Hootsuite’s activation-focused onboarding

Hootsuite—a social media management platform—is used by 800 of the Fortune 1000 businesses, as well as many growing brands around the world. 

They know that it's essential to show the value of their platform early on in the trial process in order to increase free-to-trial conversions. They've optimized their onboarding to drive new users to their first activation event as early as possible.

Hootsuite's new user onboarding sequence

Hootsuite doesn’t waste time on lengthy introductions. Instead, they focus on helping users get their social accounts set up in the platform. 

A succinct and value-driven bit of copy directs new users to a “Wise Guide” widget that helps them prioritize their first actions in the platform. Clicking on the first step—adding a social network—launches an onboarding tour that walks users through adding their social media accounts to Hootsuite.

Rather than redirecting users straight to the “Manage Social Networks” page, Hootsuite aims to build user muscle memory by showing users how to navigate there themselves by clicking in the dropdown menu.

They use tooltips to point users in the right direction and prompt them to take action. 

Hootsuite also includes a nice bit of permission priming (more commonly seen in mobile apps), letting users know that they will be asked to grant account management permission when they connect a social network. 

Why this really good UX really matters

Hootsuite knows that the only users who will get value from their platform are the ones who have social accounts to manage.  Being prescriptive about the steps users need to complete during account setup helps ensure that new users take the right steps toward finding their aha moment as early in their experience as possible.

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