Customer Example: Powered by Thinkific Plus

How Hootsuite Educates Customers and Generates Revenue Using Thinkific Plus

Learn how Hootsuite educates thousands of students and customers through their Thinkific Plus-powered customer education academy.

Introducing Hootsuite

Hootsuite is one of the world's most widely used social media management platforms.


With over 16 million users, this powerhouse company equips businesses worldwide with the knowledge and tools to succeed on social.

The company uses Thinkific Plus to host their Hootsuite Academy – an online training site with courses on social media marketing and Hootsuite platform training.


To attract new customers and nurture current ones, Hootsuite’s online Academy has played an important role in customer success and in turning customers into brand advocates.

Since launching its Academy on Thinkific Plus, Hootsuite has seen reduced churn and increased customer engagement on its platform.

“Thinkific Plus offers the power and flexibility to help us achieve the business goals that we want. If we had started using Thinkific Plus 1 or 2 years previously, we would have gotten to where we’re at now much faster. ”

Ryan Chynces, Former Online Education ManagerHootsuite
1M+
Courses delivered
500,000
Learners enrolled
1,000+
Universities enrolled

Empowering Customers Through Education

Hootsuite’s Academy began with the goal of teaching customers how to use the Hootsuite Dashboard.


However, goals evolved once the team realized how many different ways they could leverage online training to help their existing customers and their business thrive overall.

Hootsuite recognized an opportunity to use education to connect with customers at any point in their journey, attract new customers, and build their brand as a leader in the social media space.

To invest in education, Hootsuite aimed to achieve better retention, less churn, and building a scalable training program, Hootsuite decided to look into online courses.


“We get excited about educating the next generation of social media pros. Through
integrating online learning into these higher education classrooms, students come out with a certification they can showcase...and land their dream job in social.”

Sarah Whyte, Education Marketing SpecialistHootsuite

Choosing a top-notch course delivery platform

Thinkific Plus as the solution.

Before Thinkific Plus, Hootsuite experimented with different ways of offering education such as in-person training and webinars. The team settled on using video content within online courses, since they found it to be the most customer-centric and scalable way to train en masse.

Hootsuite chose Thinkific Plus to set up their online Academy based on a number of features. They needed to be able to educate thousands of students at once, and upload a range of rich multimedia content like videos.

With an ever evolving SaaS product, Hootsuite also wanted the ability to easily update course content and make changes quickly. Using Thinkific Plus’s student feedback features, the team was also able to glean insight into how students were progressing and enjoying the content, feeding back valuable suggestions of how to improve the experience.

Scaling Customer Education and Success With Online Learning

Plus-Powered Business Growth.

Since beginning their education program in 2011, Hootsuite and Hootsuite Academy have trained over 450,000 students, and over 72,000 people have completed the social media certification program. 

The Academy’s student program, which works to partner with higher education institutions, has integrated Hootsuite Academy courseware into over 800 universities worldwide, teaching over 85,000 students.

Since investing in online education as a customer attraction and retention strategy, Hootsuite has seen less churn and an increased number of customers who have become active brand advocates.


“In 10 years, we want every single one of our customers consuming Hootsuite Academy education content. And even beyond that, we want to become the world leader in social media education."

Sarah Whyte, Former Education Marketing SpecialistHootsuite

Hootsuite's Favorite Thinkific Plus Features

Dynamic Course Builder

Hootsuite’s team found it very easy and quick to get their courses up. “Hootsuite Academy looks like a big team, but in fact we only have six people on our team. So we really appreciate platforms that make it easy for us to build out courses,” shared Hootsuite’s Education Marketing Specialist Sarah Whyte.

Certificates

With Thinkific Plus’s certificate feature, Hootsuite Academy is able to give their customers something tangible to showcase their social media success. Students come away with a tangible certificate that shows they have the skills and knowledge to go out and land their first job in social media.

High-Volume Course Site

With over 16 million active users, it was important for Hootsuite to choose a platform that could handle those high-volume needs. “One of the first reasons we chose Thinkific Plus was that it can handle our high-volume student base – thousands of students are taking courses for free. It’s great that Thinkific Plus can manage all that,” shared Ryan Chynces, Online Education Manager, Hootsuite.

Discover how your SaaS business can leverage education to enhance customer success today.

When your customers win, so does your business.


Platforms like Thinkific Plus are making it easier than ever for growing businesses to build and launch their first customer education academy. With specialized tools for content creation, engagement, and analytics for continuous improvement, enabling your customers and fostering business expansion is more achievable than ever.


Ready to embark on this transformative journey? 

Request a demo of Thinkific Plus and start shaping the future of your customer experience today.

Dive Deeper: Read The Full Case Study

Discover how Hootsuite transformed its customer education strategy, reducing churn and unlocking new revenue streams with its Hootsuite Academy—powered by Thinkific Plus.

Dive into how Hootsuite leveraged online courses to build scalable, engaging customer education that boosts engagement and drives monetization.