At the first virtual Open Infrastructure Summit in 2020, Open Infrastructure Foundation officially announced its ongoing evolution to build open source communities that write infrastructure software in production by becoming the Open Infrastructure Foundation (OpenInfra Foundation). Over 60 global organizations, including InMotion Hosting, have joined in supporting the Foundation’s mission. 

In February 2021, InMotion Hosting, as one of the OpenInfra Foundation Silver Members, launched the general availability of their new Flex Metal Cloud IaaS product that supports the rapid deployment of small OpenStack private clouds. The Marketing & Community team in the Foundation has been working collaboratively with InMotion Hosting to take Flex Metal Cloud to a new level.

This OpenInfra Foundation marketing case study will cover how your organization can take advantage of these marketing opportunities to raise awareness of your product in the global market and participate in international networking and engaging marketing programs, as an OpenInfra Foundation Platinum, Gold or Silver Member.

Social Media Marketing to Engage the Global Community

Social media is one of the most important ways that the OpenInfra Foundation communicates and engages with the community members at large. Millions of people visit OpenInfra Foundation’s network of websites and social media channels every year. Key announcements of the Member companies are marketed via a variety of social channels including Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

OpenInfra Foundation also has a large audience in the China community on WeChat, which is the largest social media platform in China. With over 9,000 active users, who are subscribed to three OpenInfra projects and OpenInfra Foundation public WeChat accounts, key messages from the Member companies are amplified in a truly global market. 

The Foundation’s Marketing & Community team worked closely with the InMotion Hosting staff to promote its product launch on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and WeChat, which generated over 25,000 total impressions with an average of 1.2% engagement rate.

Leveraging Online Publications to Spread Your Key Messages 

The OpenInfra Foundation hosts a vendor-neutral publication called Superuser Magazine, which attracts 30,000-40,000 unique visitors per month. Superuser Magazine provides an online platform for the Member companies and the OpenInfra community to share open infrastructure ecosystem news, case studies, event recaps, product updates and announcements, project release, and more.

An article about InMotion Hosting’s product launch and its collaboration with the OpenInfra Foundation was published on Superuser Magazine in March, and the article was translated into Chinese and published on WeChat to provide easier access for the OpenInfra China community. 

The OpenStack Blog provides a space for OpenStack enthusiasts to catch up with the latest OpenStack-specific news, announcements, best practices, use cases, and more. The press release of Flex Metal Cloud was subsequently published on OpenStack Blog for the segment of audience who are interested in the project-specific news.

Monthly Newsletters to Keep the OpenInfra Community Up to Date

The Open Infrastructure Community Newsletter regularly shares the latest developments and activities across open infrastructure projects, events, and users supported by the Open Infrastructure Foundation. The newsletters are sent out to the community in English through email, and they are also published on the Superuser and the OpenStack official WeChat account in Chinese.

The Community newsletter also gives the Member companies a marketing opportunity to raise awareness and share their key announcements to over 60,000 global community members. See all the previous newsletters here.

A Video is Worth a Million Words

Some people say that “if a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is worth a million.” Digital video is one of the fastest growing formats for marketers in the Open Source industry. Therefore, taking advantage of the broad reach of audience on the OpenInfra Foundation YouTube channel is more important than ever. With over 40,000 subscribers, the Foundation YouTube channel features Summit sessions, project updates, community meetings, OpenInfra community updates, and more.

To amplify the importance of private cloud and the evolution of OpenStack private clouds, Mark Collier, Chief Operating Officer of the OpenInfra Foundation, and Todd Robinson, President & Co-founder of InMotion Hosting, got on Zoom and chatted about building on-demand private clouds on OpenStack. Check out the full video on the OpenInfra Foundation YouTube channel.

Highlight Your Products on OpenStack Marketplace

The OpenStack Marketplace highlights the variety of products that will help users to make an informed decision, whether building a cloud, looking to use one, or pursuing a hybrid model. On the product launch day, InMotion Hosting’s Flex Metal Cloud was listed on OpenStack Marketplace as a hosted private cloud provider. Along with other cloud providers, the Marketplace helps users to find the right help and expertise from various companies in the OpenInfra community. 

If you would like your products in the rotation, please make sure your company and product profiles are updated on the Marketing. Don’t be afraid to contact [email protected] if you have any questions!

Join the Mission

“Open Infrastructure Foundation's marketing team worked closely with InMotion Hosting to craft a comprehensive multi-stage marketing and trust-builder campaign for InMotion's new OpenStack powered On-Demand Private Cloud Solution. The OpenInfra marketing team was flexible, super-responsive, and open to new ideas resulting in a successful, co-ordinated, product launch campaign targeted to the OpenStack and OpenInfra communities,” says Sash Ghosh, Sr. Growth Strategy Manager of InMotion Hosting.

There is still time for your company to join as a Founding Member of OpenInfra Foundation to raise awareness of the OpenInfra projects and your participation in the Foundation. Take an active role in helping achieve the OpenInfra mission to build open source communities that write software that’s run in production and be part of defining what the next decade of open infrastructure looks like. Become a member today!

About the Open Infrastructure Foundation 

The Open Infrastructure Foundation was announced as the successor to the OpenStack Foundation on October 19, 2020. Together with over 60 founding Members and more than 111,000 community members from thousands of companies in 182 countries, the OpenInfra Foundation establishes open source communities with a focus on building software that runs in production across the world.