A swarm of new business tools coming to phones and desktops near you promise to boost efficiency and streamline collaboration by borrowing social features from the likes of Facebook and Twitter. – Ryan Holmes
By monitoring the activity taking place on social networks, retailers can amplify successful marketing and sales strategies and avoid weak tactics which can later be tied back to organizational objectives. – Ryan Holmes
The reality is that SXSW is packed with brilliant entrepreneurs, investors and partners. They’re everywhere, zipping back and forth like thousands of atoms. Your chances of colliding with one actually improve just by standing still. – Ryan Holmes
It may be coincidence that the decline of newspapers has corresponded with the rise of social media. Or maybe not. – Ryan Holmes
For resourceful tech founders, finding capital is rarely a problem; making the best use of it is another story. A few years slinging pepperoni pies and chicken wings – on tiny margins and with minimal investment – might not be the worst fiscal training. – Ryan Holmes
Workflow and usability are not afterthoughts; they impact the core of any project and dictate how it should be engineered. – Ryan Holmes
I grew up off the grid in Vernon, and I saw my parents work hard every day, as teachers but also while farming and building a log home. So from a young age I knew the value of hard work. – Ryan Holmes
Not using social media in the workplace, in fact, is starting to make about as much sense as not using the phone or email. – Ryan Holmes
Virtual currencies, used to buy digital goods inside online games, have become an integral part of the Internet landscape. – Ryan Holmes
Social media is the most disruptive form of communication humankind has seen since the last disruptive form of communications, email. – Ryan Holmes
The point is that instead of a monolithic brick of printed content – delivered more or less unchanged to all subscribers – social media offers news that is personalized and nimble. – Ryan Holmes
Certification programs for social media are blossoming as a response to the demand for more social media training. Both industry professionals and recent graduates are tapping into tactical training programs to help them stay up to date as the industry grows. – Ryan Holmes
During the early days of HootSuite, when social media was still seen as a fad, I made the decision to treat our funding as if it were my personal bank account. That’s not to say I blew it on fast cars and fancy dinners. Exactly the opposite. – Ryan Holmes
I think that Vancouver as well as Canada needs a boot camp for young entrepreneurs. We have already seen tens if not hundreds of people put their names forward to be involved in the program, and we just think this is an amazing way to accelerate what they’re doing. – Ryan Holmes
I don’t know how many times I’ve turned to Twitter and Facebook to commiserate and celebrate, bounce ideas off of friends, colleagues and other entrepreneurs, and just connect with the wider world outside my office. – Ryan Holmes
While social media skills were once a ‘nice-to-have,’ accreditation in the space is becoming a requirement for many of these job titles. Hiring managers and job seekers are realizing that printing stacks of resumes is turning passe, and social media is rising as the new way of generating real-time networking opportunities. – Ryan Holmes
I’d like to think my company HootSuite is anything but a stodgy old-boys’ club. As a social media company, our employees are by and large young, progressive and open-minded. – Ryan Holmes
Social media listening tools make it easy to track brand references and mentions, and these functions can still be handled ably by a small, dedicated team. – Ryan Holmes
Although social media is a relatively new form of communication, it has become the primary way retailers and customers are interfacing. – Ryan Holmes
Since social networks gained popularity extremely rapidly, there had been a debate as to whether social media was a fad. There are countless pieces of evidence now proving the contrary, among them the explosion in Twitter growth and Facebook’s public listing. – Ryan Holmes
No surprise that, as companies have adopted social media en masse, demand for software and applications to manage and monitor social use has exploded. – Ryan Holmes
One of the most important principles I’ve learned is, every so often, just drop everything. Stop racing from one party to the next. – Ryan Holmes
Ultimately, I’d love to see a legacy company that has alumni that come out of it and go on to create other big things. A maple-syrup mafia, a HootSuite mafia. – Ryan Holmes
Without grounding, it’s easy to embrace the ‘baller’ lifestyle: dropping out of tech, throwing money at cars, boats and real estate, and slipping into a cycle of spending and indulgence. – Ryan Holmes
If you catch me lying, it’s probably because I’m about to surprise someone for their birthday, or hide away the specific details about a company getaway to a strange but amazing place. – Ryan Holmes
From its humble origins in college dorm rooms, social media has quietly crept into the boardroom. – Ryan Holmes
