Feature
Sitecore is adding two new, integrated social tools to its customer experience platform that will increase customer engagement via social networks and community building.
Darren Guarnaccia, the company’s SVP of Product Marketing, said in a statement that “customers and prospects expect social capabilities that help them collaborate with meaningful, relevant information.” He noted that Sitecore’s new product offerings help “to build a branded community while also connecting and personalizing content on the networks where customers live,” which, in turn, helps marketers build lifetime customers.
Social Starter Kit
One of the new products, called the Social Starter Kit, combines the company’s web content management and customer experience management software with social community software from Telligent. It provides a turnkey ability to create, launch and manage branded blogs, discussion forums and media galleries that can be integrated into websites built with Sitecore.
The Kit’s use of Telligent technology allows sites to “snap on” blogs, forums, wikis, FAQs, calendars, polls and other community components to an existing Sitecore website.
The company said that the Kit allows organizations to better understand its audiences, increase brand awareness, discover which customers are brand advocates, educate customers so they can make informed buying decisions, and leverage customer feedback for better product development.
Social Connected Module
The other new product is the Sitecore Social Connected Module, a free add-on that improves social engagement on websites. Using the add-on, Web, mobile, email, print and other customer experience interactions can be targeted on the basis of social network attributes.
The Module is integrated into the Sitecore Digital Marketing System, with analytics for determining the effectiveness of social marketing on, say, visits to published content and such user actions as “likes” or tweeting. Posting and syndication of content to social networks can be conducted within Sitecore, and the Module supports Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Google+.
The integration of social media, mobile computing and web content management is happening across the industry, as noted in the recent Magic Quadrant Report on Web Content Management by industry research firm Gartner. In that study, Sitecore was placed in the highest category of “leaders” among WCM vendors, excelling at both “completeness of vision” and “ability to execute.”
