Hootsuite Hires New SVP Of Global Sales And Offers A Free Version To Users
According to a press release Monday morning, Hootsuite appointed a new senior vice president of global sales, namely Bob Elliott. Elliot has been involved in the software as a service business for 20 years, with chief positions at major corporations like SAP, JD Edwards, and i2 Technologies. During that time, he’s shown expertise in leadership and building high performance sales teams that effectively drive revenue growth. He’s now joined the Hootsuite staff in an effort to improve their sales teams and revenues.
Hootsuite is currently the largest and most used platform for managing social media accounts for businesses. Their customer base consists of more than 10 million users and 800 of the Fortune 1000 companies. Regarding this change, Ryan Holmes, CEO of Hootsuite, said the following in a press release.
“As we continue expanding our service to enterprise customers, we’re excited to add business and technology leadership that will help the company grow to the next level. Bob’s enthusiasm and demonstrated leadership success will help us best serve our customers and drive company growth.”
Their decision to hire Elliott as the new SVP of Global Sales is part of a plan to expand the presence and awareness of Hootsuite’s brand. They’ve also included financial expert Sujeet Kini as their chief financial officer, and Penny Wilson, who served as chief marketing officer for major corporations like Juniper Networks and Macromedia Inc., as Hootsuite’s new CMO. This Canadian startup that’s only been around since 2008 years is already gaining leverage and attention from some of the top executives in the country.
Elliot seems to be very excited about his future career with Hootsuite. He spoke in the press release, saying the following.
“Hootsuite is a fast-paced, creative company that has a loyal customer base because it understands how to help businesses get the most out of social. It’s exciting to join a company who are leaders in their space and focused on making customers successful.”
As a part of their efforts to expand its market presence, Hootsuite has also adjusted their service plans, offering a free version of their social campaigns. This is done in an attempt to lure in small businesses, according to a Hootsuite blog post. They’ve turned it into a “freemium product, with Free, Pro, and Enterprise options to generate leads and engage your fans.”
Regarding this change, Hootsuite vice president of product growth Greg Gunn said the following in a statement.
“Hootsuite Campaigns simplifies online social marketing and enables businesses — from food trucks to Fortune 1000 companies — to achieve better business results. Ninety percent of Hootsuite users cite leads and conversion as their primary goals from social, and Hootsuite Campaigns directly addresses that need. It gives everyone the resources of a digital agency right at their fingertips.”
This new, free feature will facilitate many aspects of social media marketing for businesses, including lead generation and sweepstakes for both Facebook and Twitter. It also has many other useful features like the ability to collect user-generated content from social networks and launch photo and video contests and galleries.
It also creates some major competition for startups, particularly local social media marketing corporations. Buzzigo, for example, which got it’s start in Atlanta, a major hub of technology-related businesses and innovation, is a local social media marketing campaign that offers low-priced social media management services for local networking. Hootsuite’s plan is to blow companies just like these out of the water, unless they’re able to come up with a competitive advantage.
Hootsuite, with the direction of their new SVP of global sales and other marketing geniuses, is looking to open up their services to businesses of all sizes, and will thus prove to be fierce competition for other startups around them.
[Image via Bloomua / Shutterstock]
