What Every Social Media Marketer Should Know About KickApps

KickApps is a social media web site authoring and social content management system system. Web publishers and marketers can develop branded communities, social applications and interactive widgets - both on their domains and across the social web - to drive customer and employee relationships and grow online audiences. Content, user experience and social graph can be consistent across all platforms. The platform includes KickApps AppStudio, a drag-and-drop interface that lets nontechnical users build highly customized online experiences. After the jump - what you need to know about KickApps. The application in a sentence KickApps' platform is a web-based social content management system (sCMS) that enables Web publishers and marketers to develop branded communities, social applications and interactive widgets that can be implemented both at their domain and across the social web. Ways the product benefits social media campaigns KickApps manages all online assets - editorial content, user-generated content, etc. - under a single, unified content management system. Publishers do not need to attend to the interoperability and resource issues associated with managing multiple point solutions. As a centralized content management system for both traditional editorial content and social experiences, an element built with the KickApps App Studio can carry social data, such as comments, ratings, tags or social sharing buttons, as well as the Facebook "Like" button. Both the content - and the experience around that content - can be replicated across environments, including Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and others. Data about those interactions is in a centralized database. Brands can build custom Facebook fan page tabs that share unified design, content and social data with an iPhone app, a branded on-domain community and distributed widgets. Administrators can monitor traffic via tools like mood ratings and Facebook activity feeds; drive engagement via applications such as "Ask an Expert" and badges; and promote sales via comments and ratings. Coolest feature The KickApps AppStudio is a web-based development environment with adrag-and-drop interface that lets even nontechnical users create customized online experiences in both Flash and HTML5 formats. This helps companies speak to their audiences across multiple platforms, including Apple's iDevices, which do not support Flash standards. Feature rundown The platform is a hosted SaaS solution; there's no implementation needed. Marketers can respond to feedback, bubble up the most engaging experiences and create engaging experiences. These include user generated content and contests, surveys and rich media that allows contribution and interaction via plug-in partners adap.tv, ClipSync, Meebo, Tweetedia and others. To help identify influential community members, KickApps' platform uses a points and levels system - which can assign value to any interaction a customer has with content from the community. Data can be kept private and used exclusively by the community manager or made public to establish user prestige among peers. User profile The ideal KickApps customer is an organization that has an audience which communicates or uses the web to get informed or inspired. User review "We're interested in reaching our audiences wherever they are, regardless of the devices they're using," said Marc Siry, SVP of Digital Products & Services for NBC Universal. "Thanks to KickApps, we're able to deliver video content that looks great on either HTML5 or Flash-supported devices. In addition, the drag-and-drop authoring process helps us create content experiences quickly and easily, without our having to learn a new coding language." Pricing Monthly fees start at a minimum of $5,000/month for our enterprise-level clients and scales based on usage. Compared to competition According to the company, "Because users expect a social relationship to content, traditional CMS players - which do not manage rich social functionality - fail to meet the evolving needs of the market. The KickApps platform creates numerous connections between users and an organization's editorial content, and allows brands to take back control of their customer data that has largely been co-opted by social networking sites. "Implementation options are a key differentiator with KickApps. Sites can be built in a matter of days or tightly integrated into an existing CMS system using the REST APIs in a matter of weeks. KickApps has the most comprehensive built-in feature set which provide a future proof social media platform that can be easily updated and modified as usage behavior, new devices and new social networks emerge." With an ever-increasing number of social media marketing options, brands and agencies are searching for solutions to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their campaigns. This series reports on significant product releases and updates to assist in selecting the most appropriate tools to meet individual objectives. We recently presented Kony Solutions, PSS CREDboard, FaceTime Socialite and Converseon.

Social Pro Daily

What Every Social Media Marketer Should Know About KickApps

Neil Glassman

About

Subscriptions

Events

Publications

WORK SMARTER - LEARN, GROW AND BE INSPIRED.

Subscribe today!

Neil Glassman