In this podcast episode, we interview Mark Abrami, Senior Manager of Business Value Services at Hootsuite, a global leader in social media management.

Mark shares his career journey from psychology through to marketing, and why he decided to specialize in social media marketing. He explores why he thinks B2B social is lagging compared to B2C, and how B2B marketers need to overcome the fear associated with social media.

He also shares how Hootsuite’s full enterprise solution grows and scales with different organizations, as well as tips on how to be successful, and the true benefits of having a social management solution.

Transcript: Interview with Mark Abrami – Hootsuite

Mike: Thanks for listening to marketing b2b Tech, the podcast from Napier, where you can find out what really works in b2b marketing today.

Welcome to the latest episode of marketing b2b technology that podcast from Napier. Today I’m joined by Marco Brahmi, from Hootsuite. Welcome to the podcast, Mark.

Mark: Thank you, Mike. Thank you for having me.

Mike: So, I’m interested, you know, in terms of your career, can you talk us through, you know, what you’ve done in the past and how you ended up at Hootsuite?

Mark: Sure, um, I feel I’ve got a very interesting career, I actually studied psychology, I have a degree in psychology. But when I came out of university, I was looking for a job, I fell into marketing. But you could argue that marketing and psychology are very similar. You’re influencing people’s perceptions and feelings about certain things. So I ended up in a marketing role. I was there at a company called Pernod Ricard, which is the world’s second largest wine and spirits company. I was there for eight years. And I worked my way from sort of marketing assistant all the way up to brand manager over those eight years. And, and while I was in that role, it was traditional brand marketing.

So you know, advertising and events and packaging. But that’s the time sort of the 2008 2009 with digital and social media, were becoming a big thing. And as part of my role, I got to develop and run a couple of successful brand campaigns on Facebook in early 2010. And that’s when the social media bug hit me. And I believed at the time that you know, social media was here to stay, it wasn’t just a fad. And I also believe that it was actually going to be something that would hugely impact not only on businesses, but on society itself. And I felt this urge this desire to specialise in social marketing. But of course, you know, 2010 2011, not a lot of organisations had dedicated social media roles. But I was very lucky to land a role at the Expedia group in early 2012, where my remit was to build and run the social media team and strategy at Expedia. And so that was, that was a lot of fun. You know, travel is a great vertical to work in on social media 70% of content on Facebook, is related to travel, people sharing their holiday photos, on their wish to listen, and so on. So it was a great time and place to be.

And it also coincided with the launch and rise of social ads, all of those annoying things that we now take for granted in our newsfeed. But, you know, early days when those were coming in, and so there was a lot of experimentation and use of these new ads, formats. And I actually even work with Facebook directly, to help them develop an ad format, which still exists today. It is dynamic ads for travel. So I was very privileged to be able to work very closely with Facebook in developing one of those annoying ad formats.

And I was at Expedia for four and a half years, and then I was I was lured away to a startup. And it became very, very apparent very quickly that the startup world environment was not right for me. And so I was only there for a few months before I left and I joined sage, and many people will be familiar with sage, you know, the accounting software giant. And again, my remit there was global director of social media. How can a company like sage, you know very much b2b in nature of what we’re talking about today. But how can a company like sage use social media and so again, redefining and rebuilding teams and strategies at Sage and it was while I was at Sage that I was obviously evaluating different solutions, different social marketing tools, one of which being Hootsuite. And eventually, I made the decision to Become a Hootsuite customer at Sage and I actually I loved the product so much. I loved the people who worked at Hootsuite so much that when the opportunity came to join Hootsuite, I jumped at that. And so sort of after almost two years at that stage, I ended up joining Hootsuite, and I think it was just I had found a place where my passions combined with the passions of the organisation I was working for. And the other piece that really appealed to me was the thing I had loved about what I had done at Buena Rekha and at Expedia and sage was overcoming the challenge of how businesses can use social media. And so in my role now at Hootsuite, this is what I do on a daily basis, but not just for one company for multiple companies across different verticals, different sizes, different geographies, and so I run a team of analysts and consultants now who work with with our customers here at Hootsuite to really answer all of these difficult questions around the why the how and the what of social media within the business context.

Mike: That’s amazing. And I love the idea of you like the product so much you’ve joined the company, I think that’s brilliant, but it is true 100% True.

So I’m interested, was there a big jump? I mean, you obviously, you know, highlighted there was a big difference between working for a larger company in a startup. But in terms of going from client-side to working for a marketing technology company, was there a big difference there?

Mark: I suppose the biggest shock for me was always having in the back of your mind, this is about customer, you know, customer relationship, and almost sales. So although I’m not in a sales role, that all is always sort of a little thing at the back of my mind where, you know, what I’m doing is for the benefit of the customer, but also at the same time, it needs to benefit the organisation. Whereas before being customer side, you’re almost got this view of, oh, you know, this is this is great. We can do all of these, these things, and it’s good for the business objectives. But there’s a slightly different pressure when you are, then you know, in sort of in the marketing sales world, more tech sales world. So yeah, that I suppose that’s the only difference. The rest of it is the same. I’m I’m still dealing with all of the same questions and challenges that I used to face when I was customer side.

Mike: Cool. It sounds like the transitions worked well for you.

Mark: I guess the first question I’ve got to ask is around the difference between b2b and b2c? You know, b2c, I think has really embraced social media, and b2b seems to be lagging, what why do you think that is? So I think to answer this, we need to look at the psychology of social media. So I think we need to really understand why are people using social, what do they expect from it? How does it make them feel, and in reality, and if you think of your own way that you use social media and engage, there’s a lot of emotional investment, whenever you open up and scroll through your various social feeds. And so that works really well for the b2c brands, where they often draw on emotions in their marketing campaigns and within their content. So a b2c brand on social can post, you know, beautifully crafted videos and funny memes and have a more relaxed tone of voice. Because it ties into the there’s a closer connection to how social media users are using the platform. b2b brands, on the other hand, are generally more conservative in their approach, and they’re more focused on the solution. So it’s things like, you know, our product is going to help your business to do X or Y. And it’s a very factual, sometimes even dry approach. And that that’s in conflict with what people are expecting when they’re using social media. So you know, think of that think of when you’re opening up Facebook, or Twitter or whatever, in most cases, you’re not wanting to engage with the brand, you’re wanting to engage with humans, with your connections, those people that are either friends, family colleagues, or just, you know, people that you’ve connected with on these social platforms. So when there is this very heavily business-focused, factual, technical content, it’s in conflict with what you’re expecting and wanting to do on social. And I think that’s probably why b2c brands have had an easier time and being able to embrace social a lot easier than b2b.

And so do you see the future being social media for business becomes, I guess, less emotional, social media? Or do you think that b2b brands are going to change their approach? I strongly believe that b2b brands need to change their approach. I think, you know, there needs to be. And we’re seeing this already. I’ll talk through some examples as we go through today. But we’re seeing this already where those brands who are willing to experiment who are willing to you create a different tone of voice for social and to become more personable, more human, and more likable, and are seeing or seeing more success. And I think that’s the key piece here. Think of social media as a as not as a b2c or a b2b channel, but as a human-to-human channel. That’s, that’s what it was created for. I know it’s changed and morphed over time. But ultimately, you know, the social networks are created for human connection. And that’s what brands need to take into consideration. And so if you if you’re ignoring the fact that you’re talking to humans who are having a very specific agenda and interests when they are on social media, then that’s where you’re going to face some challenges. So I do believe that b2b brands need to change how they’re using social there needs to be less fear. I think there’s a lot of fear today, within the b2b marketing space when it comes to social media. We need to change that and we need to overcome that.

I think that the fear point is a brilliant point. You know, we see a lot of businesses talking about being on brand on social and being on brand is normally one of the most dehumanising things you can do.

Mike: But I think there, this issue of fear is a real problem because everybody’s worried that their boss is going to say, what was posted as an acceptable? I mean, how do you think we get over that?

Mark: Yeah, so education is the biggest piece that I sort of advocate for making your boss, your senior leaders, you know, executives within the organisation truly understand what socialists and why your business should be on there. I think what’s happening, there’s a, within the sort of the senior leaders of organisations, for many of them, their understanding of social media is limited. And they might not be power users of social, you know, they’re definitely not going to be sort of tik tok as and, and social influences. But in some cases, they might not be willing to admit that they don’t know, everything or the things that they do know are based on wider perceptions, I often hear vanity metrics. And I often hear executives saying, Well, why should we be on social, it’s all just about cat videos, and likes and followers. But that’s not the case. They’re just sort of reusing things that they’re they’re hearing in the in the wider media. And so there’s a lack of education.

And the best way is to address that. And to help senior managers, senior leaders and organisations truly understand why is social media important to your business. So it’s not a case of looking at what Coca Cola are doing, and Nike and all of those, yes, it’s good to learn from that. But if you’re trying to convince your senior leaders, it’s to say to them, This is why social media is important to our business, and you tie back to business goals, business, business objectives, and really demonstrate that, you know, we post content because it influences these key metrics that are important to the business or you know, we do these different activities, because of reasons X y&z But it always needs to tie back to business goals. So I think education is a key piece, I also think that we shouldn’t be afraid, as social marketers within the b2b space to play around and experiment, don’t go crazy, don’t create something that’s going to get you fired, or, or whatever. But you know, push the envelope a little bit and try, you know, softening the tone of voice a bit. Try, you know, tweaking some of the copy and the content, if you can and the imagery, and see how that works. And then show that to your senior leaders and say, look, we’ve tried these couple of things. Yes, most of our content is within this very narrow, broad nine lines. But look what happens when we go out of those lines and look at the success that we see. And also look at the success that other brands have seen and aren’t delivering within the b2b space.

Mike: That’s fascinating. I think one of the things I see a lot of pushback on is senior leaders being really concerned about negative comments on posts. I mean, do you see that as a problem? And do you see that as something we can overcome with education as well.

Mark: So I think just by the very nature that everybody on social has a voice, you’re going to get a lot of negative comments. And we also know that the people who are most vocal are those who have something bad to say, either because they’ve had a bad experience, or just because they’re slightly toxic. And that that’s just the nature of the odd social. People who have a good experience with you, or, or a neutral experience will probably say nothing. But those who have a bad experience will go and say, but that’s fine, because you know, no company is perfect. No, it no brand is perfect. And it also means that you can publicly address those negative comments. So yes, you will get negative comments, that is just the nature of the beast, it’s inevitable. But it’s then how do you deal with those negative comments? What do you know? Are they valid? And if they are valid, what is your comeback on that? Or if they are invalid? set the record straight? Yeah, make it clear that actually, yes, thank you for your comment. But here is it, you know, here’s the truth, or, you know, here’s what really is going on, because other people are looking at that. And if you are just either ignoring or staying silent on those negative comments, which you’re going to inevitably get, then you’re just demonstrating to other people that you don’t care, or you know, or that that’s true. And so it’s then a case of do something about those negative comments, engage. And I think and you there may be some instances where you’re just going around in circles, and then you can step back, it’s like it’s like normal life, you know, take any example of human interaction and apply that to to social because this is just essentially humans interacting and engaging through to a digital platform. And so yeah, I think education plus thing that sort of removal of that negative negative commentary fear will definitely would help.

Mike: That’s, that’s great advice. And I think, you know, one of the things that definitely helps with the engagement with the comments are tools. And I’d love to talk a little bit about Hootsuite now.

Mark: You know, and particularly, I mean, I think a lot of people know the Hootsuite free version, and yet we’re talking about marketers working in enterprises and big organisations. So love the free version. But obviously, that’s not an enterprise solution. So what solutions to Hootsuite offer other than just the free version, so we have a full suite, and we almost grow and scale with different organisations. So the free version is great for those individuals who maybe have one social profile, you know, they’re very, very small business or an individual just doing something that they love, and they want a tool to help them with scheduling content, and so on.

But we grow, the product grows, and there’s then bigger versions of the solution, which then have greater functionality and, and capabilities in there. And so you know, as we go up, you you, you get then sort of what we call business plan, where you have up to five users, and now you’re starting to get that collaboration, and they’re starting to build in the approval workflows. And then as your organisation gets bigger, we have, you know, bespoke packages that we create, where you’re then able to do a lot more things you can manage way more social profiles, you can have a lot more people collaborating in there, you have the governance and control. And so you know, it’s no longer a case of people sharing passwords, login passwords, to your social profiles, and when that person leaves the organisation, Oh, who’s got the password? Oh, I don’t know, Jack, you know, he’s gone. And so you have that you’re able to put in that, that governance and control in there, better approval workflows, an easier content creation, community management, analytics, as well. So you know, as your, as your use of the product needs to become more sophisticated, we have more sophisticated solutions when it comes to analytics, and being able to, to evaluate and understand what’s working, and therefore do do more of that. You can scale your, the amount that you’re listening to, as well. So those conversations and discussions about your brand about industry, trends, and so on. And we also have services and support. And that scales with different size organisations as well. So you no training and education piece, we have Hootsuite Academy, which is our education portal, lots of great content certification courses, for, again, organisations of all different sizes. And then of course, teams like the one that I run, where, you know, we have analysts and consultants who helped enterprise size organisations with things like understanding your social maturity and the types of things that you could be doing. So a very broad product that, you know, can really scale as your business grows, and all the different components and integrations and capabilities that get bigger and more complex in line with your organisation. I’m really interested about the freemium approach.

Mike: I mean, do you see a lot of companies go from free to paid? Or is the free version more about, you know, raising awareness of Hootsuite? Or is it just you guys being, you know, genuinely generous, and, and giving a product that, frankly, a lot of people are using who are never going to go to a paid version?

Mark: And yeah, so you know, obviously, the Hootsuite grew about 12 years ago, and grew out of an agency who were managing social media on behalf of other companies, and felt and saw the pain that they went through. And so created, you know, our founder created this tool for his own use within the agency. And it’s now become this model. And so, we do believe that there are, there’s a large number of people who need the free version in order to do what they’re doing. But equally, there are a lot of businesses and organisations who immediately need a more complex solution that obviously, you know, different levels of, of subscription service to, we do see some organisations where they’re almost dabbling in social or just quite naturally, the social media team are not being given tools or budget. And so they’re using the Hootsuite free version, in order to do what they need to do. And as their social media activity improves, and starts to gain visibility within the organisation, they then be challenged to do more, but in order to do more, you need the investment in there. And so those are the types of companies where we’re seeing out of necessity that the teams social teams are using the free version, but then they’re upgrading to the paid for version and obviously different variations of that. But we also see a lot of organisations now just truly understanding that in order to be successful on social, you need a social management solution. And so they’re doing the you know, RFPs and RFIs. And, you know.

In investigations, and we are being included that we are the industry leader with the oldest player in the social media marketing and social management space. We are, you know, often recognised by the likes of Forrester, as, you know, a leading solution in this space. And so we quite naturally come up in as people are evaluating tools, we become up in this conversation. So it’s fascinating that, you know, the free version is really helping you grow the business.

Mike: But what I’m quite interested in is, are there any particular features in the paid versions that you think really differentiate yourselves from other social media? Tools?

Mark: Yes, definitely. You know, obviously, at the at the core level, the rotary platform and other social management tools are all built on the same API’s from the social networks. So there are lots of similarities. But in terms of the Hootsuite solution, and what makes it so powerful, in my opinion, is that you’re able to integrate all of your social media activities, not just your marketing pieces, but everything within one on one platform. So you’re able to publish and schedule your content and get approvals and, and so on. But also, we have an employee advocacy solution. So enabling your wider organisation to be active on social media, we have a social selling solution as well integrated into one tool, customer care, social listening, analytics, rich analytics, you’re all in one place. So you’re not having to log into different tools or do different things, all of your social media activity across your entire business is in that one, that one space. I think also, another key element is we integrate with a lot of other marketing tech stack tools as well. So we integrate into CRMs into content management systems into content, you know, dams, digital asset management tools, as well. We integrate into business intelligence tools, so you’re able to get richer and deeper understanding of the impact of your social media activities within the wider business context. So yeah, there are a lot of factors that really differentiate the Hootsuite solution. And I think the other piece on top of that, outside of the solution, but it’s just them the support and services I spoke about a short while ago, you know, the education piece, activities that my team run, as value add to to customers are all part of the key reasons that differentiate us from some of our competitors.

Mike: First, great, there’s a lot there. I mean, one of the things you mentioned that I think it is really interesting, you’re the employee advocacy, and particularly the social selling side, we see a lot of clients, very keen to promote social selling. But typically, they struggle with a sales team, being reluctant to adopt social selling as a different model. I mean, why do you think that is? And what can we do to overcome that resistance?

Mark: So social selling is a very complex topic. And I think, you know, to understand, it’s really about what is social selling, there’s, there’s lots of different interpretations and views of this. But ultimately, it’s about how your sales people can build relationships with, with customers and potential customers, using social as well as their traditional ways. So I often say it’s complimentary to how your sales team use email, and telephone and face to face. When dealing with prospects and customers. It’s not something completely different or new or anything, it’s just another way of engaging. And so those salespeople who know how to engage on a human level with other people through telephone and email and face to face, quite easily embraced the social media, social selling social media aspect, but a lot of them don’t, there’s this sort of fear or uncertainty of what to do. And so in order to get your salespeople in and the, you know, less resistant to this education, provide them with training, make them understand what’s in it for them. This is often where social selling and employee advocacy programmes sort of fail at the beginning, is they’re set up and they’re explained as this is great for the business, which it is. But actually, what you should be telling your advocates and your social sellers is, this is great for you. This is a great tool for you to become a 21st century seller or 21st century employee. I often say I run training sessions on social selling and employee advocacy. And I often say social media is the new business card. Before we all had these little pieces of paper that had your name and your details on but now you have a personal social brand. And you have this online presence, which is how people can understand who you are, what you do, how you do it, and if they want to engage with you. So it’s, even more, it’s even richer than the business card. So education around personal stuff.

As your brand, you know how to use it in a powerful way, what’s in it for you as a salesperson. And then the next piece is you need to empower them. So one thing to educate your salespeople, but you know, if you just educate them, and then leave them to their own devices, that’s when you start ending up with stuff that’s potentially off brand. And some, you know, less or less impactful activities. So you then need to arm them with content. But also, it’s not just, Hey, here’s the content, we’re posting to our social channels. So we think you should share it as well. But actually tailoring and creating content that aligns with not only your seller’s needs, so you know, why would they want to share this and what’s in it for them, but also with their audience needs as well. So it’s complex, there’s a very complex relationship here when it comes to social selling. But when you get it right, it is hugely powerful. We see, you know, much shorter lead to close time. For you know, with the social selling, we see a greater increase in the pipeline as well generated from search. So, but it has to be done in the right way. It’s not just the simple, turn it on, give your salespeople Sales Navigator, and our social sellers, there’s a lot of change that needs to be done by the salespeople, there’s a lot of things that they need to do and to embrace and habits that they need to form as well. It’s not just an overnight success thing, it takes time to build. But when you get it right, it is hugely powerful for your sellers, for your advocates, and for the business. And I love that thought about creating content specifically for the sales team. I think, you know, one of the things I have seen fall over is where you’ve got marketing content that’s available for salespeople to share, and it’s just not appropriate for them. It’s not the right style, it’s not the right content.

Mike: So that’s brilliant advice. I love that. And also, you’ll often see in those situations, if you are connected to a number of people from that organisation, you will just be seeing that content everywhere. Which then you know, uses, it’s impacted. So you do need to have more crafted tailored content for your salespeople. So, I mean, obviously presuming you help people overcome challenges, but you also see some great results as well. I mean, do you have some examples of companies that are doing b2b social media? Well, is there anybody you’d point to and say, yeah, these guys are really crushing it?

Mark: Yep. So Hootsuite, of course, you know, we wouldn’t be in this game if we weren’t good at it as well. And so you know that the Hootsuite social presence is fantastic. We’re across different platforms, Twitter, LinkedIn, and so on. And we post a variety of content that fulfills different objectives. So we were not afraid to post that content, which is timely and fun and engaging, and really appealing to our core users. So those people who are the, you know, community managers day-to-day social practitioners, and we do all of that to keep them loving our brand. So we post when there was the big Facebook outage at the beginning of last week, you know, we posted some tongue, tongue-in-cheek comments about that, and people were engaging, and talking about that, which is, which is great. But that’s very specific in terms of, we want to keep our users loving the brand and what we do, but we also post content, sort of that goes higher up the chain. It explains the business benefits of the platform, we post case studies, best practices because that’s the type of stuff that resonates with key decision-makers within an organisation and also which empowers them to answer any of those questions that they get from executives, or from procurement and finance when they’re having to justify why they want to invest in our solution. And we obviously share details about events and webinars and right a wide range of topic. topics that you know, cover our core user all the way up to CEOs we run webinars for CEOs as well. Outside of Hootsuite, I think slack, do a great job on social too. So they post a lot of content on different topics as well, they understand they’ve got a very diverse audience. So they publish a lot of different content, event coverage, they publish third party or they post third party articles on work-life balance, which is obviously very important. productivity tips, company news, but I think the key thing about Slack is their tone of voice is perfect for social, it’s casual. It’s relatable, it’s human. It’s not, you know, very rigid and bland, if you like, one more example for getting very quickly. Shutterstock did a great thing a couple of years ago, you’ll probably remember fire festival. And it was the whole fake event that was supposed to happen. And Shutterstock use their own assets and created a parody campaign called Fire stock. And basically all they did was they were just showing how easy it was and how cost-effective it is to use stock images in order to create these amazing campaigns that, you know, get people so excited that they’re willing to spend 1000s of pounds to go to a fake event on a tropical island. So you know things like that where it shows

To stop could have just said, Yeah, our solution, our stock images are grateful for you to do create campaigns. But they didn’t they created something on social that tapped into what people were talking about that was a bit more fun, a bit more visual. And he says it’s things like that where b2b brands can be a little bit more creative and intelligent, and have more meaningful impact.

Mike: That’s great. I mean, there’s some excellent examples there. You mentioned different platforms, I’m gonna have to ask this, do you think as b2b marketers, we should be trying out all the new platforms? I mean, should we all be on tik tok at the moment.

Mark: So we know that b2b typically stays in the LinkedIn space. But that’s quite natural, because it, that’s where the users on LinkedIn are expecting a business experience, they’re, you know, they’re there. That’s what it is, it’s built on. So I think that’s quite understandable. But that doesn’t mean you should ignore or not go to other platforms.

But at the same time, don’t jump on something just because it’s, it’s the latest trend, or it’s hot. You know, always think about how is this relevant to my organisation?

You know, just because Coca Cola are doing it, or Nike are doing it, and everybody’s talking about it, and doesn’t mean that your organisation should. So tic TOCs, an interesting one. And I think it’s been around long enough now that people can understand more about it, and about how the users are using it, their experience, their expectations. So it’s a nice time now, you’re not jumping on the bandwagon too early and almost setting yourself up for failure. But it’s also a case of really do that due diligence to understand, is this the right place for my brand? Is this the right place for my product? Or my audience here? And if they are, how can I make sure that the content I post here matches their experience on this platform? And so I often say to businesses, when they talk to me about tik tok and say, should we go on tik tok, I advise them think about it, is it the right fit? For four years? Is your audience there? And can you fulfil their needs, but also view it almost like YouTube light? So in other words, are you able to create video content that’s going to deliver your message in a fun, engaging, and more importantly, quick way, because that’s what the tik tok format is.

And so if you’re just trying to then take maybe a product catalogue, or, you know, here’s our latest features of our product, or whatever, video that you’ve done for YouTube, and you’re going to put that on tik tok, it’s not going to work. And so, you know, there’s all this consideration and planning that needs to be happening. And so I always say, don’t just jump because some, you know, a big brand is seeing success, really evaluate what’s the opportunity for you? That’s, that’s great advice. I think that’s really good. I mean, we’re coming to the end of time, this has been amazing. I’m just wondering if you could finish off with, you know, a couple of tips for b2b marketers to be more successful on social media? Sure. So I think, first and foremost, know your audiences truly understand who it is that you’re wanting to talk to? And then where are they? Which platforms? Are they on? Are they on Tik Tok? Or is it more likely to be on LinkedIn, and when you understand what they need and want from you provide them with that, you know, so really, it’s that that matching of their experience and their expectations, you might have an agenda, you might have things you want to tell them, but it might not be what they want to see when they’re scrolling through their social feeds. It might be what they want to see in a trade publication, for example, but that doesn’t mean that’s what they want to see on social. So understand your audiences what they’re expecting, given that don’t be dry or boring. Don’t be afraid to experiment. And I think a couple of final tips, follow Hootsuite on social media, your social platforms of your choice. There’s a lot of great stuff that we put out there that you can learn from case studies, best practices, and also bookmark the Hootsuite blog. So blog.Hootsuite.com Because we do tackle a lot of the questions that you’ve asked today, Mike, but also that the listeners might be asking in our blog series as well.

Mike: That’s some great advice. And I think the blog is a fantastic resource. I mean, if people are feeling really enthusiastic about social media, what’s the best way for them to you know, get started with Hootsuite, and maybe if they’ve got some questions, would they be able to contact you with them?

Mark: Yep. So the Hootsuite site has got all the details you need. I haven’t done any justice today to do all of that great information that’s on there. So have a look at the Hootsuite site. Follow us on social and if people want to connect with me, I’m on LinkedIn. So by all means, find me Marco Brahmi. They shouldn’t be too many of us. But you’ll find me there. Connect with me. One word of advice, though, if you’re going to send me a connection request, just mentioned the podcast because I often am quite unhappy.

Everybody should be, you should be very careful about your network and who you’re connecting with. So don’t just, you know, randomly connect just because somebody sent you a request. Because what I found is often, this is the bad practice of social selling. Somebody sends you a connection request, and they take that as an invitation to start selling you something straight away. And so I’ve learned over time to be cautious. And so yes, if by all means connect with me, just mentioned the podcast, I’ll accept your connection, and then happy to have as many conversations as you like, about the challenges that you’re facing.

Mike: This has been brilliant. I mean, I think we could go on for ages. But this has been so helpful. Thank you so much for being on the podcast Mark.

Mark: Thank you very much for having me, Mike. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it.

Mike: Thanks so much for listening to marketing b2b Tech. We hope you enjoyed the episode. And if you did, please make sure you subscribe on iTunes, or on your favourite podcast application. If you’d like to know more, please visit our website at Napier b2b dot com or contact me directly on LinkedIn.

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