SAN DIEGO – Feb. 8, 2018 — SOCi, the global leader in social media and reputation management for multi-location brands, is gearing up for a strong 2018 after a record-breaking 2017. Following a year filled with several growth milestones, including year-over-year double digit-growth and numerous awards and accolades, SOCi is quickly cementing itself as the go-to social media SaaS platform in the rapidly-growing location-based social media marketing landscape.
With the recent appointment of industry veteran Monica Ho as its Chief Marketing Officer, SOCi has its eyes set on a fruitful 2018. Ho will employ her 20+ years of integrated marketing and technology experience to spearhead initiatives that will result in overall company revenue growth and increased brand presence and awareness. Prior to SOCi, Ho lead marketing initiatives as GroundTruth’s, formerly known as xAd, Global Chief Marketing Officer, taking the company from an early stage technology business to an award winning global brand during her tenure. Well regarded in the space, Ho has received several awards and accolades, including being ranked amongst the 30 most powerful women in mobile advertising by Business Insider three years in a row.
“I am excited to join such an innovative and fast-moving company where I can leverage my expertise in marketing and B2B technology to help SOCi grow its business, reach new audiences and outperform the competition in the highly competitive social media and reputation management space,” said Ho.
Last year, SOCi received the prestigious Local Visionary Award for “Best Solution for Multi-Location Retailers,” hosted by Street Fight Magazine. The award celebrates brilliant and intrepid organizations who are moving the local marketing technology industry forward with creativity, ingenuity and success. This award comes on the heels of SOCi winning the 2018 Winter IMPACT Award for their blog community and engagement, which is largely focused on educating marketers on how to leverage location-based social media marketing to drive strong business results. Additionally, SOCi was named among the Top B2B Tech Companies in San Diego by G2 Crowd, a leading peer review site for business software.
SOCi’s proprietary content development and workflow technologies, including its Content Discovery Center and Smart Scheduler, are enabling marketers to leverage location-based social marketing in ways that have never been possible by driving an unprecedented lift in consumer reach and engagement for brands. The increasing value of a localized social presence for marketers, enabled by SOCi’s technology, is the driving force behind the company’s continued double-digit growth.
“2017 was a tremendous year for SOCi,” said CEO and Founder, Afif Khoury. “Through strategic partnerships, ongoing product developments, and hiring the best and brightest in the industry, SOCi has strengthened its foothold in a very niche and important social media space. In just the last 12 months we’ve seen a significant increase in the importance of localized content and engagement. With Facebook’s recent algorithm update, the need for actual meaningful engagement via content, as well as highly targeted ad campaigns and strategies are more important than ever. Thanks to our innovative and proprietary solutions we will continue to help multi-location businesses grow and remain elevant.”
Location-based social media marketing is a widely underserved, but rapidly exploding growth category for marketers. The industry is increasing in importance as seen in recent developments and announcements from top tier social players who are showing strong favor towards locally relevant and engaging content, rather than generalized content. Facebook’s recent algorithm update, which places more emphasis and relevance on content that inspires conversation versus merely attracting likes, highlights an important change in how social marketers and content producers will have to shift their strategies in order to continue to get results out of the platform. Additionally, Instagram’s recent announcement on the availability of mass-posting, which is only available today through Instagram and Facebook marketing partners like SOCi, makes it more efficient to produce locally relevant content and presence via this top photo sharing and social publishing application.