Hootsuite appoints its first GM of APAC to fuel growth in the region

The social media management software has also launched a resource platform, as well as inked new partnerships

Global social media management platform Hootsuite has appointed its first General Manager for Asia-Pacific to fuel its growth in the region.

Rich Meiklejohn was formerly the CEO of APAC for Zafin, a provider of relationship banking software solutions. Prior to that, he was a Partner at recruitment and leadership consultancy firm Heidrick & Struggles. He previously managed key partnerships for Cognos, an IBM-owned business intelligence and performance management software company.

In his new role, he will be responsible for growth strategy and overall performance in the region, and will report to Hootsuite’s senior vice president of sales, Bob Elliott.

This announcement comes off the back of Hootsuite’s aggressive hiring spree in 2016. A press release said that Hootsuite APAC added 50 per cent more people to its team this year, and will continue to do so in Asian markets including Singapore. It will expand its presence in North Asia and India in 2017.

Hootsuite APAC also now supports more than 2.6 million users at companies that include Woolworths, OCBC Bank, ANZ Bank, Alliance Bank Malaysia Berhad, RAA Insurance, and Telekom Malaysia Berhad, Jetstar

“APAC has always been a vibrant, dynamic region, and today it continues to evolve as the world’s biggest growth market for social media. Hootsuite is the leader in this space and I’m very excited to take the helm as we expand our operations in APAC,” said Meiklejohn.

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“In Southeast Asia, we have our base of operations in Singapore and have customers across our core markets including Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand. India continues to be a strategic market for us as well as Hong Kong and Taiwan. In addition, Japan has over 750,000 Hootsuite users and we are making strides in that market,” he added.

Meiklejohn said that capturing the entire Asian market would not be a cakewalk. He cited vast cultural diversities and disparity in infrastructure between markets as factors.

Rich Meiklejohn, General Manager for APAC

“The biggest challenge being sheer diversity from a business culture and technology perspective. APAC is a massive region and the basic logistics can challenge companies unfamiliar with growth strategies, including when and where to set up physical offices.”

Hootsuite has also launched several new features in recent weeks. One of which is an increase in paid social advertising platforms — a market that, according to eMarketer, is set to hit US$35.98 billion in 2017.

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In this regard, it partnered with six new paid social advertising platforms to allow Hootsuite customers to complement their organic social media efforts with optimised social advertising campaigns by running social advertising initiatives directly from the Hootsuite dashboard, such as creating and optimising advertising campaigns and boosting organic posts.

These platforms include:

• AdEspresso, self-service solution for Facebook and Instagram advertising optimisation;

• Adaptly, a technology and services company that enables advertisers to scale campaigns across Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and Pinterest; and,

• Nanigans, provider of advertising automation software for in-house marketing teams.

Beyond that, Hootsuite is currently integrated with over 250 business applications, including Salesforce, Marketo, IBM Connections, SugarCRM, Survey Monkey and Zendesk. It is exploring integrating with WeChat in the future.

Earlier this month, Hootsuite also announced the roll out of Hootsuite Academy, a comprehensive social media resource portal. This allows its over 15 million users to obtain videos, resources, and industry certifications (through tie-ups with Mayo Clinic and academic institutions such as Syracuse University’s Newhouse School) that can their boost social media skills and credentials.

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Image Credit: Hootsuite

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