With the HootSuite team constantly focusing on what’s next, it’s easy to lose sight of how far we’ve come. Looking in the rear view, 2011 was a watershed year for us as the HootSuite community soared from just over 1 million sign-ups at the end of 2010, to more than 2.7 million by mid-December – nearly tripling our userbase in one year.
Guided by your feedback and ideas, we’re proud to see how much of our road map we’ve covered in the past year with numerous iterations and integrations and we’re grateful to enjoy your continued support on this journey. From championship finals and tsunamis to revolutions and state of the unions – we’ve helped people connect, engage, manage, and broadcast what’s important to them. Sometimes triumphant, sometimes tragic, and at times trivial – our beloved dashboard has been a medium to help spread information, joy, hope, and… a remarkable amount of cat videos. So get cozy as we share our favorite memories and milestones from 2011…. with a special holiday greeting at the end. Read more…
Japan is one of HootSuite’s largest markets — and the only country in which we’re fully localized — with a team of Owls on the ground to help support our Japanese users.
From October 25th to October 28th 2011, our very own VP of Corporate Development, Matt Switzer, will be landing in Japan to help promote tourism, attend AdTech, build relationships and maybe hand out some HootKits while he’s at it.
With winter just around the corner, hockey season starting up and snow falling in the mountains above HootSuite HQ, we find our speaking Owls knee deep in HootSuite events.
In the last Event Round-up, we were in San Francisco, Austin, Boston and Virtual Space. Taking HootSuite stories to audiences at Gravity Summit, ITEXPO and Dreamforce. In this month’s round-up, we’ll show you where our Owls were in attendance as well as give you a sneak peak into where we’re headed next.
Where We’ll Be Hooting
Moving forward through time, we’re sending HootSuiters out to more conferences in more locations. Check out the posts below to see if there will be an Owl in your nest this month. Read more…
Here at HootSuite we’re celebrating the 1 year anniversary of HootSuite Japan. On behalf of the whole team, we thank the Japanese HootFans for continuing feedback and support. For those of you outside of Japan, we want to share a bit of our story and let you know how we’re celebrating with the Nihonjin Owls.
Visting: HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes first visited Japan in the spring of 2010 drawing much excitement from the legions of Japanese HootSuite users as he visited companies, events, and media. A year later, Japan is HootSuite’s second largest market and our relationship with Japan continues to grow stronger. Read more…
So much has changed since we first announced the HootSuite Translation Project in August last year. Most notable is that we’ve successfully released French, Italian, Korean and other translations for various apps.
Since launch, we’ve added iPad and BlackBerry to the list of mobile applications and and have localized Spanish and Dutch versions on their way, with German shortly behind. Plus we’ve added a lot of new tools such as Social Analytics and Secure Profiles so it’s fair to say that our tookit has grown too.
So let’s take a closer look at these happy Owls nesting at our headquarters and sending Hoots across the universe!
Japanese
Back in 2009, @HootSuite_Japan was the first international Owly to say hi to the users in the Land of The Rising Sun. Later we added @HootWatch_Japan to look after the increased mentions and power-users. Japan is a really important part of our community which makes us very concerned about the recent events.
The second international is from Russia. Our community in the Eastern Europe is smaller than in other regions yet very strong.
@HootSuite_RU keeps users updated and connected while providing timely support and sending all the Hootkits rubles can buy.
Spanish
From Spain to South American countries, people Hoot and they hoot a lot! So we have not only grown our Owl-Quixote, but have also translated Help Desk articles, released several case studies and info sheets – started blogging a little too.
This is a brand new addition to our family with the mission of connecting with our community in Netherlands who are especially rapid for mobile versions. We’ve had visits from mobile industry emissaries packing several handsets and look forward to spreading the Hootlove wherever Dutch is spoken.
Besides the owls described above, we are prepared to talk to fans in other regions too via these emerging channels:
@HootSuite_FR for Francophones from Montreal to Tahiti (as well as France)
@HootSuite_PT for savvy Brazilians and Portuguese social media fans
@HootSuite_Korea for the voracious geeks in Republic of Korea (as well as anyone who can connect from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea)
@HootSuite_IT which is awaiting take-off to serve the Italians… who are no doubt waiting with fine wine in hand
Of course we need your help to roll out the localized versions. Translators are stars to us here at the multi-cultural HootSuite HQ and we are pleased to send the top contributors HootKits full of treats. So please take a bit of time to translate and be a champion to us and your countryfolk.
Also, don’t forget to check out our full HootSuite family list to see all the official @HootSuite Twitter accounts to keep an eye on. Bonus: Need more Owly? Check out this “just for fun” Life of Owly Tumblr blog.
We want to meet as many Hootfans as possible so here’s a round-up everything we have planned. So here’s how you can get in touch with HootSuite team and our mascot Owly in Austin between March 11th and 15th.
Big in Japan Panel
Ryan Holmes (CEO) will be hosting the “Big in Japan: Outreaching to a Unique Market” panel featuring Fumi Yamazaki, Robert Laing, Hiroki Eda of and moderator Steve Mock. Block Sunday March 13 at 12:30 on your calendar to be at Salon D in the Hilton hotel.
Here’s an overview:
Web and mobile technology have developed differently in Japan than any other country with hardware, features and social communities which are completely unique to this singular market. But Japanese companies are now realizing this introverted market position isn’t sustainable and are now looking towards technology from outside and exploring way to create technology for outside of their country. Japan has ubiquitous high-speed coverage and a voracious appetite for tech gadgets, however, their tools have developed with entirely different features than other countries.
After the panel, we’ll keep the conversation going at the Maple Leaf Digital Lounge (at Paradise Cafe on Sixth) with a Japan Social Tech meet-up. Sign-up to chat with Nihon-o-philes – Kanpai!.
Ryan is also sharing his thoughts on a entrepreneurial and funding-focused panel called, “What? Those Guys are Canadian?” on Saturday March 12, 4:30–5:15pm at Maple Leaf Digital Lounge along with the CEOs from Syncapse and Kiip.
It’s Business Time
Ryan isn’t the only Owl on the ground. Greg and Katie from the HootSuite Business team are arranging client meetings, providing demos and showing how our social media plans can help you rock the social web. You’ll find them holding court at the Hilton hotel – which is part of the SXSW campus.
Talking about the owls… If you ever wanted to meet Owly in person, SX is your chance. Find our beloved spokes-raptor flying around with community wrangler Dave Olson sharing treats, giving away famous HootKits (now stocked with fresh SXSW specific swag), and even some special prizes:
Starter packs of critical web tools from Launchrock
Aluminum iPad stands – new (& awesome) from Chillbeds
Follow @HootUp and @daveohoots for more information about the giveaways and to find Owly available for photo ops. Here’s where to start looking for Dave and Owly:
For more details, check out @daveohoots SXSW calendar – If you need some Hoot knowledge or want the Owl at your party, just give Dave a ping to arrange a time/place.
SXSurvival
We know you are all responsible adults but… we just care too much to leave you without some tips:
And here’s a #HootTip: remove noise and increase signal by setting up a geo-located search on your mobile HootSuite so you only hear from people in Austin. And please, have fun and be safe.
Follow Along
Keep up with everything about HootSuite at SXSW 2011 by following @HootUp and/or #HootSX. We look forward to meeting all of you in Austin this month! Finally, thanks to @SXSW for using HootSuite for their Twittering.
The year has flown by and looking back, it makes us smile to see how far HootSuite has come – indeed we are happy to see all the amazing new developments and integrations we’ve hatched to our growing, global audience of Hoot-fans.
To ensure you haven’t missed out on any of the fun we’ve had, and reflect on the progress, we assembled the most notable HootSuite achievements this year. We hope you enjoy reliving some of the great HootSuite memories from the past 12 months, because you were part of the story.
January 2010 – New Beginnings
New year, new launch, new focus on community development and relationships: In January of 2010 HootSuite officially spins out on its own with about as many people as you can count on one hand. Thanks to the injection of some funds raised to jumpstart the dashboard, HootSuite launches WordPress, trend explanations and URL previews. And a new Owl joins the nest — Dave Olson joins HootSuite to develop the HootSuite community and starts off strong by introducing News Round-ups to help spread the word.
February 2010 – Aquarius Barn Owl
Vancouver hosts the 2010 Winter Games and HootSuite has some growth of Olympic proportions down at HQ. HootSuite releases a second iteration (code-named Barn Owl) which integrates Social CRM, campaign measuring and influence tools, and launches a new help desk for top-shelf support and a feature suggestion channel to gather ideas.
Plus, HootSuite hits the road to attend Seattle 140tc, Toronto’s Sprout Up, and Austin for SXSWi where the interviews, networking and socializing were non-stop with conversations about Foursquare/Myspace added to the dash. To top it all off, we managed to get some time in SF to build fortuitous relationships.
April 2010 – New Advancements
April brings ow.ly and ht.ly — two flavors of social bars for link-sharing/shortening needs. iPhone gets an update with translation, Facebook and geo-location tools, and school is in for spring with the introduction of HootSuite University — a subscription-based learning program with a social media certification for graduates.
If that’s not enough, the hugely-awaited and artfully-created team assignment tools are released to help delegaters the whole world over draft, schedule, and assign tasks to team members for efficiently managing social mentions and interactions.
June 2010 – Updates and upgrades
Half way through the year and there’s no sign of slowing down — in fact the pace increases. To pay homage the online world we live in, we celebrate Social Media Day with some treats for geeks, then release the HTML5 version of HootSuite to help users utilize the capabilities of the latest browser with geo-search, themes, Google Analytics, native/old-school Retweets and more.
Plus – June brings a Japanese version of the web app and an update to iPhone with Korean and Arabic localizations baked right in.
And who didn’t learn to love vuvuzelas just a little bit during World Cup? We use July’s football-phenomenon to interact with a whole new flock of our international users (and have a lot of fun doing it) and added some weight to the masses of Tweets as soccer fans the whole world over tested the limits of Twitter’s capacity.
August 2010 – Up-ing the Velocity
Ready? If you blink you’ll miss all of the August action. We’ve cranked up the heat with a bevy of new additions. First off, we announce a relationship with Constant Contact, announce the new freemium plans, get USA Federal-friendly with an updated terms of service which gets us listed in the apps.gov site (much to the joy of many key agencies).
We give you a sneak peek of the highly anticipated BlackBerry.
And we release ow.ly pro custom URL shortening services
Not enough? No problem, we’ll also throw in a live Twittering case study of an operating room using HootSuite to live-Tweet a surgery in progress. Enjoy!
HootSuite Free Mobile Apps - BlackBerry, iPhone, iPad, Android
Summer is long gone, the leaves have turned, and October has a bountiful harvest for HootSuite this year with Open ID and Mobile fest. Now HootSuite users have the option to login to their account or create new ones using any OpenID account. Plus there are mobile delights for just about every owl – BlackBerry is released, iPhone and Android are updated, there’s a preview of keitai, and iPad – and all mobile apps become free during Mobile Fest.
November 2010 – A Million Reasons to Hoot
It’s migration season, and the great migration to our freemium model is conducted, along with resources for team building, HootSuite style. Constant Contact is back in November and this time they announce that they’ve got HootSuite’s Social Share baked right in to their interface. If that’s not enough, we officially pass over 1 million HootSuite users, so we release a killer info-graphic and contest to guess when we crossed the threshold (congrats again @kelkel926!)
It’s been quite a year, and HootSuite is just getting started. To wrap up 2010 and create some momentum for the new year, we’ve got a whole list of goodies to announce:
Looking ahead to next year Hoot-fans can expect to see a load of new integrations in our App Directory to help make your social media management even better with some highly-requested networks coming rapidly.
Thanks to all of you for making this year amazing. We have some fun stories, news round-ups and Owly pictures to post over the holidays. Plus, we’ll see you back in January with events from New York and Mumbai plus an upcoming panel at SXSW called Big in Japan.
Mais oui, nos amis, c’est vrais. The French Owl is here, and the Italian Owl is flying too! La dolce vita.
Today, we’re thrilled to announce the release of the first two crowd-sourced international owls. Thanks to the Translation Project that has been in the works for a few months now, HootSuite web is now available in French and Italian. It’s not “perfect” but you can help the new versions improve with your linguistic skills.
From Morocco to Montreal — and the official language of HootSuite’s homeland — French has always been a front-runner in the translation efforts of HootSuite fans. In its turn, Italian for HootSuite came up unexpectedly fast and finished strong. Now Owls up and down the “boot” can hoot in their lovely language (now if only we could turn this into a trip to Positano…).
Grazie, Merci
We’re over the moon that HootSuite enthusiasts around the whole world have so enthusiastically contributed to the Translation project. We’d like to thank every translator who participated to help made this happen. In the short while since released, over 30,000 words were translated from English to French and Italian — that’s a whole lot of hoots.
We can’t help but wonder how all this could ever have happened without our incredible language coordinators Olivier Devriese (French) and Michele Catalano (Italian) who lovingly reviewed and submitted hundreds of strings in just a short time. And they weren’t alone — here are some of the other contributors that have helped bring this to life:
Top 3 French Translators
@odevriese — Olivier Devriese is our awesome language coordinator, who not only checked hundreds of strings but contributed thousands of words himself. From his own words, “After having translated many strings, I noticed that there were very few participants to do the [coordinator's] job. That’s why I decided to become a coordinator. I am persevering ;-).” He also says, “I hope that the French version will create a French-speaking community for HootSuite,” and we hope so too!
@iPhoneaddictfr — Cédric Calisti, the author of iPhoneAddict.fr, writes about iPhones and other Apple products and uses HootSuite to manage his social media accounts.
@bchamontin — Benoit Chamontin is a communication consultant (and a HootSuite fan).
@LeoPatrizi — Leonardo Patrizi is a passionate photographer. Check out his pictures on Flickr.
@ps3udolus — Michele Catalano is our great language coordinator who’s been passionate about the Translation Project from day one: “Before now many users who had difficulty with English were inhibited using the application. Now with locations in several languages as the Italian one, the spread of HootSuite will rise and many others can use the potential of this fantastic application,” he says.
Internation-owls
So what’s next? Now with HootSuite now available in 4 languages, it won’t be long until the next localizations round goes live.
Right now, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese look promising on the leaderboard, but there are other translators close on their heels. The Dutch and German users seem to be getting pretty serious… more and more owls land at HootSuite daily from frankwatching.com site and other supportive posts.
Take a look at the latest leaderboard below:
Owl in the Family
The HootSuite Translation Project has been a successful example of community crowd-sourcing. We’re grateful to our fans, and it’s been a lot of fun to connect with HootSuite users from around the world.
Inspired by the the amount of support for our community crowd-sourcing, we started a broader international outreach and support community: @HootSuite_Korea, @HootSuite_RU (Russian/Ukrainian) and @HootSuite_ES (Spanish) are set to join the already famous Japanese Owly, keeping HootSuite fans around the world informed, supported and satisfied.
While these languages are yet to be 100% completed, there already are a few fully translated apps, including iPhone and Blackberry. We’re expecting to release these very soon on various mobile owls including a few wildcards (Turkish anyone?).
As the translation project continues, our designers are working hard on creating more custom owls for everyone. So follow @HootWatch and #HootTrans for more news and announcements.
It’s a big week here at HootSuite with a gaggle of new mobiles releases coming down that will have Hoot fans rather giddy. You already heard that all HootSuite mobile apps are free and now the nest is filling up with a bevy of FIVE flavors of mobile apps. Some are completely new to the group, while others are familiar favorites with an update for your social media enjoyment. We think you’ll find each a welcome addition to the family.
With all these new owls hatching, it just *feels* like a festival – so get out your party hats to celebrate new mobile apps. We’ve also added a contest to help you get your fingers on new owls stickers featuring these new flying feathered friends.
For mobile fest, we’ll have a new mobile platform flying out each day this week – it is a fest after all! Get a sneak peek at what’s coming and visit daily for the owl du jour.
Meet the Owls
Blackberry
First up, meet the long awaited, much anticipated, HootSuite BlackBerry. Loyal BlackBerry fans have eagerly been testing the private beta version for over a month now, and now, the public beta drops for all to enjoy. Worth the wait with Twitter and Facebook plus a backwards and forwards compatibility to fit your ‘berry.
Android
Next on our list is HootSuite Android. Since learning that “robots need love too,” we’ve gathered feedback from heaps of handsets and tinkered to make this owl even better. This new and improved app now includes Facebook integration and refinements to make your experience friendlier and more reliable.
iPhone
Please give a hand to the veteran leader of the mobile group, HootSuite iPhone. Building on the remarkable recent geo-search and check-in tools, this wise owl can now intelligently auto-complete usernames and has a new “Friendship Status” button.
Keitai
Say “konnichiwa” to HootSuite Keitai, an unique new owl for Japan’s “galapa-phones.” HootSuite has evolved a mobile version specifically for the capabilities of Japanese feature phones. More (big) announcements coming for HootSuite fans in Japan – but you have to wait a couple of days.
iPad
Rounding out the line-up, get ready for HootSuite iPad. Created specifically for the iPad’s layout and form, this owl makes the most of the features that you would typically use on the tablet. All your fave tools are in there in a shiny interface you will eagerly click.
Owls For You
We want send some owls to your lands – plus we enjoy notes from around the world. So we have a plan to get a “Hootkit” in your hands:
1) Write a postcard that starts off with “HootSuite helps me…” then continue the sentence with your reasons for using HootSuite
2) Mail that postcard to the address below – be sure to include your return address (cards, aerogrammes, letters and drawings also accepted)
3) HootSuite will pick 20 entries which make us smile and we’ll mail the winners Hootkits with limited edition stickers and goodies
These owls are gonna go fast so your postcard must be postmarked by Oct. 30 to be eligible (but we’ll wait 4 weeks to give time for all to arrive).
Fine print: Sending a postcard as an entry is not a guarantee of a receiving a prize. All prizes are awarded solely on the discretion of HootSuite. Prizes have no cash value. By entering you give HootSuite permission to use your postcards in any manner.
HootSuite is truly an international social media dashboard and we love it that way. Why? Because we find fulfillment from seeing the actions and activities of users all over the world who are helping one another learn how to use the social web to spread messages to audiences from anywhere.
We’re working on providing more people a personalized experience in their own language with translation and localization on both iPhone and web versions for HootSuite which is exciting enough to celebrate on your vuvuzela.
While we keep working at our tasks, here’s a fresh news round-up with a sampling of what people are saying about HootSuite in their countries to peruse while you watch the finals of the FIFA World Cup — after which Twitter trafficmay even return to “normal.”
The original posts are translated from the native languages using the wonders of Google Translate to give you the gist of what they say.
HootSuite in the company – This post comes from Germany and the author describes why they have chosen to use HootSuite. They go through the advantages (Vorteile) and disadvantages (Nachteile) of the social media dashboard. Danke for the feedback.
HootSuite5, one of the best dashboards for social networks – Benoit Descary is from Montreal and writes that he wasn’t the biggest fan of HootSuite until the introduction of HootSuite5. He goes on to describe many of the new features in the HootSuite5 release and calls HootSuite “a true dashboard for social networks.” Merci Benoit!
Twitter web client “HootSuite” of Japanese language , HTML5 support new features – Japanese users are excited about the localized version for their language and in this article, they extol the virtues of HTML 5 including “drag and drop” ability and improved performance along with the Japanese-i-fication.
HootSuite | New interface and enhanced features in HTML5 for Social Networks – In this post, Chico Montenegro writes about some of the new features such as geo-location and themes from the HootSuite 5 update. We hope this is helpful for HootSuite fans in Brazil.
GeeksRoom Review: HootSuite renovated: The good and the bad – In this frank review of the HootSuite 5 update, Eduardo Wheeler writes that he likes the improved profile view, the themes, as well as the not so new scheduling feature.
Eduardo balances the good feedback with the bad and mentions a few other things that he would like to see improved. In the end, Eduardo remains a daily user and recommends HootSuite to professionals managing multiple social media accounts.
Do not let technology enslave you – In this provocatively titled post, Leanne Italie shares life-hacking productivity tips from former Google exec and congnitive scientist Douglas C. Merrill incuding using HootSuit to manage your social interactions so they don’t get out of control and control your day. Not much about HootSuite but interesting nonetheless.
Techically written in English but TechVibes’ Jeffery Simpson has some fun with Google Translate in writing about HootSuite’s localization: Forgive Babel Fish’s shoddy German, but it just did not feel right to title a post about the addition of localization support to Twitter manager extraordinaire HootSuite without at least trying to make it multilingual. Localization support for Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese and German joins the previous translation services that the application offered in its last update.
More HootSuite
Remember, you can catch all the HootSuite news via the social bookmark stream and/or by following @hootwatch for the full firehose feed of media mentions.
With the HootSuite team constantly focusing on what’s next, it’s easy to lose sight of how far we’ve come. Looking in the rear view, 2011 was a watershed year for us as the HootSuite community soared from just over 1 million sign-ups at the end of 2010, to more than 2.7 million by mid-December – nearly tripling our userbase in one year.
Back in 2009, @
The second international is from Russia. Our community in the Eastern Europe is smaller than in other regions yet very strong.
Are you ready for 
We know you are all responsible adults but… we just care too much to leave you without some tips:
Vancouver hosts the 2010 Winter Games and HootSuite has some growth of Olympic proportions down at HQ. HootSuite releases a second iteration (
HootSuite CEO 
Half way through the year and there’s no sign of slowing down — in fact the pace increases. To pay homage the online world we live in, we celebrate 
We bring on 
Ready? If you blink you’ll miss all of the August action. We’ve cranked up the heat with a bevy of new additions. First off, we announce a relationship with 
And while we’re at it we’ll add 
Top 3 French Translators
Blackberry
Keitai
iPad
