Socious Company and Product News

Socious Executive to Share Online Community Management Tips in Upcoming Twitter Chat

Joshua Paul — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 03:53:00 GMT

If there is one thing that social business professionals can’t get enough of, its online community management tips. Come on…you know you love them!

Online communities are quickly becoming a critical business strategy for many companies and membership organizations. However, they are not like campaigns that have defined start and end dates. They are living strategies that need to be fed, analyzed, and adjusted over a long period of time.

That is why social business pros love community management advice. They know that there is always a metric, process, or engagement strategy that can be improved.

Mark Your Calendar

To help online community managers and their teams find more success, Socious’s Director of Strategy and Marketing, Joshua Paul, will be co-leading a twitter chat on Tuesday, June 18^th, from 1-2pm ET (10am-11am PT).

Josh will guest-host the chat with veteran online community management professionals, Jim Storer of The Community Roundtable, and Maggie McGary. The discussion topics will be based on a talk that the three of them gave at a technology conference in December 2012, entitled 8 Habits of Highly Effective Online Community Managers.

8 Habits of Highly Effective Online Community Managers from Socious

You can learn more about the session’s community management tips on the Socious online community blog. The Twitter chat will also feature supporting research from the soon-to-be-released 2013 State of Community Management report.

How to Participate in the #CommBuild Twitter Chat

Join this interactive exchange of ideas by searching for the Twitter hashtag #CommBuild at 1pm ET on June 18, 2013.

Questions to think about for the discussion include:

Is having dedicated community management important? Why or why not?
What are the most effective ways to engage your community?
What is important for communities to measure?

New to Twitter chats? Check out this overview, so that you can dive right in at 1pm ET.

How to Follow Socious on Twitter

You can follow Socious on Twitter at at @SociousSoftware (businesses) and @SociousSuccess (nonprofits).

Socious Publishes Visual Guide to Creating Awesome Online Member Communities

Joshua Paul — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 11:32:00 GMT

Socious launched a new infographic for associations and other membership organizations at last week's ASAE Marketing, Membership, and Communications Conference.

Socious, which has exhibited and presented at the conference for the past four years, developed the "Anatomy of a Private Online Member Community" guide to help associations, user groups, and other membership organizations better understand the fundamentals of creating an effective and sustainable private online community for members.

Socious has been a leader in supporting associations and other types of membership organizations since the company was founded in 2002. Along with the breadth and depth of the Socious member community platform, the guidance that Socious customers receive sets Socious apart in the association and membership market.

The sharable infographic highlights three areas where association executives need to focus their time and resources: strategy, online community software features, and community management.

Strategy: An organization's online community strategy gives members a reason why they are going to spend time in the organization's online community, as well as ties the platform back to the business-level goals of the organization.
Online Community Software Features: It is important that membership organizations use an online community software platform that has enough features to both provide value to members and keep members coming back to the community over time.
Online Community Management: There are specific data-driven online community management practices that membership organizations should put in place to keep the community valuable to members and growing for the long term.

Leading associations and user groups in the healthcare, technology, and legal fields rely on Socious's online community software and advice to keep members engaged, create value for members, and generate significant revenue for their organizations.

Association executives and membership professionals can find Socious’s new infographic and other member engagement tips at blog.socious.com.

Socious Added 350 New Features & Enhancements to Its Enterprise Online Community Software Over the Last Year

Joshua Paul — Thu, 30 May 2013 11:33:00 GMT

The social business landscape is changing rapidly. Socious has doubled down on our product development to address the top priorities of our customers.

Socious recently completed the first full year of stepped up product development under its new quick release program. The goal of the program is to get new features into the hands of our customers faster so that they can respond to the needs of their target audiences more effectively.

From April 2012 through April 2013, Socious added 350 new features and significant updates to its online community software platform.

Examples of major enhancements include APIs to better integrate with the systems that organizations are already using and additional engagement features. New development also expanded backend tools to help companies manage their online communities more easily and do more with the data they are collecting.

Other areas of the Socious online community software platform where new functionality was added include:

User Engagement

New features give individuals more control over their personal brand in a company’s private online community, while adding the ability for organizations to customize user profiles to increase members’ sense of community from the start.

Built-In Content Management System

Enhancements give organizations more options for how their information is displayed and make it easier for them to pull in content and social features from other parts of the online community.

Secure Document Viewing

This innovation enables people to share sensitive information with more confidence by decreasing the risk of documents being downloaded to individual computers, stolen, or copied.

Membership Management

New flexibility in the membership management tools allows membership organizations, user groups, and customer communities to more easily acquire, track, and renew their members.

Community Calendars

Extensive calendaring functionality enables organizations and sub-groups, like chapters or regional user groups, to maintain the calendar of record for the entire organization, as well as its groups, so that individuals can stay engaged with relevant events and meetings.

Event and Conference Management

Over 90 customer-driven enhancements were added to help organizations run all-size events from speaker management to registration to post-event reporting.

Financial Tracking and Reporting

New pay account features enable better financial tracking and reporting of revenue from membership dues, events, and other online purchases.

Reporting

Enhanced reporting options for financials, engagement, and customer segmentation make it easier to make tactical adjustments in your community and identity community members that need attention.

Solving our markets’ most important problems is important to us. This investment in product development demonstrates Socious’s commitment to incorporating new feature ideas from our customers and creating social software that to works the way our customers do.

Socious plans to maintain this pace of innovation with new ways for making the software easier to use and enabling organizations to improve their customer experience by incorporating the latest design trends in their online customer or member communities.

Socious customers can view the full list of enhancements and new features in the Socious customer support website at support.socious.com.

How to Select the Best Private Social Network Software for Associations & Membership Organizations [New Toolkit]

Joshua Paul — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 15:32:00 GMT

Association executives and nonprofit leaders can be very good at what they do. This includes organizational culture, education, events, membership management, and fiscal matters.

With everything that an association leader needs to keep their eye on, it can be difficult to fully grasp the nuances of the various private social networking platforms for members, never mind delineating between hype and real strategies.

To help out our friends in the association world, Socious has introduced a new toolkit, 11 Must-Ask Questions When Choosing an Online Community Software Provider for Your Association or Membership Organization.

In this free ebook, you’ll learn how to examine important criteria, including:

Member engagement stats
Customization
Support
Features
Mobile strategy
Integration options

With the help of this toolkit, your organization will have a roadmap to an apples-to-apples comparison of online community software to find the best option for your strategy, members, and organization.

You can download the online community ebook here.

Socious Adds Embedded Document Viewing to Social Community Software

Joshua Paul — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 14:08:00 GMT

Socious is excited to announce the addition of secure embedded document technology to our enterprise peer-to-peer community software platform.

What Does This Mean for Our Customers?

Businesses, user groups, and associations that use Socious’s social community software platform can now enable customers to securely view documents through their browsers and on their mobile devices using the same technology that LinkedIn uses to present resumes and cloud storage service, Dropbox, uses to display files online.

The innovative addition to Socious's online community software allows an organization and members of its online community to share documents and presentations in the community's file libraries without requiring other members to download and open files before viewing them online or from mobile devices.

Integrating secure document viewing into Socious’s customer community platform empowers people to share sensitive information with more confidence by decreasing the risk of documents being downloaded to individual computers, stolen, or copied. Organizations are also providing customers and members with a better customer experience by allowing them to preview files online before they download them.

There are many ways that companies, user groups, and membership organizations are using embedded documents in their social customer and member communities. They include:

Sensitive Documents

Companies that get feedback on product direction from customer advisory boards or nonprofit boards of directors that discuss financial information and strategic plans can securely share documents.

Copyright Protection

Customers or members can share their content in a private online community without fear of it being pirated or re-published outside of the author’s intended audience within the community.

Exclusive Information

Private customer or member communities thrive when the information in the community is exclusive to that community. If community members can get the same information through other channels, the value and activity of the community quickly drops. Embedded documents help keep information from leaking beyond an organization’s private online community.

Event Presentations

Using the event management software built into the Socious online community platform, event and conference attendees can view speakers' presentations from their mobile phones and tablets before, during, and after the event.

Productized Communities

Businesses and membership organizations that sell information-based products, such as consulting firms, associations, and research companies, can provide extensive document libraries and analytical resources to paying customers and ensure that only those specific customers have access to that product.

Secure document viewing was one of 23 new or updated features in Socious’s March 2013 release. Businesses, nonprofits, and consultants can see Socious's document sharing technology and the rest of our extensive online customer community platform by requesting a demonstration.

Current Socious customers can view the full list of enhancements on the Socious support website.

BtoB Magazine Recognizes a Socious Customer as a Top Business-to-Business Online Community

Joshua Paul — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 18:26:00 GMT

BtoB Magazine recently announced the winners and runners-up of its annual Social Media Marketing Awards at a luncheon in San Francisco. The VMware User Group, a heavy user of Socious’s online customer community software platform was named the runner-up in the best closed community category. Cisco Systems was awarded the top honor.

The VMware User Group has grown from roughly 20,000 members to 75,000 in the past 2 years. The organization, also known as VMUG, began using the Socious online community platform in 2011.

The VMware User Group is a model for both company-run and independent user group communities. They are a great example of an organization that has embraced technology to grow their user base. Socious is proud to provide the software platform driving their communities, events, and membership.

Socious enables VMUG to manage their user group using a single platform for all of their public, member-facing, and back end technology. The Arizona-based customer community software company implemented their full suite of user community tools, which includes a CMS to manage VMUG’s entire public and members-only website, secure peer-to-peer online communities, a membership management system, event and speaker management platforms, and the Socious mobile community and event apps.

Socious recently published a case study on VMUG to help other business-to-business companies learn from the VMware User Group’s success. It can be found online at socious.com/customer-case-studies.

See the full list of B2B Magazine’s Social Media Marketing Award winners.

Socious Offers Online Community Tips for Marketers in New Ebook

Joshua Paul — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 15:02:00 GMT

When companies contact Socious about our online community software, it is usually somebody from the marketing department or a marketing strategist from a customer support group leading the initiative.

Socious recently published a new ebook to help marketers at large and mid-sized businesses and user groups maximize the impact of their online customer communities. The free ebook, entitled The Marketer's Guide to Private Online Customer Communities, was specifically written to help companies increase revenue and improve customer retention.

The 45-page guide provides marketers with:

Research on how online customer communities increase revenue
Tips for using private online communities to convert more leads into customers
Ways to recruit and maintain better customer references using your customer community
A blueprint to improve customer satisfaction

Marketing has evolves to be at the center of the customer experience both during the sales process and throughout the customer life cycle. In addition, technology budgets and spending on customer-centric online platforms are shifting from the CIO's domain to that of the Chief Marketing Officer. Research firm, Gartner, predicts that marketing departments will spend more on IT than CIOs by 2017.

In the past 10 years, marketing departments have transitioned from strictly a business development role to one that touches every one of a business's success metrics - from product development to customer retention. Socious's new ebook highlights why no other business strategy has such a measurable impact on product profitability, lead management, and customer retention than private online communities do.

Marketing executives and social business professionals can download The Marketer's Guide to Private Online Customer Communities ebook at socious.com.

Online Community Software Company, Socious, Increases Revenue by Over 25% for the Third Year in a Row

Joshua Paul — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 13:43:00 GMT

Socious is excited to announced that 2012 was the company’s most successful in its 11 year history. Socious, best known for its all-in-one customer community platform for businesses, user groups, and associations, increased year-over-year revenue by 34%.

After increasing deployments of their platform by 44% in 2011, Socious’s growth rate accelerated again in 2012, during which they grew their customer base by nearly 50%.

“We are pleased with Socious’s growth over the past year and excited about the online community software market in 2013, specifically around our customer community, user group, and association offerings,” said Scott Balthazor, president at Socious.

Socious’s growth was fueled by increased market visibility in the business-to-business arena where online communities are becoming central to managing customer and partner relationships.

“As their customers’ expectations, comfort with social networks, and the pressure they receive from competitors all rise, companies are finding that the demands put on their organization exceed the capabilities of traditional customer or membership management processes. As more companies understand the real benefits of putting communities at the center of their customer relationship management strategies, Socious is uniquely positioned to deliver solutions to those businesses,” said Paul Schneider, Senior Vice President at Socious.

Socious’s 2012 highlights include:

New Customers: More companies and membership organizations chose Socious than in any other year since the company was launched in 2002. Socious’s new customers range from multi-billion dollar household names to international associations to some of the world’s largest software user groups.

Product Innovation: Socious continues to offer the most complete online community software platform with the addition of new ecommerce, gamification, and social networking features.

Company Growth: In 2012, the Socious team continued to expand to support the growing number of customers with increases to the size of the customer support and product development teams.

Thought-Leadership: To help companies and association executives create thriving online communities, in 2012, Socious produced over 100 educational articles and ebooks, as well as a popular social business video series.

Schneider continued, “We expect to continue to be at the center of the customer community movement as more businesses of all sizes realize the real revenue opportunities and cost savings of social customer relationship strategies.”

The demand for online customer community software and enterprise social CRM solutions continues to increase. According to industry analysts at Gartner, the market is growing, but is still young. Spending on customer communities and social CRM doubled between 2010 and 2012, but remains less than 90% of all CRM spending. As Socious goes into its 12^th year in business, the maturity of its platform positions the company well to capitalize on the emerging online customer community space.

Socious Hosts Webinar on Increasing the ROI of Online Communities

Joshua Paul — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 15:42:00 GMT

The Challenges of Online Community ROI

Even in 2013, many companies struggle to see a clear line between their online community strategy and the return on their investment.

Though social business professionals in the trenches buy into the potential for a substantial ROI, educating the range of departments that are going to be using the private social network to engage customers, partners, and other groups within the company, lining up the right people and resources, and taking the appropriate steps throughout the online community planning process are a challenge.

Answers About the ROI of Online Communities

To help businesses, user groups, and nonprofit membership organizations recognize and plan to achieve measurable business results through their online customer or member communities, Socious has teamed up with Richard Millington of the online community consultancy and training provider, FeverBee, to bring you a unique online event entitled, Unleashing the ROI of Online Customer Communities.

This free educational event will feature lessons from FeverBee’s online community management training program, the world’s first professional community management course, as well as tips from Richard Millington’s new book, Buzzing Communities: How to Build Bigger, Better, and More Active Online Communities.

This 60-minute webinar will offer real-life perspectives, proven strategies, and actionable tips to businesspeople planning an online customer community to bring employees, customers, and partners together for the long-term success of their customers.

Reserve Your Spot in This Webinar

The webinar will take place on January 24, 2013 at 1 p.m. ET US. Business and membership professionals can register for Unleashing the ROI of Online Customer Communities at http://socious.com/customer-engagement-videos/.

Socious' Hosted Online Community Software Adds Upgraded Calendar Features

Joshua Paul — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 12:47:00 GMT

Online communities are made up of more than discussion forums and file libraries. To that end, Socious recently announced that we have significantly extended the built-in calendar features to help organizations create value and stay top-of-mind with customers and members.

Keep More Customers or Members Engaged With Expanded Support for Online and Live Events

Along with forum discussions and other social business tools, one of the most effective ways to keep busy customers or members engaged is to get on their calendars. By adding a variety of valuable events to a community’s calendars each month, organizations enable users and members to shift their focus during the workday to engage the community.

“It was our customers that alerted us to the member engagement potential of deep calendar functionality. We were excited to work with a diverse set of organizations to deliver these online community features to the market,” revealed Socious president, Scott Balthazor.

Bringing together a concentration of online community members at the same time in the way that calendar events do also adds to the perception that your online customer or member community is active and worth your customers’ time. This increases repeat visits to the online community outside scheduled virtual or live events.

Beyond Advanced Calendar Features

As many organizations know, there is a difference between an online community that merely exists and an engaged online community. Businesses and membership organizations can’t just check the calendaring box anymore. Their customers and members expect more from an online community. This product news represents an advance in online customer engagement, rather than a basic calendar tool.

While marketing, membership, and customer support professionals can take advantage of the improved control over the design and administration of their company or user group’s customer-facing calendars, businesses, user groups, and associations using Socious online community software will also see the updated calendar functionality in the online community mobile apps that they provide their customers and members.

These new event-based engagement features are included in the over 70 enhancements to the content management, membership, and event management membership modules of Socious’ online community platform.

Socious customers can learn more about all of the product updates in this release and watch a demonstration video in the Socious support website.

Socious Executive to Discuss Private Social Networks at ASAE Technology Conference

Paul Schneider — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 14:15:00 GMT

Socious marketing executive, Joshua Paul, will discuss managing private social networks and online communities during a session at the ASAE: The Center for Association Leadership’s Technology Conference & Expo on December 6th at 10:15 a.m. ET.

The 75-minute session will cover eight habits of highly successful online community managers. Attendees will come away with an understanding what to expect from an online community manager, how to invite community managers to the leadership table, and how to measure success.

The session will feature two other well-known online community management professionals - Maggie McGary, Online Community & Social Media Manager at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and Jim Storer, Co-Founder of The Community Roundtable.

“When it comes to thriving online communities, technology is only half of the equation. Leaders at membership organizations need to be armed with the strategies and processes that are going to make their private online communities a measurable success for the long term,” said Joshua Paul of Socious.

The presentation and panel discussion is designed to provide C-level executives and other technology staff with an understanding of the importance of online community management and processes they can implement to ensure that their private online member communities are contributing to business-level goals.

The ASAE Technology Conference will be held at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington DC from December 5-6, 2012.

Attendees can tweet questions that they would like addresses during the panel discussion to @SociousSuccess using the hashtag #tech12

Socious Social Community Case Study Honored by Society for New Communications Research with Prestigious Award

Joshua Paul — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 14:29:00 GMT

The Society for New Community Research has awarded online community software provider, Socious, with a 2012 SNCR Commendation of Merit in the external communications and communities category. Socious is being recognized along with Lamaze International, the leading provider and advocate of pregnancy and parenting education, for its work building online communities for parents and childbirth educators.

“We are honored to recognize Lamaze International and Socious through this awards program,” commented SNCR Senior Fellow Paul Gillin, chair of the SNCR Excellence Awards committee.

The prestigious awards program honors individuals and organizations that are pioneering the use of social media and Internet communications technologies (ICT). The commendation was presented to Socious and Lamaze at the 7th Annual SNCR Symposium & Awards Gala held at the Stanford Park Hotel in Palo Alto, CA on November 8-9, 2012.

“While the right technology is important, the success of an online community is often determined by a company’s strategy and how they use our platform. Lamaze is an innovator in combining the content, event, and social community-building features to expand their engagement footprint,” said Scott Balthazor, President of Socious.

Using Socious’ all-in-one online community platform, Lamaze developed a pair of social websites to increase and sustain engagement among target audiences with distinct needs - parents and professionals.

“Using the features that Socious has established for our newly redesigned websites, we are able to provide parents and educators with an enhanced platform to learn and connect. Lamaze is excited to be recognized by the Society for New Communications Research for this achievement,” said Lamaze President Tara Owens Shuler, MEd, CD(DONA), LCCE, FACCE.

Award nominations were submitted as case studies, and reviewed by a panel of SNCR Fellows. In addition to the top award winners in each division and category, Commendations of Merit and Commendations of Excellence were presented to nearly 11 other organizations that submitted case studies in the awards program. In its seven-year history, SNCR has honored nearly 200 organizations and individuals through this prestigious awards program and all the winning case studies will be published on http://sncr.org.

About Socious

Founded in 2002, Socious (socious.com) offers the industry’s most complete online community software to large and mid-sized businesses, associations, and user groups. The Socious platform includes private social networking, customer communication tools, social crm segmentation, forums, collaboration tools, and a full mobile platform to help organizations increase sales, retention, and member engagement. Take an online tour of Socious online community software.

About Lamaze International

Lamaze International promotes a natural, healthy and safe approach to pregnancy, childbirth and early parenting practices. Knowing that pregnancy and childbirth can be demanding on a woman’s body and mind, Lamaze serves as a resource for information about what to expect and what choices are available during the childbearing years. Lamaze education and practices are based on the best and most current medical evidence available. Working closely with their families, health care providers and Lamaze educators, millions of pregnant women have achieved their desired childbirth outcomes using Lamaze practices. The best way to learn about Lamaze’s steps to a safe and healthy birth is to take a class with a Lamaze certified instructor. To find classes in your area, or for more information visit www.lamaze.org.

About the Society for New Communications Research

The Society for New Communications Research is a global nonprofit 501(c)(3) research and education foundation and think tank focused on the advanced study of the latest developments in new media and communications, and their effect on traditional media and business models, communications, culture and society. For more information, visit http://sncr.org.

New Webinar: How to Create an Online Community that Members Actually Use

Joshua Paul — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 22:02:00 GMT

As you know, private online communities can significantly increase member value, engagement, and retention. However, while some membership organizations see substantial results, many organizations can’t get traction with their members.

Don't Miss This Webinar

Socious is hosting a brand new webinar to help organizations become member engagement machines rather than social networking ghost towns.

Webinar: 9 Secrets of Successful Private Online Member Communities

Date: Thursday, November 15, 2012

Time: 2:00 ET

How to Register: Reserve Your Spot Today!

During this free webinar, you’ll learn:

Strategy: How to create a private social network that members actually use
Community Management: What executives need to know about online community management
How It All Works: Key online community features, the planning process, and implementation

Though Socious serves a variety organizations in the business and nonprofit communities, this specific webinar is designed for associations and other membership organizations. Find more educational resources for building community here.

Aptify User Community Embraces Socious Online Community Software

Joshua Paul — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 16:25:00 GMT

Socious showcased its private online community software at the user conference for association management software maker, Aptify, in Nashville.

Photo: Aptify User Conference event at the Lovelace Cafe

For the first time, the Aptify community saw how integrating the backend power of Aptify with Socious customer community software can achieve the highest member engagement levels in the industry. Membership organizations can now combine the most flexible membership management tools with an all-in-one member-facing platform to keep members engaged over time.

“We see engagement as an intangible asset for our association
customers - much like the value of a brand. Yet, it
has never been quantified in a consistent way. We're building
tools to help association executives create engagement scoring
models that will stay relevant as their associations
evolve.” - Bryan Kelly, Director of Marketing at Aptify

Tips for Increasing Member Engagement

As they showcased their SaaS online community software, Socious executives also offered advice around planning a private online community and strategies for long-term engagement.

Successful online communities have two basic components. First, you have to have enough ways to provide value to your busy target audience. Then, you need a robust engagement engine to keep your members coming back over time.

Since the average membership organization that uses other private social networking tools sees only 14% participation, some association leaders express skepticism about engaging members in a private online community. However, they look to Socious as an authority in creating successful online communities, since Socious’ association customers average over 45% member engagement in their private online community.

Socious Building Community at the Ballpark

Joshua Paul — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 13:49:00 GMT

Although we provide “serious online community software," the Socious team is not all work and no play. Recently, the company hosted an event at Chase Field in Phoenix to see the Arizona Diamondback take on the San Francisco Giants.

While the Diamondback did fall to the Giants, it was a great chance to reinforce Socious' company culture, build our community, and get out of the trenches of providing the best customer community platform around.

Online Community Software Company, Socious, to Host 2012 User Meeting

Joshua Paul — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 15:02:00 GMT

Socious is excited to announce that we have opened registration for our 2012 User Meeting. The event will be held on November 6^th and 7^th in sunny Gilbert, AZ, near our company headquarters.

During the two-day user meeting, Socious customers will receive special training on the private social networking, content management, email marketing, and conference management systems that are built into the Socious online community platform.

"We have added a lot of new features to our platform this year. Our user meeting will offer customers an opportunity to get guided, in-person training to use those tools to provide more value to their customers, keep them engaged, and manage the diverse segments of their customer base more efficiently,” said Scott Balthazor, President and Co-Founder at Socious.

Again in 2012, Socious is providing admission to the event at no cost to customers. By investing in having customers only cover travel and onsite expenses, Socious enables more organizations to take advantage of the workshops and a greater number of customers to connect during the meeting.

Socious customers can learn more and reserve their spot in the 2012 User Meeting from the Socious Customer Support Website.

Socious Adds Crowdsourced Speaker Management and Conference Session Planning to Its Online Community Software

Paul Schneider — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 20:56:00 GMT

Here at Socious, we are always updating our online community software to bring cutting edge solutions to our customers to make their communities more powerful.

Since the Socious platform integrates tools like private social networking, email marketing, and event management into one system, customers have the ability to do some great things with the software right out of the box, instead of needing to integrate to other systems to get the same functionality. For instance, in the most recent release of the speaker / abstract management system, we have introduced the ability to crowdsource the voting of conference or event sessions by the members of the online community.

Have Your Online Community Pick The Most Useful Sessions and Speakers

With this new functionality, an event run through the event system built into Socious’ online community platform can accept sessions that people would like to present, remove any identifying information about the presenter, and then ask your entire community or segment of your community to choose which sessions they would like to attend at the conference.

It presents a powerful opportunity to get customers or members involved and excited about an upcoming conference! This new feature does two things to assist in growing attendance:

1) Marketing

Typically, sessions are submitted before general registration is open. By enabling the voting on sessions by prospective attendees, you start marketing the conference in a way that engages your members to learn more and actually have a say in what is presented. Getting this type of buy-in is a marketers dream!

2) Makes Your Conference More Valuable

Most conference sessions are chosen by a small group or committee. There are friendships, politics, and other issues that could cloud the choice of sessions that are chosen. This removes all of that and gives the attendees the sessions and education they want. We all know when you give customers what they want, they tend to come back for more.

Whether you are running an customer event, association annual conference, or a corporate user group conference, this new feature will surely get your attendees more interested in your conference and hopefully lead to higher attendance rates!

Socious to Present Private Social Network Platform for ASI iMIS Customers at NiUG Conference

Joshua Paul — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 13:21:00 GMT

Socious will showcase its private member community software for associations at the National iMIS User Group (NiUG) Discovery Conference in Philadelphia from September 12-14, 2012.

Association executives that use ASI’s iMIS membership management system will see how Socious customers achieve the highest member engagement levels in the industry.

Member engagement is the fuel on which associations drive results – from legislative action to educational events to volunteer management. Associations that use Socious online community software average over 30% more participation than associations using other private social networking tools.

“Association executives get it. They know how important member engagement is. They also know that they can’t afford to invest in a private social network that their members aren’t going to use. That is why they choose Socious – to get the technology, advice, and support to build successful online members communities,” said Paul Schneider, SVP and Co-Founder at Socious.

Associations that use Socious private online community software create concrete value for their members which increases member retention and helps make new member recruitment easier. During the NiUG conference, ASI’s iMIS customers will see how they can increase member engagement, compete for the attention of busy members, and generate significantly more non-dues revenue.

For over 10 years, association executives have turned to Socious for the industry’s most member engagement features, easy integration with membership databases like ASI iMIS, and personal service and support.

New Online Customer Community eBook Helps Develop Social Business Strategy

Joshua Paul — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 12:06:00 GMT

Socious Publishes Online Customer Community Strategy Guide

We're excited to unviel our latest eBook, How to Develop a Killer Online Customer Community Strategy. The free eBook is Socious’ first of the third quarter and is written for businesses and membership organizations that are at the beginning of the social business planning process.

There are hundreds of decisions that go into a successful online community strategy. Socious wants to educate busy executives of the ways that online communities are strengthening customer relationships. The eBook was also created to help companies to stay focused on the elements of their customer community strategy that matter to their customers and to their organization.

The 31-page eBook details:

How company-owned customer communities work with traditional customer relationship management functions
The steps to creating a successful customer community
The key decision points in the strategy development process

Socious is one of the top producers of educational information and advice regarding online communities, private social networking, and customer engagement. The have developed dozens of free eBooks, videos, and toolkits for marketing, membership, and customer care executives. Socious’ Online Community Blog is a popular source of customer community guidance among social business professionals and they recently launches a video show and podcast called ProCommunity, which discusses how organizations are leveraging online communities to improve business performance.

Companies and membership organizations can download How to Develop a Killer Online Customer Community Strategy at no cost from the Socious web site.

Socious' LinkedIn Group for Member Engagement Pros Grows to 1,000 Members

Joshua Paul — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 13:46:00 GMT

We're excited to announce that the member engagement community that Socious launched in 2011 has surpassed 1,000 members. We started the the LinkedIn group to fill an industry-wide gap in focus, content, and collaboration around how customer engagement can both be capitalized on and improved in businesses and membership organizations.

To many corporations and nonprofit organizations, engagement is the lifeblood of customer relationships, membership management, and use groups. Without engaged community members, companies and associations see lower retention, revenue, and brand advocacy.

Socious excited to used our leadership in the member engagement arena to create an accessible environment where association leaders and social business professionals can find thoughtful discussion and reliable support.

Who is Part of the Member Engagement Group?

The community is made up equally of association leaders and corporate executives.
42% of the community members are at the Director level or above in their organizations.
38% of the members indicate that marketing is their primary function.
19% of the community is located in the Washington DC area, while Chicago, London, and New York combine to make up an additional 16%.

At Socious, our customers see firsthand what a big impact member engagement can have on their organization. Over the past 10 years, we've seen online customer communities at companies and private member communities at associations impact organizations in very measurable ways.

We want to thank all who have contributed to the success of the group. We plans to add more content, free resources, and live networking events over the next year to further support the association and business communities.

Socious Launches Online Community Business Podcast & Web Show

Joshua Paul — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 09:19:00 GMT

We are excited to announce the launch of the world’s first web series that focuses on how online communities impact business performance. Our new show, ProCommunity, features in-depth conversations with industry experts on how companies can use online communities to drive growth, innovation, and customer loyalty.

Online Communities for Business Need Special Guidance

“Online communities are all around us, ranging from Facebook pages to your local Corvette enthusiasts club. However, the rules for businesses are different. Companies need deliberate strategies and processes to create and participate in online communities that achieve specific goals. We created ProCommunity to address those unique business challenges,” said Paul Schneider, Co-Founder and Senior Vice President at Socious.

ProCommunity episodes will include interviews with social business and online community professionals from across the business landscape - from the boardroom to the trenches of community management.

Guests featured in the first several episodes include:

Vanessa DiMauro, CEO of Leader Networks, a B2B social strategy and research consulting firm
Richard Millington, Founder of FeverBee, an online community consultancy
Rachel Happe, Principal at The Community Roundtable, an information services organization dedicated to the business of community

The First Podcast to Address How Organizations Use Public and Private Online Communities

Most of the mainstream social business discussion revolves around how large consumer companies use public social networks. This is the first show to bring together social business experts to highlight how businesses and membership organizations are using online communities to impact their bottom line.

You can watch ProCommunity on the Socious website and subscribe the show as an audio podcast on iTunes.

New PHP Library Will Help Organizations Customize Their Online Community

Joshua Paul — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 13:15:00 GMT

Socious has always prided itself on being the online community software that can be shaped around how you and your customers or members do business. Being the most flexible online community platform also means that we have a responsibility to educate companies and membership organizations on how to get the most out of Socious software.

Socious is excited to announce the launch of a CMS library to help customer extend the platform’s content management system to better meet the needs of their specific organization. This documentation will help Socious customers dynamically call and display information from their Socious system in ways that are tailored to their strategy.

“Having supported businesses, associations, and user groups for over 10 years, we have collected dozens of tips, tricks, and snippets for customizing the member experience. Maintaining an active library of CMS PHP resources will turn the keys over to our customers to pull information in ways we have not even thought of yet,” said Scott Balthazor, Socious president and co-founder.

Though the library will grow over time, it currently houses CMS PHP documentation in the following categories:

Events
APIs
CMS
Groups
Shopping Cart

The code library is located in the Socious support site and it fully supported by the Socious support team.

Socious Executives Will Discuss Association Online Communities at the ASAE Marketing, Membership, and Communities Conference

Joshua Paul — Thu, 17 May 2012 15:23:00 GMT

As a leading provider of private social networking software to companies and membership organizations, Socious will be showcasing its online community platform during the ASAE Marketing, Membership, and Communications Conference at the Washington Convention Center in Washington D.C. on May 23rd and 24^th.

Associations that use Socious online community software average over 35% higher participation in their private member communities than organizations using other private social networking systems. Socious executives will be discussing the tools and features that they help associations utilize to achieve these standout results. Socious representatives will also be available for one-on-one consultations.

“Along with investing heavily in making the best online community software for associations, we are committed to providing guidance and education to the association community. The Marketing, Membership, and Communications Conference has always been a great forum to provide advice to association executives,” said Paul Schneider, Socious co-founder and senior vice president.

In 2011 Socious launched the largest online community for member engagement professionals to spread best practices, find support, and share ideas. Building upon the success of its Member Engagement LinkedIn Group, Socious is organizing the first-ever networking event for member engagement professionals on the eve of the conference, Tuesday, May 22^nd.

Learn more about how to set up a free online community consultation or the member engagement networking happy hour at Socious.com.

About Socious

Founded in 2002, Socious (socious.com) offers the industry’s most complete online community software to large and mid-sized businesses, associations, and user groups. The Socious platform includes private social networking, customer communication tools, advanced segmentation, forums, collaboration tools, and a full mobile platform to help organizations increase sales, retention, and member engagement. Take an online tour of Socious online community software.

Learn About Online Community Management With Socious & FeverBee [Webinar]

Joshua Paul — Tue, 08 May 2012 09:46:00 GMT

Myth #1: Successful online community managers have special natural talents.

Myth #2: You can launch a private or branded online community and hope that the members with run it.

Myth #3: Community managers are just online extroverts that can’t influence bottom-line business goals.

The truth is that successful online community managers are not born that way. They are hardworking business professionals who know how to read an audience, engage them, and evaluate the results with the intention of supporting specific business goals.

Online communities for customers, employees, or members cannot survive on “hope.” One of the primary skills needed in both beginner and advanced community management is the ability to analyze and act on online community data to grow and manage the community.

Online community managers, and those aspiring to become online community managers, should not miss Socious’ upcoming webinar:

Data-Driven Online Community Management

The virtual event features Richard Millington of the online community consultancy, FeverBee. Richard is the author of the Online Community Manifesto, arguing for a change in our approach to building communities. Richard's blog, FeverBee, is ranked amongst the top 10 UK marketing blogs and is widely cited as best practice in helping organizations around the world improve their community efforts.

Date: Thursday, May 10, 2012

Time: 1:00pm ET (US)

Length: 60 minutes

How to Register

In this webinar, you will learn:

How to use data to optimize your online customer or member community
The 8 elements of community management
How to avoid missed opportunities by not using your data effectively
Practical examples of data-driven online community management
How to analyze your online community’s membership for better engagement

Don't miss this social business discussion to understand how to use online community data to unlock growth and customer satisfaction.

Attend the Member Engagement Networking Meet Up

Joshua Paul — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 15:31:00 GMT

Socious Hosts First Member Engagement Networking Event

We are pleased to announce that Socious is organizing a first-of-its-kind meet up for membership, marketing, and event professionals in the non-profit and corporate spaces.

Since launching the largest community of member engagement professionals online, there has been a consistent call for offline networking events. This happy hour-style event will be an opportunity for people, who are working to keep members of their community engaged, to share ideas and connect in-person.

Member Engagement Networking Happy Hour Details

The happy hour will be held at the beginning of the ASAE Marketing, Membership, and Communications Conference in May.

Add This Event to Your Calendar

When: Tuesday, May 22, 2012 at 6pm

Where: Lobby Bar
Renaissance Washington Downtown
999 Ninth Street NW, Washington, DC 20001

Who: Members of the free Member Engagement LinkedIn Group and anyone else interested in keeping members engaged

Cost: There is no cost to attend. This networking event will be run in a communal fashion - we organize it, but ask that everyone foot their own food & drink bill.

Add it your calendar and share this announcement using the social sharing buttons above.

Please post questions in the comments below, reach out through the Member Engagement Group, or contact Socious directly.