Social HR: How we designed and executed a global Employer Branding campaign on Periscope in one week. This is the first post in our new HR Open Source [#HootHROS] initiative. The aim of HootHROS is to work out loud and share behind-the-scenes looks at how some of our social HR projects come together, and what we learned from them.

1. CASE STUDY: INSIDE OPERATION #FOLLOWTHESUN
Social HR: How we designed and
executed a global Employer Branding
campaign on Periscope in one week.
This is the first post in our new HR Open Source [#HootHROS] initiative.
You can learn more about #HootHROS here, but the aim is to work out
loud and share behind-the-scenes looks at how some of our social HR
projects come together, and what we learned from them.
Operation #FollowTheSun
In April we launched a new campaign on Periscope, Operation
#FollowTheSun. Follow The Sun was designed to experiment with a new
social platform, Periscope, and showcase Hootsuite’s global operations,
talent, and culture.
Here’s an inside look at how it came together, how we executed, expected
results, impact, and what we learned.
on Twitter and
Periscope
of live broadcasts of broadcast time
230 new
Followers
5,078
viewers
164
minutes
CaseStudy:
InsideOperation
#FollowTheSun

2. CASE STUDY: INSIDE OPERATION #FOLLOWTHESUN
What We Did
The idea behind #FollowTheSun came from a conversation between
Hootsuite’s VP Talent, Ambrosia Vertesi (@hambrody), and Employer
Brand Strategist, Lars Schmidt (@ThisIsLars). They were continuing a
conversation they started at SXSW, discussing ways that they might
use new tools like Periscope and Meerkat to share #HootsuiteLife and
the employee experience. Both platforms had been on the market less
than a month, but Ambrosia and Lars felt there was huge potential in
using them to showcase organizational culture and people.
They landed on a concept called Operation Follow The Sun. The idea
was to have our employees broadcast each hour from a different city,
following the sun as it worked its way around the globe. They pitched
the idea to Marketing and Hootsuite CEO, Ryan Holmes (@Invoker),
and got the green light to proceed.
Anticipated Outcomes
‹‹ Experiment and develop proficiency in a brand new social tool -
Periscope
‹‹ Raise awareness for our global operations, and our peeps
‹‹ Raise awareness for our @HootsuiteLife Twitter and Periscope
handles, and our #HootSuiteLife culture
‹‹ Have fun
‹‹ Try not to mess this up
“We were fairly
confident we could
pull this off, but with
a platform that only
launched several
weeks prior to the
campaign, and the
global execution
complexity, there
was no way to be
sure. It wasn’t a “safe
play”, which is why it
was so fun to watch
unfold.”
Lars Schmidt
Hootsuite Employer Brand Strategist

3. CASE STUDY: INSIDE OPERATION #FOLLOWTHESUN
How We Did It
To execute a project like #FollowTheSun required a fairly high
level of coordination. Stakeholders spanned 4 continents, 6
timezones, and included our CEO, Marketing, Community, HR, and
our Periscope broadcasters from Engineering to Sales. It involved
an emerging platform that was only released three weeks prior
to the campaign, so we were also working to develop a shared
level of proficiency to ensure we could execute consecutive live
broadcasts. New tech is tricky, but we knew it was an experiment
and wanted to give it a go to see what we’d learn.
One of the tools we use to help us coordinate is Google Docs.
It allows a diverse mix of stakeholders to collaborate on shared
documents and projects. It’s become a common resource for
Hootsuite projects, and allows us to quickly launch and iterate
projects on the fly.
We originally planned on having each #FollowTheSun broadcaster
use their own Periscope account. We called an audible three
days before the launch and decided it would be easier to follow
if the broadcasts came from a common account, so decided to
use our handle dedicated to Hootsuite people and culture - @
HootsuiteLife. We used LastPass as a tool to share the password
and transition the account from each broadcaster on launch
today. This meant testing. It worked (whew).
The day before the launch we posted a blog post introducing
Operation #FollowTheSun. We activated our internal peeps and
some of our external Hootsuite ambassadors to help spread the
word. Even for a social media company like Hootsuite, activation is
a really important part of a social HR campaign like this. You have
to leverage your people to spread awareness ahead of the event
for it to gain traction.

4. CASE STUDY: INSIDE OPERATION #FOLLOWTHESUN
The Results
We launched #FollowTheSun in Singapore at 7am PDT April 16, 2015.
+218 Periscope followers on @HootsuiteLife
+22 Twitter followers on @HootsuiteLife
Location Time Live Viewers Length Hearts
Singapore 7am PST 134 10:00 268
Bucharest 8am PST 594 17:00 643
London 9am PST 716 14:00 2,234
Ryan 9.05am PST 1,146 22:00 2,813
Sao Paolo 10am PST 974 24:00 1,257
Boston 11am PST 360 10:00 474
San Francisco 12pm PST 89 11:00 444
HQ2 1pm PST 504 34:00 1,469
HQ1 2pm PST 561 22:00 1,815
TOTAL 5,078 11,412
What We Learned
We were quite pleased with the engagement and execution of
#FollowTheSun. You can find the recap blog post with some of the
videos here.
From Singapore to Sao Paulo, #HootsuiteLife was on full display. Our
peeps had a lot of fun with it, and the broadcast audience remained
high through the eight hours around the globe.
That said, the campaign wasn’t without hiccups. Here’s what we got wrong.
‹‹ Broadcasts only remain on Periscope for 24 hours. We didn’t know
that, and planned on embedding the original broadcast tweets in
our recap post so people who missed the original broadcast could
watch. We learned that wouldn’t be doable when we tested the links
before publishing and realized they were dead.
‹‹ Our backup plan to capture the share the video was having
broadcasters save their video to their camera roll. While this
worked, it didn’t include the chat feature from the broadcast. That
made for some rather awkward video when broadcasters are
engaging live viewers and answering questions that can’t be seen on
the recorded broadcast.
“We’re always
looking for new
ways to share our
culture and team.
#FollowTheSun
allowed us to take
viewers around our
global nests and give
them a sense of what
#HootsuiteLife is all
about.””
Ambrosia Humphrey
Hootsuite VP, Talent

5. CASE STUDY: INSIDE OPERATION #FOLLOWTHESUN
‹‹ We should have provided more guidance around a recruiting
call to action like sharing jobs in the local markets. We felt it
might be better to be unscripted, but in hindsight it was a missed
opportunity.
‹‹ We also learned you can’t really control that participant chat
conversation. One viewer was particularly enamored by a team
member in one of the broadcasts and kept asking about her.
#awkward
Overall we were very happy with the outcome, and stoked that HR
played a leading real in campaign conception and execution. We plan
on using Periscope again in the future to convey our culture and
colleagues.
HR Takeaways
To successfully execute a program like this in your organization, make
sure you have the right stakeholders outside of HR informed and
engaged. You don’t have to start with a complex global campaign to
use Periscope in HR. You can use live streaming to allow a Recruiter
or Hiring Manager to answer questions from candidates, or perhaps a
mini tour of your office.
The key to social HR is starting small and getting the right mix of
stakeholders invested. Remember, there is no exact playbook for this
stuff. Experiment, start small, and have fun.