How do brands, and their agencies, tame the social media marketing beast? If they’re smart, they get help managing a process that is growing increasingly complex by the day.
One company publishers and brands turn to is Gigya, a venture backed Silicon Valley-based company started by a team of Israeli technologists in 2006. Gigya helps companies make their websites and mobile sites/apps more social by offering a set of plugins that enable social login, sharing, engagement and game mechanics.
Rachel Berkowitz, from Gigya’s Business Development team gave me a guided tour of the company’s software as a service offering this morning. “Our software turns users into brand advocates,” she explained.
On average, people have 25 social accounts and six passwords, so asking them to “get social” inside a brand or media site has to be a flawless one- or two-click process.
“The feed has become the new portal,” said Berkowitz.
Like SEO, it’s now incumbent upon site managers to optimize for social, especially since 25% of online activity is now social. It can be managed on an ad hoc basis, but the costs (and the headaches) can be enormous. “A single API update is a complicated process and they’re often updated monthly,” Berkowitz said.
“Gigya’s software is the result of thousands of hours of development time.”
Berkowitz said Gigya doesn’t list its pricing on the site, because it can be highly variable, depending on a particular client’s needs. She did say packages including social login and sharing start at $20,000/year.
To see Gigya’s software in action on a live site, visit ShoeBecca or GoodSearch. Both plan to add a Gigya-enabled game layer in coming weeks.
