Hearsay Announces First Comprehensive Social Media Platform for Businesses with Local Branches and Representatives

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 3, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Hearsay Corporation today announced Hearsay Social, the social media management platform designed to help "corporate/local" companies embrace Facebook®, LinkedIn, Twitter® and other social media while mitigating compliance risks and branding mishaps. The only solution that provides social media compliance, content, workflow and analytics, Hearsay Social is being rolled out to more than 30,000 branches and representatives at companies including State Farm®, 24 Hour Fitness®, and Farmers Insurance Group of Companies® (please see separate release and case studies).

Hearsay Social is uniquely designed and optimized for enterprises with a strong corporate brand, combined with large numbers of social media pages created by local representatives, agents, advisors, franchisees or store managers. In some cases, local pages are created by corporate or auto-created by Facebook based on business directory information. With Hearsay Social, these companies can empower their local branches and representatives to nurture customer relationships on Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media, while ensuring local representatives stay in compliance with brand guidelines, good corporate governance, as well as SEC, FINRA, FTC and other industry regulations.

Social media adoption in financial services, for example, is dramatically curtailed by compliance concerns. Independent research shows that while 64% of insurance and financial professionals have adopted Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn for personal use, only 21% use social media for business. Of those who said they do not plan to adopt social media for business use, more than half volunteered that company policy, compliance and security concerns prevent them from doing so.  

"With Hearsay Social, companies can be safe with advanced compliance and workflow capabilities, successful with compelling content and smart with robust analytics," said Clara Shih, Hearsay's CEO, who created the first business application on Facebook in 2007 and subsequently authored the bestseller The Facebook Era.

"The online marketing discipline is experiencing a tectonic shift. Fan and follower relationships on social networking sites are creating an unprecedented opportunity for corporate/local companies to extend customer relationships and success of local stores into the online realm. Our longstanding ties with companies like Facebook, where we are also a Preferred Developer Consultant, allow us to constantly stay ahead of the curve," she added.

Social Media Compliance, Workflow, Content Management and Analytics

Hearsay Social is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform consisting of compliance, workflow, content management and analytics on top of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Advanced enterprise role and hierarchy management technology lets organizations easily manage social media efforts at local, regional and national levels from a central dashboard. The platform consists of two components:

• Hearsay Social Corporate View
  • Compliance: Full message archiving, keyword flagging and filtering, workflow and approval capabilities for sound corporate governance, FINRA/SEC/FTC and brand compliance.
  • Content management: Distribution of timely, professionally created campaign and content suggestions which individual branches and reps can tailor to local preferences.
  • Analytics: Visibility across the entire organization's social media efforts with in-depth, real-time analytics, as well as the ability to drill down by region or sub-region.
• Hearsay Social Local View
  • Streamlined content: Simultaneous posting of suggested content and branded tabs (such as corporate marketing campaigns, contests and videos) to Facebook, LinkedIn and/or Twitter with one click.
  • Social contact management: 360-degree view of Facebook fans and friends, LinkedIn connections and Twitter followers in a consolidated contact record which aggregates social network activities (such as posts, likes, comments, tweets) and profile information.
  • Local governance: Corporate notifications, real-time metrics, leader board to learn best practices from other reps or branches and regulatory and brand compliance.

Full Integration with LinkedIn Messaging API

Hearsay recently inked a multi-faceted strategic partnership with LinkedIn. Elements of the deal include collaboration in sales and marketing efforts, as well as a full integration between Hearsay Social and the LinkedIn messaging API to deliver 100% compliance to customers, regardless of whether their local representatives access LinkedIn from work, home or a mobile device.

"We are delighted to partner with Hearsay so that financial, insurance and other professionals can meet their regulatory requirements, while taking advantage of the extensive networking, marketing and research capabilities of LinkedIn, the world's largest professional network," said David Hahn, Vice President of Product Management at LinkedIn.

Investments from Sequoia Capital and Social Media Executives

Hearsay also announced strategic funding from Sequoia Capital and the addition of Sequoia partner Bryan Schreier to its Board of Directors.

"Corporate/local businesses can now use the social graph to connect central marketing departments with front-line sales and service teams to help them build relationships with the customer base," said Schreier. "With a founder and CEO who wrote the book The Facebook Era, Hearsay knows more than any other how to achieve meaningful revenue generation with social media."

In addition, social media and technology leaders have provided funding. These investors include Michael Abbott, VP Engineering at Twitter; Steve Chen, Co-Founder of YouTube; Dave Morin, Co-Founder & CEO of Path and formerly of Facebook; and Aaron Sittig, Product Architect at Facebook.

Hearsay has longstanding ties with Facebook, where it is a Preferred Developer Consultant.

About Hearsay Corporation

Hearsay provides the first comprehensive social media platform for businesses with local branches and representatives. Hearsay Social helps these corporate/local organizations centrally measure, manage and deploy content, compliance, monitoring and analytics across brand and local social media presences including Facebook Pages and Profiles, LinkedIn profiles and Twitter accounts.

Backed by Sequoia Capital, the company was co-founded by former Microsoft executive Steve Garrity and former Google and Salesforce.com executive Clara Shih. In 2007, Shih developed the first business application on Facebook and subsequently authored the New York Times-featured bestselling book The Facebook Era: Tapping Online Social Networks to Market, Sell and Innovate, as well as How to Make Money Marketing Your Business With Facebook, an eBook that is published and distributed by the Financial Times and is available for purchase beginning today.

For more information, please visit us at hearsaysocial.com

Product names, logos, brands, and other trademarks referred to herein are the property of their respective trademark owner.

SOURCE Hearsay Corporation