Bonnie Porter Huggins, Gratitude Champion at Buffer

It’s time for our weekly Live Chat!! 😊 Today we have Bonnie Porter Huggins!! 😊

Bonnie in her own words:

Hello there! I’m Bonnie — I’m so happy to be part of the wonderful Community Team as Buffer’s resident Gratitude Champion (aka purveyor of all things swag)! Giving gifts and writing notes has always been “my thing”; I still can’t believe I get to wake up every day and express gratitude to our amazing community! Pre Buffer, my background for the most part has been in the non-profit development world. I’ve lived in quite a few places in the U.S., currently in Boston, and can’t wait to see where in the world may be next! When I’m not in swag mode I can be found snuggling with my dog and cat, mentoring some amazing young folks, or searching for the perfect karaoke tune.

First The Important Stuff

Wahoo!! Hiya, Bonnie! 😊 Love this pic of yours with your pet dog. What’s his name? — Vikash Koushik

Hey there Vikash Koushik!! 😊 My dog’s name is Tuesday, hehe! She’s 12 years old and pretty bossy.

ALL The Swag

What’s the most interesting / fun / odd thing you’ve sent out to someone as a gift, or swag? — Matt Aunger

Ooh I love this one Matt Aunger! Let’s see…I’ve sent a cake, dog treats, socks, and I tried (but sadly failed) to send pizza with Buffer logo 😊. It’s one of my favorite things to see what is important to someone and/or something they would really like and make it happen!

Pizza with a Buffer logo?! 😊 What’s the story there? —Matt Aunger

I think I could spend a whole AMA about the #bufferpizza 😊 Lots of you have probably seen #bufferchatpizzaparty & I wanted to send a Buffer pizza to the “founders” to be delivered during Buffer chat. I got two different Domino’s pizza places to do the logo in pepperoni & black olives — I really wanted it to be a surprise, which was where the plan fell apart, they sadly weren’t home & at work during Buffer chat. Someone out there enjoyed some Buffer Pizza. Pizza can never go to waste, right? Now I know to always make sure the person will be home for delivery. 😊

Is there any swag that you are resolutely against Buffer ever doing because it’s been done too much, or is too cheap, etc.? Also, +1 to the Buffer Pizza story. — Jason Warner

I don’t know if there is anything we are adamantly against; we just try to use the values when selecting swag. For example, “Do the right thing” = we order organic cotton shirts or Swell bottles that give back to charity. I think we want our swag to be something nice that is useful to you. 😊

Bonnie Huggins: how do you know what to send someone? what is your go-to source? — Dee Cater

Great one, Dee Cater! Our go-to items to send out are stickers and t-shirts. We also have several different sizes of Moleskines, water bottles, and I just got socks today! I don’t necessarily have one go-to source, I’d be happy to share who our current vendors are, if that’s of interest!

The Role of a Gratitude Champion

Well first of all Bonnie Huggins thanks for the Buffer swag that I received. Second, do you know what the catalyst was for creating your position? Was this something that other companies do too or did Buffer lead the charge on something like this? — Joshua Price

Aw, you are so welcome Joshua Price! Nicole Miller was the first amazing Community Champion at Buffer and she really started ALL THE THINGS! As the company and the community grew, it felt like a great idea to add more people to the community team. As you probably know the amazing Alfred & Arielle take care of other parts of the community, and it became apparent that swag was a full time job! 😊 I’m not sure that there are other roles quite like this, I know lots of my fellow community managers are rock stars and manage swag among other things.

On the subject of how you keep track of what you sent out…are there any tools in particular you find super useful? — Sami Grady

Another great one, Sami Grady! Keeping track of what we send out is one of the places I think I have a lot of room to grow! 😊 We currently use a Trello board with “to-do” & “done” lists. The system works well, but we have the happy issue of having thousands of cards, which makes the board crash sometimes. 😊 Our business team is looking for a CRM, so I’m working with them to see if there might be a way for the community team to record some of our information there.

Since being in your role, do you do much research into the swag that other startups/companies are providing and compare/see how you can do Buffer’s better? — Kat Loughrey

Also do you think anyone out there is doing swag “wrong” or without the right intention? No need to name names, I simply mean generally 😊 Also would you consider developing a “guide to doing swag right”? 😊 — Kat Loughrey

Love these, Kat Loughrey! I’m part of a few community manager groups and am always interested in what other companies are doing, if nothing else to see what kind of cool swag they have. 😊 I think a lot of companies do it right and have really awesome, quality swag. In other cases, sometimes there might be swag for the sake of swag? I think we can avoid that by being really thoughtful about why we’re doing what we’re doing. 😊 Oooh a swag guide, I’m so flattered! That could be a really fun project!

How many cards do you write per day and how do you keep track on what to note down there? I received three cards so far and none of them repeated themselves… Is there like a spreadsheet where every Bufferoo puts in the people he wants to have them sent swag out with a little note why? — Daniel Baron

It makes me so happy to hear that you haven’t gotten a repeat card, Daniel Baron! Admittedly we don’t keep track of what we write — could be a great thing for us to work on in the future! I generally try to express genuine gratitude and refer to the situation (if applicable). I try to block off two whole days for “swag” — I think I can do around 10–15 cards per hour, unless I get a little too involved in getting the backstory (if the person helped identify a bug, etc), which happens to me more than I’d like to admit.

Oh wow Buffer Moleskines! Love me some Moleskines. Bonnie Huggins what sort of ROI does Buffer receive with the swag program? Is it mostly a qualitative ROI or is there quantitative values that can be tracked? — Joshua Price

I know just who could send you a moleskine! 😊 This is an awesome question that I am so grateful to have my wonderful team mates help me with! I’m also so thankful that showing gratitude is really and truly important to everyone at Buffer! 😊 It’s a balance of the quantitative (tracking mentions/photos, packages sent, cards written, etc) with the more qualitative “warm fuzzies”. It’s an area that I’m always looking to improve and find the right balance. 😊

The Other Stuff

You touched on a giving back / charity element earlier with your reply to Jason Warner, but I wanted to delve a little further on this point. I recently read about the last 10 years of the TOM brands and have a strong interest in social entrepreneurship. Do you think there’s a place for startups/companies to take a greater role in this — even with merchandise/swag — as a way to be more mindful companies? — Kat Loughrey

Love this Kat Loughrey! I definitely think there is a place for companies to take a role in giving back as it relates to swag/merch. In fact, you heard it here first, we are currently working behind the scenes on a Buffer marketplace that has a central charity component. 😊

And a Buffer foundation would be a dream of mine! (and lots of the team, too). 😊

Would you be up for sharing some of the books that you’re currently reading to improve yourself, Bonnie Huggins? — Vikash Koushik

Oh, sure Vikash Koushik — I’m currently reading The History of Love (fiction) for book club, The Alchemist, Fierce Loyalty: Unlocking the DNA of Successful Communities, and I tend to re-read Tiny Beautiful Things (I love Cheryl Strayed’s advice 😊).

Thank you so much!! This has been so fun! Thank you so much for all of the amazing questions! Feel free to message me any time with thoughts or ideas!

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