Socious Company and Product News

Get Better Insight into Your Customers or Members with the New Activity Timeline in Socious Online Community Software

Joshua Paul — Thu, 08 Jan 2015 19:58:00 GMT

What is the most important part of any online community? Even if you have the best looking site, with the slickest technology under its hood, none of that matters without people.

Your members are the lifeblood of your online communities. How you understand their priorities, challenges, and motivations is closely tied to your organization’s success.

We here at Socious understands this, which is why we added the new Activity tab to your user profiles. This new activity data, visible to administrators and community managers in each community members’ profile, provides a clean, easy-to-read timeline of every activity a user performs: Whether it’s logging in or out of the community, viewing a specific page, searching the community for answers, earning a badge, uploading a file, or posting to a discussion forum, each and every action is logged and stored for easy retrieval and analysis.

This new feature is an amazingly simple yet powerful tool with a wide range of uses, providing a goldmine of data that can be used by various teams within an organization:

Customer Service. Support staff can track the content members have viewed and actions they have taken, including which search terms members are using inside the community, enabling them to more easily assist those who may be having trouble.
Business Development. Salespeople can monitor the activity of prospective customers to better understand their interests, helping them to shorten the sales cycle with a more personalized approach.
Account Manager. Account managers can leverage this data to determine which users might respond to an offer to upgrade their account, renew their contract, or purchase a registration add-on for an event.
Membership Managers. Association executives can identify the interests of specific members, using this insight to present them with volunteer opportunities, a speaking role at a conference, or simply to become more active in their community.
Community Managers. Community managers can use this information to pinpoint popular content in the communities they manage to better understand their members’ interests, helping to promote future engagement and growth.

The new social activity information in the Socious platform is like giving your organization a crystal ball into community members’ interests, issues, and actions. You can then leverage that data to get the right messages in front of the right people at the right time.

"The addition of an Activity tab to the user profile is by far my favorite addition in the latest release... and it's one of the best enhancements I've seen added to the Socious online community software platform! This feature comes in incredibly handy when I need to drill down to a user's exact behavior on the site, and now I don't have to try and piece together information on his or her activity. It's something I never realized how much I was going to use it until I actually saw it in action," said John Tyler, Web and Digital Content Manager at American Association of Diabetes Educators.

All businesses and nonprofit membership organizations currently running their online community on the Socious online community software platform have access to the new Activity tab immediately.

Socious Creates New CMS Functionality to Enhance the Online Community Experience

Joshua Paul — Wed, 07 Jan 2015 18:18:00 GMT

When most people think of online community software, they think of the usual suspects like discussion forums, blogs, and member profiles. However, business-class online community platforms enable organizations to manage much more of the customer experience.

One of the most powerful tools in Socious’ online community software is our Content Management System (CMS), which makes it easy for companies to manage their peer-to-peer customer or member communities, events, conferences, customer communication, and the dozens of pages that glue the experience together for their community members.

An integral part of our CMS are short snippets of code referred to as “PHP calls,” which even non-technical personnel can use to easily create dynamic content for their communities that is tailored to suit their members’ needs.

Socious has offered dozens of these PHP calls for years now, but knowing how popular and important these technical shortcuts have become to our customers, we’ve recently created new PHP calls specifically for our community leaders to give them even more power and flexibility in the customization of their online communities. These new calls allow them to:

List all new comments added to their online community’s blogs
List all new threads posted to their online community’s forums
List all new files uploaded to their online community’s file libraries
List all new items added to their online community’s calendars

The best part is these PHP calls are all dynamic, so once they’re added to a page using our CMS or landing page editor, they will automatically provide new content in real-time as it becomes available.

This not only make it even easier for our community leaders to continuously provide fresh content, but it also keeps their members constantly engaged, which is essential in today’s fast-paced and competitive digital world.

In addition, we can customize the look of these PHP calls to meet each of our client’s needs. We understand your community is the foundation and cornerstone of your online presence, and we can help make it look and feel that way.

If you are a current Socious customer, you can contact your Client Manager to learn more about our online community software's CMS and these new PHP calls.

Socious is Named a Best Place to Work in the Phoenix Arizona Metropolitan Area

Joshua Paul — Tue, 11 Nov 2014 16:02:00 GMT

Socious is pleased to announce that we were chosen as one of the "Best Places to Work" by the Phoenix Business Journal. Socious has grown into a nationally-recognized social software company from its Gilbert, Arizona headquarters, in Phoenix’s East Valley.

Socious provides customer community software and professional services to organizations ranging from Fortune 500 companies to international associations and nonprofits. Companies leverage Socious’s online community platform to increase customer engagement through peer-to-peer idea sharing, exclusive content, and segmented customer communication.

The Phoenix Business Journal’s annual award is based on employee feedback and satisfaction.

“When we founded Socious, we set out to create a place where people love to come to work every day. Knowing that this is an employee-driven award makes being recognized as a best place to work in Phoenix incredibly meaningful. It tells us that we’ve struck a cord with the culture and balance that employees in the Phoenix area value,” said Paul Schneider senior vice president and co-founder at Socious.

Socious’s senior management places a premium on creating a healthy and evolving business culture. From professional development and casual dress to massages and Friday afternoon movies, Socious employees enjoy a growing amount of perks and professional freedom.

Each month a group of Socious employees representing every department gather to discuss The Socious Way, a collaborative discussion of the company’s culture, potential changes to policies and related processes, and how Socious can further support these values.

Schneider continued, “People have come together from all corners of the company over the past several years to deliberately develop and maintain a top-notch company culture. We are extremely proud of the recognition that Socious has received and we’re honored to share it among our entire team.”

Socious's Culture Code: The Socious Way

Despite the increasing number of tangible benefits that employees receive, Socious places more weight on maintaining a corporate culture of fairness, kindness, and recognition.

“Everyone who works here will tell you that Socious is a different kind of company. Our emphasis on open communication, giving employees a voice, and making win/win decisions for our customers, employees and company is not common in fast-paced technology companies,” said Scott Balthazor, Socious co-founder and president.

Socious employees know from day one that results-oriented collaboration, bringing truth to light in constructive ways, and finding creative solutions to Socious’s customers' challenges are core values at the company.

“From top executives to interns, we strive to be awesome at our jobs and also good people,” said Paul Schneider.

“We know that, as both a growing business and a technology leader in the region, Socious will only be as good as the people who work here. Spend a week walking around the office and you’ll often hear, ‘No Mean People,’ an important mantra from our culture document.” Schneider continued.

Socious will be recognized at the 2014 Best Places to Work Awards lunch on December 4, 2014 in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Would you like to work at Socious? Learn about open career opportunities at socious.com/jobs.

Socious Will Showcase Its Online Customer Community Software and Speak at Customer Engagement World

Joshua Paul — Mon, 03 Nov 2014 13:38:00 GMT

Last week, Socious could be found in San Fransisco at FeverBee's SPRINT conference.

This week, Socious is thrilled to announce that we'll exhibiting at Customer Engagement World in New York City. Over the course of the two-day event, Socious will discuss the evolution of customer engagement and the role of peer-to-peer customer communities in increasing customer engagement, revenue, and innovation.

Why Is Customer Engagement Important?

There is a direct connection between a business’s ability to keep customers engaged and that company’s performance on a variety of core business objectives.

Businesses want customers to do specific things after their initial purchase – ranging from purchasing services, add-ons, or upgrade packages to simply remaining a customer and taking advantage of self-service support resources. If customers don’t get the message, don’t see the value specific engagement opportunities, or simply don’t care, they won’t take the actions after the initial sale that are important to businesses.

It is ongoing customer engagement that drives customers to convert on these post-sale calls-to-action and form stronger relationships with companies.

Lasting customer engagement impacts goals ranging from retention and upsell opportunities to customer advocacy and innovation in product development.

Online Customer Communities Drive Sustainable Customer Engagement

While some companies rely on traditional email and outbound phone calls to keep customers informed, increasingly businesses are placing online customer communities at the center of their customer engagement strategy.

For this reason, Socious, will showcase its platform at the Customer Engagement World conference. This gathering of customer-centric executives will take place on November 5^th and 6^th at the Javits Convention Center in New York City.

The Socious Online Customer Community Software Platform

Socious provides an enterprise-class customer community platform to mid-sized and large companies. The Socious platform helps businesses leverage high levels customer engagement to increase revenue, improve customer satisfaction, and create more innovative and profitable products and services.

Businesses waste a lot of time and money reinventing ways to get their customers’ attention when they want them to purchase add-on services, provide product feedback, or attend a training class or user conference.

The exclusive content, peer-to-peer discussions, and access to experts in secure online communities for customers are designed to maintain sustainable engagement.

Rather than sending one-way messages to customers, online customer communities enable customers to connect with a company’s entire ecosystem of customers, partners, and employees. Businesses can then leverage that customer engagement to achieve traditional business outcomes, such as higher revenue, lower support costs, and better insight into their market for product planning.

The Socious customer community platform features:

Forum and listserv discussions
Secure segmentation by product, location, or other social data
Customer communication features
Document and video libraries
Targeted surveys and product ideation tools
Event and user group management
Advanced analytics
CRM integration

Several of the world’s top business-to-business companies rely on the Socious platform to keep their customers engaged, manage user groups, and identify opportunities to increase revenue and customer retention.

How to Leverage Engagement in Your Online Customer Community

Socious strategy and marketing executive, Joshua Paul, will be presenting at Customer Engagement World. The session, Leverage Engagement in Your Online Customer Community – How to Boost Profits and Spur Innovation, will take place at 3:00 p.m. EST on the first day of the conference.

Customer Engagement World attendees can schedule an appointment during the conference to learn about how Socious can help their specific business.

Two Places to Catch Socious (and Learn About Online Community Management) This Week

Joshua Paul — Wed, 29 Oct 2014 19:18:00 GMT

This week, stay up-to-date on the newest online community management news and tactics from Socious’s Senior Manager of Online Community Strategy, Katie Bapple.

Feverbee SPRINT

Start by following Katie (@kbapple) and Socious (@SociousSoftware) on Twitter where she will be sharing live updates from the Feverbee SPRINT Conference in San Francisco, CA on Thursday, October 30.

Katie will share noteworthy updates and takeaways from some of the country’s top online community practitioners on topics such as:

How to get employee buy-in
How to scale a community team
How to increase community engagement
How to measure the ROI of B2B communities

Socious customers are eligible for a discount to this conference (while tickets are still available).

CMGR Hangout

Next, check out My Community Manager’s “CMGR Hangout” on Google+ and Twitter (filter for #CMGRHangout) on Friday, October 31 at 2PM EST to learn from a live panel of experienced community managers, including Katie, on “Managing Community Conflicts and Controversies.” The panel takes live questions, so come prepared to learn and share!

Visit My Community Manager’s event page to RSVP and learn more about this week’s topic and panelists.

Socious Answers Pressing Online Community Questions in a New Crowd-Driven Webinar

Joshua Paul — Mon, 27 Oct 2014 13:09:00 GMT

Socious is pleased to announce a unique new webinar for organizations planning on creating an online customer or member community. The free online event, entitled The 11 Most Asked Online Community Planning Questions (and Their Answers!), will answer the most popular questions submitted by registrants.

Date: October 28, 2014
Time: 2:00 p.m. EDT (US)
Length: 60 minutes
Cost: Free

"By putting webinar attendees in the driver’s seat, we ensure everyone walks away with valuable and actionable information. The variety of challenges that online community administrators face vary greatly. We wanted real people with real online community challenges to drive the webinar agenda, so we could cover a wide range of issues. We will speak specifically to unique situations and provide viable, real world solutions,” said Katie Bapple, Senior Online Community Strategist at Socious.

In this webinar, organizations will learn proven best practices and strategies to address their most difficult online community questions. Attendees will hear thorough discussions on topics ranging from hiring an online community manager and tracking the right metrics to aligning your online customer community with your business goals.

Webinar attendees will obtain an understanding on how to address a variety of common online community management obstacles such as driving member engagement, creating effective community marketing practices, and developing valuable community content plans.

The registration page for the event can be found using the link below, where participants can also submit their questions.

Register: The 11 Most Asked Online Community Planning Questions (and Their Answers!)

Socious Improves Customer Support with New Help System

Joshua Paul — Mon, 20 Oct 2014 13:12:00 GMT

Socious is excited to announce the release of its new help system. Built from the ground up, all of our documentation has been re-written and re-formatted to provide in-depth information on every module, window, and function in our software.

Our new help system is a modern, robust tool that offers the following features and benefits:

It is context-sensitive. For example, if a user is having trouble creating a new blog article on a Socious site, they can simply click the context-sensitive ‘Help’ button at any time to view information that will guide them through the process.
It is user-sensitive. Our help system recognizes the access level of each user: Depending on whether you are an End User, Community Administrator, or Site Administrator, the system will dynamically generate the appropriate information accordingly.
All of our API, CMS:PHP, and import script documentation has been updated and included in the help, giving users a one-stop shop for all Socious documentation.
It offers a suite of new features. All content is now printable, searchable, and presented in an organized and easy-to-navigate manner via the new Table of Contents. In addition, important acronyms and terms are defined in the ever-expanding Glossary.

Now available to all Socious users, our new help system can be accessed via our Support site and the ‘Help’ button at the top-right of every window on your site, giving our users and administrators comprehensive 24/7 support.

This means that, more than ever before, our customers can get the help they need, when they need it. This is especially true for our Community and Site Administrators, who can now easily locate the information they need to keep their communities running effectively and their members actively engaged.

In addition, our documentation will be continuously updated with each software release to capture new functionality and update existing content, ensuring our customers always have the latest information to keep their sites running smoothly.

If you are a current Socious customer, you can contact your Client Manager to learn more about our new help system.

Socious to Showcase Online Community Software for Associations at Aptify User Conference

Joshua Paul — Fri, 17 Oct 2014 14:42:00 GMT

Socious is excited to again be part of the Aptify User Conference in Orlando, FL next week. The event is being held at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort from October 19-22, 2014.

Associations that use Aptify's association management software rely on their integration with the Socious online community platform to improve:

Member engagement and collaboration
Component and chapter management
Member benefits
Non-dues revenue
Volunteerism

“Aptify is an admirable organization with a great product and an outstanding culture. Both the Aptify AMS and the Socious online community platform are designed for organizations focused on improving their membership management operation, ongoing engagement, and other key performance metrics,” said Paul Schneider, Socious co-founder and senior vice president. “We value our relationship with both Aptify and its customers.”

Josh Paul, senior director of strategy and marketing at Socious, will also be facilitating two collaboration lab sessions at the conference on how associations and other membership organizations leverage and manage their private online member communities. This innovative and interactive discussion will take place on Monday morning, October 20, 2014.

To learn more about how Aptify AMS and Socious online community platform work together, contact Socious to set up a time to chat during or after the conference.

Socious Leads Discussions on Association Private Social Networks at NESAE Technology Conference

Joshua Paul — Mon, 13 Oct 2014 12:37:00 GMT

Socious marketing and strategy executive, Josh Paul, recently presented to association executives at the 2014 New England Society of Association Executives (NESAE) Technology Conference. The event was held at Bentley University on October 9, 2014.

The interactive presentation focused on three areas of member engagement:

Helping association executives articulate the strategic and functional differences between the large public social networks, like LinkedIn and Facebook, and private social networks.
Proven strategies for how associations can build thriving, active member communities online.
Three ways that associations derive a measurable ROI from their private online community strategy.

The following are the slides from the presentation.

How to Create a Private Online Community That Your Association Members With Use and Your Board Will Love from Socious

The educational session was sandwiched between two Genius Bar sessions, where Josh lead discussions about planning a private social network for members and online community management. He facilitated an exchange of ideas among seasoned associations executives, as well as answered dozens of specific online community management and strategy questions.

The Socious team is pleased have been able to help the New England Society of Association Executives and its members increase ongoing engagement by creating and leverage stronger online communities.

Socious Adds New Reports to Track Online Community Engagement

Joshua Paul — Tue, 07 Oct 2014 14:50:00 GMT

One of the primary ways businesses and membership organizations can track engagement in their online communities is through Socious's comprehensive reporting and metrics tools.

With this in mind, we’ve added a few new reports. These new reports give community managers the ability optimize the content, structure, and conversations of their online communities to maximize engagement.

Which Content is Attracting Community Members?

This report lists all blog articles that have been viewed during a specific date range, as well as the total number of views each has received.

Organizations can then use this data to determine which articles in their communities are the most/least popular to better understand the type of content their users actually want to read.

What Are Your Community's Most Popular Files, Documents, and Videos?

Socious has released two reports that allow organizations to view all of the comments and ratings the files on their Socious site have received.

These reports are especially useful for community managers to track the feedback their community’s files are receiving, the community members submitting this feedback, and the types of files users like and dislike.

What Are The Hottest Discussion Forum in Your Online Community?

An existing report has been updated to provide significant new metrics, like showing the number of views the threads in a forum have received and whether new posts have been made to them.

These metrics allow organizations to determine which threads in their community forums are the most/least popular, and they can use this data to take the necessary steps to keep their forums active and thriving.

What Are Community Members Searching For?

This report lists the users who have searched their Socious site during a specified date range, as well as the term they searched for and the number of times they searched for it.

This powerful report allows organizations to track popular content on their site to better understand what their users are interested in, and pinpoint areas of their site where users may be having trouble. This is extremely valuable information that can be used to steer online communities in the right direction for future growth.

If you are a current Socious customer, you can contact your Client Manager to learn more about these new reports and how they can help keep the members of your online communities engaged.

Socious Employees Create Gift Boxes for Patients at Phoenix Children’s Hospital

Joshua Paul — Wed, 24 Sep 2014 13:41:00 GMT

At Socious, we are always looking to do things within our community that will make our company stronger and give back to our community. Our most recent opportunity to do this was on September 4th. Socious partnered with the Phoenix Children’s Hospital and their Jared Box Project.

The Jared Box Project is an ongoing community service project created to lift the spirits of chronically ill children. The program was inspired by Jared, a brave five-year-old boy who battled cancer with courage and maintained his sense of humor and the joys of childhood through play. Since the program was founded in 2001, the Jared Box Project has delivered over 50,000 boxes in 38 states.

Socious employees bought items that would be fun and entertaining for boys and girls ages 3-5 that are staying at the Phoenix Children’s Hospital. Socious employees donated puzzles, crayons, coloring books, stickers and reading books. The items were assembled at the Socious offices along with a note in each one wishing the kids a speedy recovery signed by all employees.

“It is exciting to take some time to do something nice for people you don’t know.” said Paul Schneider, co-founder and senior vice president of Socious. “My son stayed at Phoenix Children’s when he was born and we were the recipients of a similar program. It was great to do that for others.”

Socious delivered 50 Jared boxes to Phoenix Children’s Hospital and looks forward to participating again next year.

Socious Introduces New Online Community Strategy & Management Consulting Services

Joshua Paul — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 17:13:00 GMT

Online customer community platforms are different than other enterprise software, like CRM systems and marketing software.

Whereas those other systems can sit idle if need be and can be utilized at the pace that your company learns to use them, online customer communities need a deliberate strategy and consistent activity to provide value to you target audience and keep them engaged.

Socious can now help you develop and execute that plan to engage your customers or members.

Socious announced the opening of a new professional services division today. The new services groups will provide online community planning and management guidance to Socious customers.

Understanding that creating online customer communities is a new endeavor for most organizations, Socious designed its online community management services so that organizations can fill in both the strategic and tactical gaps in their online community team and experience.

From simply validating an organization’s customer community strategy to providing ongoing community management services, Socious customers can take advantage of the flexibility and comprehensiveness of Socious’s advisory services.

Socious’ online community consulting services include:

Market analysis and value proposition development or validation
Identifying opportunities where organizations can leverage community to achieve business goals
Developing online community management processes and requirements
Creating a growth plan and tracking key online community metrics
Managing online communities through launch and during its early stages of growth
Measuring the customer community’s success and business impact

For many businesses, community-based customer relationship management strategies have proven to be very effective in increasing customer satisfaction, spurring market-driven innovation, and controlling customer service costs. However, companies won’t benefit from those stronger customer relationships without first taking the steps to create an active and sustainable online community.

To that end, Socious’s new service offering will help customers create communities where their customers or members want to participate and stay engaged.

Socious’s customer base has grown to include many of the world’s top technology companies and nonprofit membership organizations. This expansion will give Socious customers the tools, expertise, and support they need to not only launch thriving online communities, but leverage that social data to impact core business outcomes.

Learn more in this interview with Katie Bapple, senior online community consultant at Socious.

Socious customers can learn how their specific organization can make the most of these new online community strategy and management services during a webinar on September 18, 2014.

Socious to Discuss Social Customer Communities at Tech Breakfast Club

Joshua Paul — Mon, 08 Sep 2014 13:51:00 GMT

Attention all of our Chicago friends!

Socious will be in town this week to participate in a panel at this month’s Chicago Tech Breakfast Club from Tech Image. The theme of the discussion is “3 Cs of Today's Corporate Growth: Content, Community and Conversations.”

Socious’s senior manager of online community consulting, Katie Bapple, will be on stage to discuss how social customer communities and private networks are changing the way that companies manage relationships with customers and partners.

Along with common online community strategies, Katie will also delve into some of the plans, people, and processes that organizations need to have in place to create a thriving online customer community.

When:

Friday, Sept. 12, 2014 from 7:45-9:45 a.m.

Where:

312 Chicago Restaurant
136 N. LaSalle St.
Chicago IL
(in the upstairs tasting room)

There is no cost to attend this event.

Please RSVP to join us. Space is limited, so Tech Image will confirm availability upon receipt of your registration.

Social Community Platform Provider, Socious, is Hiring PHP Developers in the Phoenix Area

Joshua Paul — Tue, 12 Aug 2014 17:48:00 GMT

Want to work for a fast-paced company with a great culture? Do you like building things that are important to hundreds of thousands of people around the world?

Well, you're in luck. Socious is hiring developers again.

Socious has announced new opportunities for awesome people with PHP Web Development experience. We're seeking super-smart people in the Phoenix area with the following skills:

Web Development with PHP and JavaScript
MySQL or other RDBMS
Object Oriented Programming

Socious is recognized as one of the best places to work in the East Valley. Along with a strong culture and benefits, you would be part of a team that is growing into one of the leading providers on social community software to large and mid-sized organizations across the United States.

If you or someone you know is interested in learning more about Socious and these opportunities, visit socious.com/jobs.

Socious to Demo Its Online Community Platform for Bar Associations at NABE Annual Meeting

Joshua Paul — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 12:03:00 GMT

Socious has a long history of providing online community software and services to professional associations.

Next week, we'll take our experience and expertise to New England, where Socious is sponsoring the annual meeting of the National Association of Bar Executives (NABE). The meeting takes place in Boston from August 5-7, 2014.

Bar associations have a real opportunity to build community. Their members get tangible value from connecting, collaborating, and supporting one another in the online community’s sections and committees.

Along with exhibiting at the NABE Annual Meeting, Socious’s experienced online community advisors will be available to answer questions from association executives about planning, growing, and managing private online communities for bar association members.

The bar and legal professional associations that run on Socious’s online community platform are able to leverage that engagement to achieve business-level results.

Socious provides bar associations with the software, support, and online community planning services to create thriving online member communities that deliver measurable benefits to both bar association members and the organizations themselves.

Socious has presented at NABE events in the past. Socious executives have led educational sessions on how to successfully take online member engagement and collaboration beyond email-only listservs and best practices in online community management.

If you are in attending the NABE conference or will be in Boston next week, reach out to us. We'd love to connect.

Bar association executives should contact Socious directly to learn more about their participation in the NABE Annual Meeting and how their association can increase engagement, member value, and revenue through their online community strategy.

Socious Leads Webinar on Private Social Networks for Associations in Australia and New Zealand

Joshua Paul — Mon, 14 Jul 2014 06:47:00 GMT

Facebook has over 1.2 billion active users. Twitter sees over 255 million active user each month. And Linkedin gets a new user every two seconds. These are undeniably large numbers.

It is no wonder that executives have a hard time determining where private social networks fit into their customer or member engagement strategy.

This confusion is especially prevalent in nonprofit membership organizations, like associations. Many association leaders see all of their members using the large public social networks and think that is where their online member community should reside.

Public and Private Social Networks Are Built to Accomplish Different Goals

While public social networks, like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Google+, are critical to the success of nonprofit membership organizations, it is not the primary place that these organizations should build community to impact how members view the value their membership. This objective is best served by private social networking platforms.

According to Socious co-founder and SVP, Paul Schneider, “Public and private social networks both play important roles in increasing member engagement and strengthening member benefits. However, they play very different roles and can be used together to achieve measurable results.”

How can association execs ensure they are using each platform in the most effective way?

Social Networking Webinar for Association Leaders in Australia and New Zealand

Socious and ConferNet, a Socious partner providing private social networking software to the Australia and New Zealand markets, are hosting a webinar for association and nonprofit leaders to help them get better results from their public and private members-only social network strategies.

“It's high time we all took stock and drilled down on what's worked and what hasn’t in the over-hyped world of social media. In particular, private vs public networks: How are they different? What is each good at? Where will they waste your money – and how you CAN use these together to deliver sustainable value for your members,” said Ivan Schwartz of ConferNet.

During this free online event, you’ll learn:

How to explain the differences between public and private social networks
How successful associations use each platform
How to use public and private social networks together to increase member value and engagement

The webinar will take place on Wednesday July 23, 2014 at 10:00 AM AEST (Sydney time).

Please join Socious and ConferNet for this important discussion.

Learn more and reserve your place in this webinar.

New Webinar on Using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Google+ Along With Your Private Online Community

Joshua Paul — Thu, 19 Jun 2014 19:22:00 GMT

What is the difference between using Facebook or LinkedIn to build community with and among your members or customers, and launching a private online community?

Why would I launch a private social network when my members are already on Facebook and LinkedIn?

Can you help me explain the difference between a Google+ community and a private online community platform to my senior management?

These are all questions that we get on a daily basis at Socious. We see it across all of the markets that we serve – from businesses to nonprofit associations to user groups.

The truth is that the most successful organizations know that the public social network/private social network debate does not have an "either/or" conclusion. The two can and should work together.

You’re organization will miss opportunities to engage and provide value to your target audiences if you choose one of these platforms in lieu of the other. They serve a very different purpose in your customer or member engagement strategy.

How Can You Create a Plan Where Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+ Work Together With Your Private Online Community?

Socious is leading an upcoming webinar with top association management software provider, ACGI Software, to help.

In this webinar, association executives will learn why implementing a private online community strategy does not replace their activity on public social networks, and vice versa. It is not an "only pick one" equation when it comes to increasing member engagement and the value of membership in your organization.

During this free webinar, you’ll learn:

How to explain the differences between public social networks and private member communities
How successful associations use each
How to use public social networks and private online communities together to increase member value and engagement

Public social networks, like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and your private online member community both play important parts at your association’s success. However, they play very different roles.

In this webinar, you'll find out three ways to leverage your public social networks to increase the value and ongoing engagement resulting from your private online community.

Talking Private Social Networks for Associations at ASAE's Marketing, Membership, and Communications Conference #MMCCon

Joshua Paul — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 12:56:00 GMT

Socious is excited to annouce that our private social network software for associations will be on display at ASAE's Marketing, Membership, and Communications Conference next week. This annual event is one of our favorite association events. It takes place at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington D.C. from June 17-18, 2014.

Socious is a leading provider of online community software for businesses, associations, and user groups. We have served the association and nonprofit community since Socious's founding in 2002. Today, Socious helps organizations manage over one million members or customers.

Associations have unique needs when it comes to building community. Socious has developed a one-of-a-kind private social networking platform that helps membership organizations keep members engaged and increase the value of their membership.

Socious is a longtime participant in ASAE conferences and events. Socious most recently led a discussion about the role of private online communities in improving member retention at ASAE’s Great Ideas Conference.

Socious is well-known in the association and nonprofit world as the number one provider of educational information on how to plan, launch, and grow a private social network for members.

Selecting the best online community software platform is only half of the equation to creating a thriving community. Having the right people, processes, and strategy in place is equally as important.

Online community resources published by Socious include over 300 articles, ebooks, and training videos. They can be accessed for free at socious.com.

To learn more about Socious or schedule an appointment at the Membership, Marketing, and Communications Conference, visit the Socious website.

You can follow the Marketing, Membership, and Communitcations Conference on Twitter using the #MMCCon hashtag.

Socious Social Community Software is Featured in Software Advice's Social App Map

Joshua Paul — Mon, 09 Jun 2014 15:19:00 GMT

Recently, Socious sat down with Ashley Verrill, a social CRM analyst for Software Advice (acquired by leading information technology research and advisory company, Gartner), to discuss the results of a project she completed recently called the Social App Map.

The interactive tool is the culmination of about nine months of work, including vetting more than 120 top social solutions. The goal was to create an easy-to-use guide for companies to quickly navigate the social software space for the first time. Here's a sampling of our discussion.

Socious: To start off, can you tell us a little bit more about why you created the Social App Map and why it's important?

Ashley: Definitely. It all started about nine months ago after we launched the social CRM category at Software Advice. Usually this involves putting together a simple guide for buyers as a sort of foundation for their research. This is something I've done countless times for many different industry categories, so I did not expect this task to be particularly challenging; that ended up being a very wrong assumption.

Because the social software space is growing so quickly, industry players have yet to really establish a standardized set of terms and categories for defining the market. What one company calls a social enterprise application, for example, another might a call a social community platform.

This can make it really confusing for the buyer, particularly when you consider most don't even know the full opportunities these systems offer (as far as functionality).

Since software can represent a significant investment for companies, it's important that buyers have a handle on these nuances. There's nothing worse than buying a solution only to find that you only need about half of its features, or worse, it doesn't address the pain points you set out to address.

Socious: Who is the Social App Map geared towards?

Ashley: The primary audience for the Social App Map is companies (both large and small) interested in buying social software, or at the very least researching the market for the first time.

The filter in the map clearly identifies the five most-common social categories, as well as the features that align with each. If you roll over any feature in the filter, help text will pop-up with a plain english description of features. So basically, you can get a decent feel for the market in a matter minutes by examining this part of the map.

Then, you can simply check off those features you are most interested in evaluating and hit “Apply Filters.” Then every app will disappear from the map, except for those systems with the features you selected. I've been calling it a “shortcut to creating a software evaluation shortlist.”

Socious: What criteria did you use to evaluate vendors?

Ashley: I used a variety of factors including breadth and depth of features, uniqueness of the offering, and overall value of the system for the asking price.

I wanted to make sure and include a healthy mix of beginner applications that are accessible to smaller businesses, along with larger integrated suites for more enterprise buyers. I also picked out a few newcomers to the market to give users a feel for the true diversity of the market.

Socious: Why did you choose Socious?

Ashley: Socious was a clear standout for me because of the uniqueness of the offering, as well as it's ability to integrate with existing customer relationship management systems.

I really liked the built-in event management platform, which handles everything from webinars to multi-day international conferences.

The flexibility of the platform is also really great - you can easily use your company's branding in the community, which provides a really seamless experience to client and customer users. Finally, I really liked that gamification tools are built in (as opposed to having to integrate with a different application that you pay for separately).

Socious: What's the response been like so far?

Ashley: Overwhelming. Wired asked that I write an article for their community. Since then, I've received lots and lots of emails from people thanking me for creating the tool. It's great to hear that it's been so helpful to organizations. My hope was that it could save some people time and effort, so I'm glad it's having that impact.

Socious is Hiring an Online Community Management Consultant

Joshua Paul — Tue, 13 May 2014 20:10:00 GMT

Socious is growing again! We are excited to begin our search for our next senior manager of online community management consulting. Please help us spread the word on your favorite social networks.

Could This Be Your Dream Job?

As an online community consultant, you’ll work with companies and associations that use the Socious online community software platform before, during, and after their launch to ensure that their community reaches sustainability, meets their business objectives, and continues to be valuable to community members.

You’ll help organizations put processes in place, measure success, and train their community management teams. Other responsibilities will include:

Creating online community programs and services for prospects and customers.
Training customers on best practices to launch and grow their online community.
Help customers outline their community strategy to align with business goals.
Help customers establish a content and communication plan for their community to maximize the value to their users.
Consult on how to measure key online community metrics and make adjustments.
Help customers measure the business-level value of their online communities.
Work alongside implementation managers to bring strategy to fruition during the online community implementation process.

If you have experience in social business consulting or have managed a private online community for a business, user groups or association, we want to talk to you!

Learn more about this online community consulting opportunity and Socious’s culture.

New Feature for Online Community Managers: Query for Email Delivery Issues

Joshua Paul — Fri, 02 May 2014 14:17:00 GMT

Every online community manager or email administrator has received the call from a member of the community saying “I didn’t get that email”.

Up until now, organizations using the Socious online community software platform would have to call their client manager. Their client manager would then have queried the logs to see if that email was sent to that specific user and if any delivery failure notices were received by our servers.

Even though 99% of the time it was denied by the community member’s server or somehow added to the spam filter, this process took time for community managers and administrators to research.

Now, online community managers and administrators are empowered to do this search automatically right from each users’ profile. Literally, in seconds, the Socious online community platform will provide a quick report on emails delivered to the user and what error codes may have happened.

This information can easily be given to the user for them to take to their internal email admins. This feature is one more way Socious makes community management and administration easy.

If you are a current Socious customer, you can contact your client manager to learn more about how you can save time with this new online community management tool.

Updated Content Search Tools Help People Find Information Faster in Your Online Community

Joshua Paul — Thu, 01 May 2014 15:14:00 GMT

Socious has updated the content search capabilities and search results display pages in its online community software platform.

Socious customers will notice a whole new look and a series of new features:

Updated and simple look that mimics the simplicity of Google search.
Advanced search filters provide filters on content type, time, author, relevance, group, category/topic and more.
New search by author autocompletes name of authors for easy searching.
Each search creates its own search string permalink web address for future reference. This enables a page to be built that automatically updates most recent content based on search criteria. This new feature has a ton of uses!
As always, full-text indexing of all content remains to insure finding content with these additional features is easier than ever.

The Socious platform is now storing the search terms users use each time they search. In a future release, this will allow organziations to further utilize widgets/cms calls/reports based on which terms are being searched on frequently in a given period.

If you are a current Socious customer, you can contact your client manager to find out more about how you can help your community members find answers and information faster.

High Demand for Social Community Software Leads Socious to Expand Arizona Headquarters

Joshua Paul — Wed, 30 Apr 2014 12:15:00 GMT

Do you hear that? Neither do we. The sound of construction and smell of fresh paint have left the building.

Socious is excited to announce that we have expanded our headquarters office outside of Phoenix. Consistent double-digit growth has cause us to break down the walls and double the size of our operation. Socious, which had only expanded into its former space 36 month ago, has doubled its team since then.

Socious is at the center of a movement by businesses and membership organizations to create stronger relationships and more efficiently manage ideas from their markets by leveraging their communities of customers or members.

Organizations ranging from Fortune 200 companies to international associations use Socious’ online community platform to help people collaborate on solutions, manage live events and conferences, and crowdsource product ideas.

“Socious has experienced accelerated growth over the past few years as companies and associations make building lasting communities a central part of their business strategies,” said Paul Schneider, co-founder and senior vice president of Socious. “The demand for online community software has caused us to hire and expand our operation many months ahead of when we had originally planned.”

Along with marketing automation software maker, InfusionSoft, Socious is a one of the fastest growing software companies headquartered in the Phoenix area. Socious has been based in Gilbert, Arizona, in the Phoenix’s east valley, for the past 9 years.

"We love Gilbert since it is a fast-growing city where the talent pool is getting deeper every month. We can have an attractive quality of life for our families and grow the business with exceptional people from all over the valley,” continued Schneider.

The market for social software does not show any signs of slowing down with industry research firms, such as MarketsandMarkets, predicting that the social CRM market will grow from $1.91 billion in 2013 to $9.08 billion in 2018.

While this expansion is designed to accommodate Socious’s growth projections for several years, Socious’s market share continues to grow in the US and internationally. As Socious hires in the Gilbert area, the company’s leadership will continue to monitor its office needs and take additional space accordingly.

The Socious mailing address will remain at 2500 South Power Rd, Suite 118, Mesa, AZ, 85209.

New Feature: Create More Active Online Communities with Forum Notifications when a File is Added in the Resource Library

Joshua Paul — Tue, 29 Apr 2014 14:42:00 GMT

Socious’s commitment to helping businesses and membership organizations create and grow active online communities continues. As you know, email notifications are at the foundation of social engagement, just look at the LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook notifications in your email inbox.

We've added a new feature to allow an email to be sent to a corresponding forum subscriber list each time a new file is posted to a file or video library. This addition to the Socious online community software platform will help organizations bring busy community member back to the community to view, share, and discuss new resources.

The newest notification feature is designed to allow a community member who posts a new file or video to be able to quickly disseminate that link to that file without having to "copy and paste" it into another separate discussion forum post or listserv email.

Since Socious's forum technology is synchronized with email listservs, the notifications to the forums also come to the users’ email. The email that is sent to the forum/listserv can be customized on a site-by-site basis, as well as tailored by the poster.

This helps to keep your community top of mind with members or customers and easily help to keep members engaged.

If you are a current Socious customer, you can contact your client manager to learn more about how you can use the new file and video library notifications.

Updated Poll Feature Allows for Easy Engagement in Your Online Community

Joshua Paul — Mon, 28 Apr 2014 20:45:00 GMT

The poll module in Socious online community software has been rewritten from top to bottom! The process for creating a poll has been simplified to be more wizard-like.

Creating quick one-question polls are a great way to get online comunity members engaged and gather basic user-generated data to use in your customer or member community's content strategy.

The display engine for polls has been enhanced to make the results data much more visually pleasing (pie charts/colors/layout). Socious has also added in significant depth to the notification process for polls.

If you are a current Socious customer, you can contact your client manager to learn more about how you can take advantage of the updated polling functionality.