Hootsuite is a social media management platform, created by Ryan Holmes in 2008. The system's user interface takes the form of a

dashboard A dashboard (also called dash, instrument panel or IP, or fascia) is a control panel (engineering), control panel set within the central console of a vehicle, boat, or cockpit of an aircraft or spacecraft. Usually located directly ahead of the ...

, and supports social network integrations for

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

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LinkedIn LinkedIn () is an American business and employment-oriented Social networking service, social network. It was launched on May 5, 2003 by Reid Hoffman and Eric Ly. Since December 2016, LinkedIn has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft. ...

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YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

and

TikTok TikTok, known in mainland China and Hong Kong as Douyin (), is a social media and Short-form content, short-form online video platform owned by Chinese Internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which may range in duration f ...

. Based in

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

, Hootsuite has over 1,000 staff members in 13 locations, including

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

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Luxembourg Luxembourg, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is a landlocked country in Western Europe. It is bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France on the south. Its capital and most populous city, Luxembour ...

and

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. The company has more than 16 million users in over 175 countries.

History

In 2008, Holmes needed a tool to manage multiple social media networks at his digital services agency, Invoke Media."Ivan Fernandes, MediaCom Global Director, Social Media Technology, interviews Ryan Holmes, CEO of Hootsuite"
MediaCom. Retrieved March 21, 2012. Finding that there was no product in the market offering all the features he sought, Holmes, along with Dario Meli, David Tedman, and the Invoke team, chose instead to develop a platform of their own that would be able to organize their many social media accounts and networks. The first iteration of this social media management system launched on November 28, 2008, in the form of a Twitter dashboard called BrightKit. Recognizing that many other individuals and organizations worldwide faced similar problems with managing multiple social accounts, Holmes decided that BrightKit could be the solution for other businesses looking to organize their social networks. The launch of BrightKit had a positive reception. In February 2009, Holmes offered a $500 prize for renaming the platform and used crowdsourced suggestions from the dashboard's 100,000+ users as contest submissions. The winning idea was Hootsuite, a moniker submitted by a user named Matt Nathan and based upon "Owly", the dashboard's owl logo, as a

word play Word play or wordplay (also: play-on-words) is a literary technique and a form of wit in which words used become the main subject of the work, primarily for the purpose of intended effect or amusement. Examples of word play include puns, ph ...

on the French expression "tout de suite", meaning "right now". In November 2009, the Hootsuite dashboard expanded its offering to support Facebook and LinkedIn and the capability to use Twitter Lists. In December 2009, Hootsuite spun off from Invoke Media and launched officially as an independent company, Hootsuite Media, Inc. That same month, Hootsuite received $1.9 million in funding from Hearst Interactive Media, Blumberg Capital, and prominent angel investors Leo Group LLC and Geoff Entress. In March 2012, OMERS Ventures, the venture capital investment arm of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, invested $20 million, valuing the company at US$200 million. OMERS did not buy its stake directly in the company, but rather bought private shares in a secondary transaction from a handful of employees and early investors, said Holmes. In May 2012, Hootsuite subsequently raised US$50 million in a

Series A round A series A is the name typically given to a company's first significant round of venture capital financing. It can be followed by the word round, investment or financing. The name refers to the class of preferred stock sold to investors in excha ...

, following rumors. In September 2012, Hootsuite acquired

Seesmic Seesmic was a suite of freeware World Wide Web, web, Mobile phone, mobile, and Desktop computer, desktop Computer application, applications which allowed users to simultaneously manage user accounts for multiple social networks, such as Facebook ...

, a customer relationship management system and competitor. On August 1, 2013, the company announced that it had raised US$165 million in Series B funding from Insight Venture Partners, followed by

Accel Partners Accel, formerly known as Accel Partners, is a global venture capital firm. Accel works with startups in seed, early and growth-stage investments. The company has offices in Palo Alto, California and San Francisco, California, with additional ope ...

and OMERS—all three will now have a seat on Hootsuite's board. Holmes also said the company wanted to make at least two unnamed acquisitions and employ 100 overseas employees. In February 2017, Hootsuite announced its acquisition of AdEspresso, a digital advertisement manager, and LiftMetrix, a leading social media analytics company. In March 2018, Hootsuite announced $50 million in growth capital from CIBC Innovation Banking. In January 2021, Hootsuite acquired Sparkcentral, a messaging customer engagement tool and competitor, for an undisclosed price. In April 2024, it was announced Hootsuite had agreed to acquire the Kirchberg, Luxembourg-headquartered, AI-led social listening and analytics platform Talkwalker for an undisclosed amount.

Service

The service is commonly used to manage online brands and to submit messages to a variety of social media services, including

and

. Companies and organizations known to use Hootsuite include

, the

Obama administration Barack Obama's tenure as the 44th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2009, and ended on January 20, 2017. Obama, a Democrat from Illinois, took office following his victory over Republican nomine ...

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...

, Martha Stewart Media,

Virgin Group Virgin Group Ltd is a British multinational venture capital conglomerate founded by Richard Branson and Nik Powell in February 1970. Virgin Group's date of incorporation is listed as 1989 by Companies House, who class it as a holding compa ...

SXSW South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...

Panasonic is a Japanese multinational electronics manufacturer, headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka, Kadoma, Japan. It was founded in 1918 as in Fukushima-ku, Osaka, Fukushima by Kōnosuke Matsushita. The company was incorporated in 1935 and renamed and c ...

, Zappos, The Gap and LHC."Keeping tabs on your brand"
''The National Post''. Retrieved July 4, 2010. Hootsuite provides a browser-based dashboard that lets users manage their social media presence and performance.

Business

The company behind the service is based in

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. In January 2010, the Hootsuite company was spun out of Invoke Media after

venture capital Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...

firms Blumberg Capital and Hearst Interactive Media raised $2 million in financing for the company. Localized versions of Hootsuite are available in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. As of March 2018, the service managed over one million social media accounts for 16 million unique users.

Reception

The Hootsuite software has won awards from

Mashable Mashable is a Online newspaper, news website, digital media platform and entertainment company founded by Pete Cashmore in 2005. History Mashable was founded by Pete Cashmore while living in Aberdeen, Scotland, in July 2004. Early iterations o ...

at their Open Web Awards 2009, and the Canadian New Media Award. In 2025, Hootsuite was ranked as the top social media management tool by G2.

Controversies

In September 2020, Hootsuite faced criticism over its agreement with

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE; ) is a Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement agency under the United States Department of Homeland Security. ICE's stated mission is to protect the Un ...

, made weeks after allegations of forced hysterectomies at ICE detention centres surfaced. Following public pressure, the company backed out of the deal and posted a lengthy statement from CEO Tom Keiser to their official Twitter account that expressed regret over the internal divisions that the contract had created within the company. It later dismissed an employee who had disclosed the contract. In October, it was claimed that the contract had been transferred to the rival company

NUVI Nuvi is a software and marketing services company that develops a SaaS Customer experience#Management, customer experience management (CXM) and social media marketing platform. The Nuvi platform has eight tools: Listen, Plan, Publish, Engage, Anal ...

, leading to uncertainty about the actual fate of the contract.

References

External links

Official Website
{{Twitter navbox 2008 establishments in British Columbia B Lab-certified corporations Canadian companies established in 2008 Canadian social networking websites Companies based in Vancouver Email marketing software Internet properties established in 2008 Multinational companies headquartered in Canada Technology companies of Canada Twitter services and applications Social media management platforms