BACKGROUND
Please describe your organization. What is your role and responsibilities?
I’m a social and content marketing consultant for eXo Platform, an open source social networking platform for enterprises. I’ve been working with them for a couple of years now, implementing Scoop.it as part of their marketing efforts.
OPPORTUNITY/CHALLENGE
What was the business challenge your company was facing that incited the need for a content marketing platform?
eXo Platform doesn’t have a marketing team in house, which is why they hired me. They don’t have a lot of opportunities to dedicate time and resources on building a really strong marketing strategy and a strong content marketing strategy. Scoop.it is a great way to be more active in content marketing while not having the burden of creating the content ourselves.
Was there a specific business goal that you were hoping to accomplish?
We push the marketing content through Scoop.it, but also add retargeting strategy to it. We needed to have additional content on the pages.
SOLUTION
Did your company have a formal selection process for deciding on a content marketing platform?
I was the one recommending Scoop.it to eXo Platform. I work with other clients, and I try to stay in touch with all the different service providers. Scoop.it is a great content marketing tool, and I really like using it. It seemed like a natural choice to me.
Did you initially begin with the platform’s free version or trial period? What pricing plan does your company currently utilize?
We have a yearly contract that is more than the basic offer that Scoop.it offers because we created a few different things on the landing pages that we have with them.
RESULTS & FEEDBACK
Can you share any success, metrics, or overall results of your content marketing campaign since initial implementation of the platform?
The success metrics for us for using Scoop.it was based on the retargeting that we were doing after pushing the content. Because our retargeting campaigns were successful, that’s how we decided that Scoop.it was making a lot of sense for us. It’s helped eXo Platform a lot.
FEATURES
Were there any software features or tools that really impressed you and by which potential buyers should be aware?
I’ve been amazed at how successful Scoop.it is with the content that I can get out of the platform. Even if I do search content in other ways, I’m always impressed by what Scoop.it suggests to me. The Scoop.it community is very active. I really enjoy being part of this community. I think the easiness of the tool and the way it saves time and enables a teamwork flow if you have several people involved in the process – this is really what people should be aware of. I think it’s a really valuable tool for that.
Can you speak to the ease of content creation and the quality of content curation?
There’s a lot of different ways to configure how content is going to be selected from the platform: keywords, types of content, networks that you want to have scanned. So, it gives you a lot of different possibilities to be very precise in what content shows up on your page. You can have words that are very specific or select very wide topics. So, that’s one thing that makes Scoop.it very easy.
Then, the other aspect is that you can work as a team and schedule a date and add your own touch to the content that is created. There are so many different options. Then if you’re not feeling creative yourself and don’t want to select the options then they give you premade settings that let you get started in a few minutes. It’s really not a long process to integrate the tool in your routine.
Can you speak to the distribution and integration options available, such as social media channels, websites, or blogs?
You can integrate your content with your website very easily. There are lots of options between WordPress or having your own stand-alone pages that you add a special design to. That really makes it your own website property.
Depending on your account, you have different possibilities to push the content. The thing that I appreciate and that I think is going in the right direction when it comes to social media is that you can pretty much schedule your activity ahead of time and adapt the way you push your content to all the different social networks. I think that’s a great strength of Scoop.it. They were really on track with these kinds of features when it started becoming mainstream.
Have you found it necessary to use any of the company’s available tutorials or support resources? Was the support useful and accessible?
Not really. It’s really self-explanatory. The admin section is really well done. They do have resources that are there if you need help but, honestly, I didn’t feel the need to go to that. Since I’ve been in touch with our community manager, it’s a very open company. You can talk to them very easily if you have any issues. They are great partners to work with.
Are there any areas of the platform that you feel are not intuitive or that you feel could be improved upon?
No. There’s nothing that comes to mind. They’re very innovative right now pushing new features on a regular basis. I think they are quite visionary. I’m interested in seeing what they come up with.
OVERVIEW
We ask you to rate Scoop.it on a scale of one to five, with five being the top score. What would you give the platform for ease of use and implementation?
Five. It’s very easy.
What would you give the platform’s features for desired functionality?
Five.
For support, as in responsiveness and resources available?
Five. They’re great partners.
For overall usability and satisfaction with the platform?
Five
How likely are you to recommend the platform to a similar business?
Five. I do already recommend them.