Analytics and the Growing Importance of Customer Communities Lead Online Community Software Trends for 2014
Mesa, AZ (PRWEB) January 21, 2014 -- Executives at online customer community software provider, Socious, published their insight today into how the use of online communities to strengthen customer relationships will change over the next 12 months. Along with growth in the number of businesses and nonprofits, such as associations, using online community software platforms to keep their target audiences engaged and informed, Socious is seeing themes shifting toward companies using the added knowledge about customers to increase customer retention and market advocacy.
"Since Socious began serving large and mid-sized organizations twelve years ago, we've seen trends in a variety of areas—from the rise of public social networks to how organizations communicate with customers, members, and partners in private online communities. This is the first year that we've shared these trends with the broader business and nonprofit communities," said Joshua Paul, Socious's senior director of marketing & strategy.
The 2014 online community predictions, detailed in Socious's new ebook by the same name, were compiled from every corner of the company. They touch on customer community adoption, online community management, and the role of social data in making better business decisions.
"2014 is the year that online custom community data will become a mainstream part of CRM strategies," said Steve Balthazor, Chief Technology Officer at Socious.
According to market research firm, MarketsandMarkets, the market for customer relationship management platforms that combine social data with traditional demographic and transactional information will grow over 35% annually over the next five years from $1.91 billion in 2013 to $9.08 billion in 2018.
Balthazor continued, “Online customer communities will play a growing role in helping businesses and nonprofit membership organizations make better strategic and tactical decisions. Behavioral data from an organization’s private online community is the foundation for that insight."
Though only time will tell where trends in online community strategies will surely go in 2014, Socious’s new ebook, 2014 Online Community Predictions, is designed to help organizations mitigate surprises and prepare for changes in the way that they manage customer and member relationships.
Executives that lead businesses, user groups, and nonprofits can download the online community ebook 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, user groups, and associations. The Socious platform includes private social networking, customer communication tools, discussion forums, membership management, 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.
Joshua Paul, Socious, Inc., http://www.socious.com, +1 (202) 664-2114, [email protected]
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