Norwalk, Conn., April 04, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In 2018, Engage121, a social media communications software and services technology company headquartered in Connecticut, celebrates its 20th year of providing innovative and time-saving solutions for PR and marketing professionals, with a focus on small business clients. In its early years, Engage121 emerged as the technology leader in localized PR solutions for the franchise industry. Their experience in promoting local businesses to local audiences made them one of the first PR technology companies to recognize the value of social media in building a loyal, local community of prospects and customers. The company launched their flagship social media management portal, Engage121, in 2010. Today, the company offers a suite of no cost and paid tools and services that serves over 40,000 small and medium sized business owners in the U.S. and Canada.
“Social media offers small and medium sized business owners an affordable and scalable way to promote their products and services and build their businesses’ reputations at the individual consumer level,” said Jon Victor, CEO of Engage121, Inc., “but entrepreneurs who want to take advantage of this potential face challenges. There’s a learning curve, it’s time consuming to do social media ‘right’, and it can be difficult to gain enough of an understanding about social media marketing to make the business decision to invest in it. As Engage121 moved toward its 20th year in business, we knew we had to make social media marketing for small business easy and time-efficient, and we had to give business owners a chance to try it before they made the decision to buy it. And that’s just what we’ve done.”
Social Media Assistant is Engage121’s professionally managed, full-service social media marketing solution. Subscribers to this service work with a dedicated social media expert who posts relevant and engaging content daily to their social sites, creates and schedules advertising campaigns, and builds each client’s reputation with social and review site response management.
For small business owners not yet ready to invest in social media but eager to test its potential for their businesses, Engage121 created their no cost HOT!Content™ service. Because experience had shown Engage121 that many small business owners would struggle to find the time to create or source fresh, eye-catching content for their social pages each day, they designed HOT!Content to deliver a daily email to subscribers with five interesting and engaging articles, images, and/or videos, curated by industry, ready to post to their social sites. With readily available and relevant content, HOT!Content subscribers are able to use social media to build awareness of their businesses, identify new prospects, and cultivate customer loyalty at no cost and with a minimal commitment of time and resources.
The success of the HOT!Content service prompted Engage121 to launch two powerful, add-on services that allow subscribers to experience the convenience and effectiveness of an automated social media solution without making a financial commitment.
- SmartPost offers HOT!Content subscribers the next level of convenience, tasking Engage121 with selecting the most relevant and engaging content and automatically posting it to subscribers’ social sites to keep their social pages active.
- Reputation Monitor alerts HOT!Content subscribers when their average rating or number of consumer reviews changes on a variety of consumer review sites and blogs.
“The past 20 years have been an exciting and challenging time in the PR and marketing technology industry,” said Victor. “As our company’s focus shifted to this new medium, where the only constant was change, we kept a single, defining purpose in mind for our products and services: helping our clients to achieve their business goals. It has been this singular focus on supporting our clients’ success that has made Engage121 the leader in managing social for small businesses that it is today.”
Engage121’s local social solutions are designed specifically for the more than 25 million small businesses in the U.S. and Canada. This includes both franchised and independent local businesses in the real estate, financial and professional services, early education, direct selling, retail, restaurant, fitness, beauty sales, and home services industries, among others.
“Our expertise in the franchise industry not only helped Engage121 recognize early the potential of social media to reach local audiences, it gave us a leg up in developing the tools that would evolve into our local social media platform,” explains Kurt Strumpf, Engage121 COO. “Our solutions now seamlessly integrate with social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Google+ and YouTube, as well as consumer review sites and blogs like Facebook, Google, Yelp and Zillow. This allows our users to monitor, evaluate, and respond in real time to social media activity, which delivers real, actionable results.”
For more information about Engage121, or to schedule a demo of our local social media solutions, please contact Debbie Ernst at dernst@engage121.com or visit www.engage121.com.
About Engage121, Inc.:
Established in 1998, Engage121 has 20 years’ experience as the industry leader in local, social marketing providing social media communications software and services to small business and enterprise clients. Engage121 enables organizations to monitor, evaluate and respond in real time to social media activity across the widest range of platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Google+ and YouTube, as well as consumer review sites and blogs like Facebook, Google, Yelp and Zillow. The company’s certifications include Yelp Advertising Partner and Facebook Marketing Developer. Achieving meaningful results with over 40,000 local businesses in the United States and Canada, Engage121 has published more than ten million messages on social media and review sites to help businesses build their social communities. For more information, please visit www.engage121.com or contact Debbie Ernst, dernst@engage121.com.
