Who: Ryan Holmes is the founder and CEO of one of the world’s leading social media management platforms, Hootsuite, which helps millions of users and companies manage their social presence. Hootsuite generates a reported $150M+ in ARR and has 1,000+ employees globally.
Priorities: When we began working with Hootsuite, their primary challenge was standing out in a crowded market and attracting attention from customers, media and investors. They were one of many competing platforms and, as an emerging startup, struggled to earn media coverage. In addition, Hootsuite needed to reach enterprise-level customers with the message that social media wasn’t just for posting cat memes but could be a serious business tool. Finally, Hootsuite was scaling fast and needed to boost its employer brand in order to attract new team members and rally existing ones.
Target Audience: Enterprise-level SaaS customers; tech and business media; prospective employees and existing team members; VCs and institutional investors.
To cut through the noise, we focused on building Ryan’s personal brand and expanding his thought leadership efforts — especially valuable in an industry that lacked a human face or visible leader. CSuite positioned Ryan as the “Social CEO:” a progressive business leader at the vanguard of digital transformation, who could help enterprises embrace social media to reach new customers. We then adopted a two-pronged approach of leveraging earned media bylines to boost Hootsuite’s profile, while also rapidly growing Ryan’s social media channels:
