Rules of the Game- Social Media Marketing and Networking

Hootsuite platform has been our on-hand experience platform for content marketing and social media marketing. Having acquired a few certifications and working experience, I felt closely associated with it. Hootsuite is the industry leader in social media management, with millions of users counting on it. We can schedule posts, participate in conversations, and track our social success with Hootsuite.

I was fortunate to get introduced to someone from Hootsuite as our guest speaker. This is an excellent opportunity to reflect upon my guest speaker, Gar Concannon, and his role as a Customer Success Manager at Hootsuite.
Gar first introduced himself to the class and showcased his career path and how he ended with his current role as Customer success manager (CSM). He moved to the current position after switching from Mediaocean and Xello jobs.

Customer Success Manager Role Explained

We were then keen in knowing about his current role. I had read the HubSpot Definition of Customer Success Manager “A customer success manager guides customers through the sales process into the support phase. Rather than functioning as a customer support agent, CSMs form a direct relationship with customers and provide them with timely value propositions. This helps customers grow and achieve goals while simultaneously strengthening their relationship with the business”.

Here I had the opportunity to know about this role more in real-time.

The next question that surfaced in my head was about the skills required to perform or succeed in this role. This was precisely the next topic in the presentation. Gar explained the skills and qualifications necessary for the Customer Success Manager role.

Some of the qualities are listed below.

I was immediately attracted to this role as it was pretty appealing and required all the skills I had gained from my previous job experiences. If I come across a matching opportunity, I would give it a shot without any doubt. Preserving this thought in my imagination, I went further in Gar’s presentation journey.

Networking Expectations vs.Reality

Networking boosts professional confidence. It’s inevitable to neglect the power of Networking.

Our speaker was very passionate about this topic. He made us understand the significance of Networking and optimizing social media profiles. He emphasized the following best practices.

Networking has been my communication force for the past few years in accomplishing many tasks. I realized the importance of Networking during my Job search and switching to my preferred companies. From my Job at Hewitt Associates, a consulting firm, to Bank of Montreal and later from Bank of Montreal to Walmart Canada, Networking has helped me stay visible and has helped me in expanding my career due to opportunities opened to me early on.

I consider myself lucky to have a robust professional network in Canada who are very supportive and open to communications.

Rethink your Campaign Target- ROAS

Next, we were assigned a case study for which we had to work in teams. Wendy, our professor, opened the breakout room, and we were all assigned the same case study. It was interesting as we had to roleplay a Social Media Manager hired by the Rocky Mountain Cookies company. The task was to run a social media campaign with the following challenges and measurements.

Here was the finest opportunity to showcase our talent and explore some terrific ideas in our assigned group. We were a bunch of creative people together with free-flowing ideas.

Some of the main ideas that we discussed in our group are highlighted below:

Gar was utterly impressed with the ideas presented to him by each group. He liked the strategies and, in the end, provided his feedback to each group, including us.

He particularly liked the visuals suggested by us. He mentioned that TikTok and Instagram had become more popular platforms but not to ignore Facebook’s audience power.

Sources of Inspiration- The overall Impact

I want to conclude with my impressions of the speaker and his presentation. I was impressed from the start of his introduction and presentation. He shared with us his career journey and job experiences. It was motivating to listen and imagine being in a parallel world. His experience as a Customer Success Manager opened a new career opportunity for me. Since his presentation, I have been searching for a similar role as I have few skills matching the qualities required for a CSM. 

The speaker series has encouraged and helped me connect with all these powerful speakers who are leaders in their professional fields. Soon after the presentation ended, I connected with Gar on LinkedIn.

This was my first step in exposing myself to the career path I imagined post-Gar’s presentation.

I also learned about Personal branding on social media and how to optimize my profile to increase visibility and reach.

I did not want the Conversation with Gar to end. He encouraged and inspired me. As always, I will conclude with one of my favorite quotes