KickApps announced the new version of its enterprise social media management platform today. Previously, KickApps integrated its social features into existing CMS platforms, but now the company is attempting to replace other CMSs altogether.
KickApps provides a platform for not only publishing to various social media services, such as Facebook, but, by creating custom apps, it also allows enterprises to keep the data users generate on social media sites.
KickApps Executive Vice President of Products Mike Sommers emphasizes how much data a business’ customers create on Facebook through comments, questions, “likes,” and other interaction data. “This data is extremely valuable, and Facebook is within its rights to share it with your competitors,” says Sommers. “We recommend that brands control and collect as much of the interaction data as possible on their own platform so it can be leveraged for market research, product development and customer service.”
However, KickApps may be affected by Facebook’s plan to replace widgets with tabs. “Facebook is absolutely positioning themselves to be a platform for the Web’s content, and brands have to be careful about how reliant they become on one single point of distribution,” said Sommers. “This used to be Google’s domain, and before them it was AOL’s. Whoever controls the ‘welcome screen’ calls the shots and has a lot of control over who sees what on the Web.”
This is all the more reason to be publishing to multiple social media sources – which is exactly what KickApps is trying to make it easier to do.
Users of KickApps 5.0 will be able to use it to create and publish content to their own websites, social media sites, and Web apps and collect all the interactions and data in one place. KickApps will also let publishers integrate user generated content with editorial content.
KickApps hopes its advanced integration features will help it compete against established CMS players as varied as Sharepoint and Drupal, as well as niche social media platforms such as BrightCove.
KickApps has an impressive client list, but it’s not clear how many of them will invest in migrating to a new CMS. But if you’re in the market for a new CMS and gathering data from customer interactions from throughout the Web is important to you, KickApps is certainly worth a look.
