those conversations with CMO’s and marketing managers, etc. and part is what validated our acquisitions of Smart Central and Hay Day. We also have beta programs to really partner early with customers to get their feedback to tune how we evolve our experiences.
We have more intimate product councils where we and obviously many SAAS companies, I would hope, have this where we look at cohorts of customers by use case and by what they’re using and have direct conversations with our product team to just listen. We also have an executive relationship program where our executive leadership team works directly with a handful of customers as much for the sake of anything else as listening, meeting with senior people in our customer environments.
And it helps, it’s sort of easy and it seems crazy, but it’s sort of easy to sort of forget that you need to spend 10% of your time or 20% talking to customers no matter what your role is. And I love the fact that Hootsuite is committed to seeing, no matter whether you’re our chief legal officer or chief financial officer, you’re going to talk to customers and maybe the first meeting is a little bit uncomfortable if you’re a chief legal officer, although are just incredible, but begin to have a conversation and part of your role is to listen and learn.
Part of it is to bring feedback back into our company. And maybe last but not least, guess what, our customers talk to us on social too. Yeah, you know.
Mary: Yeah, I think I think I ask you that. Does Hootsuite go to Hootsuite to hear the customers talking about Hootsuite?
Matt: Yes, it is, absolutely. It’s a layered question, of course. So, we have all these sort of listening systems in place to help us have as good a radar as we can about where our customers’ wants and needs are, where the market is going, and trying to see how we can be the best service to our customers out there. And really, what’s next? Does the company have a North Star of how to maintain this lead in the market?
Mary: Because Hootsuite is absolutely the market leader. It’s the king of the category. And when you think of social media management platforms, you automatically think Hootsuite. But we all know that. I mean, competition is fierce as ever, and you never know who’s going to come out with a new platform, who’s going to launch, know if someone else is going to come out with a value proposition that’s more enticing to customers. So, what is it that you guys use as kind of this North Star are to maintain that lead?
Matt: So, I’d say, you know, one way to think, by the way, you’re totally right about competition and one way to think about it is it simply validates that the space for it is vibrant and growing. And if there were no competitors, you’d wonder why perhaps.
So, we choose to do that as an incredibly positive look at me with a couple of hundred million small businesses in the world, you know, the actual penetration of our toolset across all of our competitors is in the single digit percent. Yeah. So, of course there are competitors and frankly, I love that. I’m a competitive person and I think that’s great news.
But to your question about the north star, you know, our job is to help our customers build trust and deepen their relationships with their customers. So, from the point of view of the person who’s responsible for every customer post-sale my North Star is helping every customer post-sale. I’m sure that if you were to ask others in our company, we want to grow faster than the market.
We want to prove that we continue to bring the most value to customers and value is expressed in, are my customer and are you growing with me. So, I know that might be overly simplistic but if we’re able to help our customers deepen their connection with their customers and we’re viewed as a trusted partner and we’re growing, we’re helping customers grow their business, that’s a win.
As well as somebody who leads the post-sales team. I also have a very different perspective around what success rate means for me as a human being on planet Earth. And we can segway there or not, but I am somebody who’s responsible for another bunch of humans. I take the role that I play with respect to the culture of my organization.
You know, quite seriously, I am not going to solve a support ticket. I’m not going to implement a customer. I’m not going to write a success plan. So, one of the questions I asked myself and I asked everybody is what am I good for? You know, what unique space ought I to occupy or else why am I here?
And ultimately, I view my role in part as, you know, helping us be super clear about strategically where we’re heading. But almost more than anything else, it’s about the culture of my team. It may not be obvious to all of your podcast listeners, but let’s call me on the back nine of my career. If you’re a golf fan you know that that means there’s more behind me than ahead.
Mary: Matt saying he’s old. For those of you who don’t have video, he’s just saying he’s old.
Matt: And that’s a super freeing place to be. I desperately root for and want everyone in my organization to have a good day. You know, taking a step back this last 18 months has been just crazy hard. Yeah. And I view myself among the luckiest of the lucky cohort.
Let’s consider my luck. One is, I found my life partner, so I’m not missing going to an office to meet somebody. I had kids old enough that they don’t need me, so there’s nobody around my ankles. I have a separate office space, so I am not on top of other people. I had, touch wood, no sickness within my immediate circle.
So, I realize that I am so fortunate and I realize that of the many people in my organization, everyone’s in a different place. And part of what I want to be able to create in my organization is a place where we can literally be our best selves. And when work is nineth out of ten priorities were still there for you because you should tend to your other priorities because life is tricky.
But when work is top, we want this to be amazing. We want you to grow and get your skills build and develop and advance. And at the same time that when I have meetings with my organization, I often begin the meeting with, so how many of you grow up wanting to sell software? That’s sort of a break the ice. And they look at me like what is happening?
But just as I desperately want people to feel like they can be their true selves and that sounds to use a sixties term, groovy. I also want to be the damn best success and post-sales work on the planet. So, I have that combination of, yeah, I love my people and I want them to feel like they’re supported. I also want to win, so I often and consistently challenge everyone to be clear about the space they are to occupy and then just be the best you know, when you think about life through the work, through the eyes of a twenty-something, what do they want?
They want a boss on a bad day that they don’t hate and on a good day that they really respect, they want a job that’s clear they know what their job is. They want opportunities to get enabled and skilled and grow. They want to have a community of people that they care about and they want to hug their partner, their family member, and their pet at the end of the day.
And the gift that I can give them is a boss that they like, a culture that’s comfortable, a role that’s clear, and a path ahead. So that’s when I think about where my head goes, it’s split between who are my customers and how can I support them and how can I support everyone on my team.
Because it’s no secret if I want my team to be the best place to work, it needs to be individually one by one. It’s just a math equation. So that I feel fortunate, Mary, that software was the industry of my lifetime. It’s been pretty good. No complaints, and I feel fortunate to be at Hootsuite where, frankly, I am very supportive to be what you see is what you get and you know, every day is a path to get better.
I know it sounds bad when I say it out loud, but let’s hope today’s the worst it will be. Yeah. And we can just get better from here.
And that is how I think about how we service customers. So we’re all like the success plan I mentioned to you. Well, how can we refine it and make it more clear?
How can we engage customers more? How can we improve the connection between sales and post-sale? So, I’m also very operationally committed, I think deeply about systems and process in part because it’s fun to get better. And so, I guess I’m a little bit of a propeller head when it comes to that sort of thing, but it means a lot to me.
And I think teams feel excited when there’s a win, even if the win is we’ve shaved X days off of the time between the time a customer commits to us and time they’re actually getting value because that’s fun. So that’s how we get our fun around Hootsuite.
Mary: Yeah. And I’m guessing like – before we wrap this up, I’m guessing that a lot of the time of your team in post-sales is dedicated towards educating people and equipping them with the tools they need to be better.
Matt: Yeah, right. We have an amazing team that builds our Academy Courseware, and this is courseware across every possible topic of social. Most of the courses include an opportunity to have certifications and certification ones are often shared on LinkedIn because they’re a sign that you’ve committed and you’ve passed a test and it feels really good to have a sort of center of excellence around professional education, around social.
And, this is an asset that our customers take advantage of. Even those who are not customers, they will be interested in and buy access to Academy because they know how meaningful it is to help their employees become comfortable, proficient and capable and all these dimensions of social. So whether it’s an individual taking a course or whether we white label for a very large organization, it’s been fun to work with a team of people who are so committed to education and they also bring in all sorts of expertise.
So, we have a social media marketing course that’s in partnership with Syracuse’s Newhouse School of Communications, a real powerhouse in that space. And we do that because they’re amazing and every great ideas in the four walls of virtual Hootsuite. So, what people find when they use our courseware is that they’re all sort of experts, not only academicians, but also creators and influencers and people who are practitioners of social, because guess what?
They know a lot and more often than not, more than we do. So, it’s meaningful to have Hootsuite as a brand, not only be viewed as a brand that has great tools and is trusted, but also, as you know, on the forefront of just teaching and educating. And part of that of course, is we better be great listeners and partners and collaborators with the community writ large out there that is so deeply committed to social and making social a better place and leveraging social for its full effect and trying to look around the corner to up to see what’s next
Mary: Well, that’s awesome, Matt. This has been a really interesting and genuine conversation. I thoroughly enjoyed it. And most of all, I think that if I wasn’t already a fan of Hootsuite, I have been for a really long time, this has made me even more passionate about being a customer of Hootsuite. And helping somehow with this vehicle, getting this message across to others.
So, thank you so much. Now, if our listeners were just as engaged as I was in this conversation, they want to hear more. If they want to learn more, where can I point them? Is it to you? Are you like a pretty cool LinkedIn guru or are you open to speaking to people?
Matt: I would be delighted to connect with anybody to talk more about Hootsuite and I will not be the know it all, but I know people who know it all.
So, I’m happy to field any conversations and listen, I love thank you, Mary, for the time. It’s been delightful. These topics matter a lot to me. And, you know, we’re all on the path of growing and developing, so I’d be delighted to connect with any of your listeners.
Mary: That’s wonderful. Well, to our listeners and viewers, thank you for joining us.
Thank you for giving us your time and listening to Matt and I talk back and forth today. And we hope to see you again next time. Matt, thank you once again for coming on today.
Matt: Thanks, Mary. Really appreciate it.
