ThePort has important news for its valued clients, esteemed partners and potential new customers. On Thursday, July 23, 2009, ThePort deployed a groundbreaking 3rd Quarter Global Version Release. As a result of this release, we are delighted to tell you about several fresh product updates and exciting new features.

 

Platform Enhancements

 The successful implementation of the July 23 release means these useful improvements will be present in all communities.

· Plaxo Invitation Widget – Community users and administrators can now import contacts from multiple address books directly from the community. Yahoo, Outlook, Gmail, Hotmail and Plaxo address books are all supported. Community, Friend, Group/Social Object and Event invitations will now include a Plaxo widget with the invitation.

· Group Bulletin Email Notifications – Group Bulletins will now automatically send email notifications to all Group Members. Users then have the ability to manage from which Groups they would like to receive email notifications.

 

New Features

After successful Beta testing, ThePort is pleased to announce the following features are now generally available as add-on services. If your organization is interested in further exploring implementing any of these new features, we encourage you to contact your account manager for additional details and pricing.

Activity Feeds – a major new upgrade, Activity Stream will give all community members, particularly active ones, a compelling new reason to visit the site more often and become more involved with their peers. Checking updates in the stream will help users more actively explore their fellow members’ profiles and actions. The result? Members are more likely to discover events, causes and discussions  they may not have found on their own.

Document Sharing – new Document Share will give our clients the ability to motivate their users and groups to upload and share documents. This release includes the capabilities of uploading, viewing and commenting on documents in the community. The same administrative controls currently used in the community will apply and virus-checking will be included.

Forums at the Group Level – This new feature will allow groups to create their own Forums and thereby inspire members to engage in discussions with others sharing similar interests. Group Forums will also be accessible within the Community Forums but will only be visible to members of the specific Group and Forum Administrators. Each Group will have the option to decide whether or not it wants to allow Forums.

“AddThis” Functionality – AddThis facilitates social sharing and bookmarking of community pages and content modules to other popular social sites including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and so on. This new community feature will allow you and your members to share community content (including User Profiles, User Blogs / User Blog Entries, User Photos Albums / User Photos, User Video Albums / User Videos, as well as Group-linked Profiles, Blogs, Photos Albums, Photos, Video Albums, Videos, plus Event Profiles and Feed Roll Articles) with other social sites your organization utilizes. Another important asset of AddThis is that it creates the opportunity for you to market your private label community to your constituents’ existing networks.

Twitter News Feed – This new feature will allow registered Twitter members with a valid Twitter user name to display Twitter feeds on individual user or group profiles.

 

Let’s Start with an Up-to-Date Definition of Enterprise Social Software

Enterprise social software comprises social software as used in "enterprise" (business/commercial) contexts. It includes social and networked modifications to corporate websites and linked online communities used by organizations to reach out to their constituents. The term “enterprise” social software generally refers to an elevated class of interactive tools. When developed and deployed by experienced SaaS vendors, these enterprise solutions boost a community’s social collaboration, delivering a deeper level of engagement, pragmatic results and a greater return on investment.

SaaS (Software as a Solution) providers such as ThePort Network Offer Solutions Tailored to the Enterprise Needs of Organizations

Social Networking has evolved beyond the old definition of an interactive web destination where like-minded people gather and connect. New generation socially-enabled communities address precise objectives nonprofits and associations wish to achieve. For nonprofits, examples might include online components that drive non-dues revenue, or Social Spaces created specifically to engage members in cause-related campaigns. For associations, community modules deployed to enhance offline Events and Session workshops would fit the Enterprise-class label.

What Specific Attributes Might Be Included in the Deployment of an Enterprise-Level Social Networking Community?

• First, it is essential that a sophisticated enterprise platform have reliable, secure and scalable hosting so that your community can accommodate surges in traffic

• Look for a flexible product that will help you achieve your goals while fully meeting the needs of your customers and members

• The community should highlight Social Spaces...groupings that attract members with similar interests, places where people can connect, collaborate and share content

• Be sure that multifaceted Blogging is a powerful component of your deployment, including staff-controlled blogs, open blogging to registered members, group-linked blogs, and spotlighted blogs from community thought leaders

• In the beginning, plan for custom-built Profiling that generates compelling individual profile pages from which active community members can easily browse, share, friend and communicate with each other

• Think about retaining space within the community for non-dues revenue generation in the form of advertising, sponsorships, cause-related fundraising, educational workshops or merchandise offerings. For instance ThePort’s humanitarian aid client, CARE, cultivates corporate sponsorships in their online community, but also offers apparel for sale in the form of “CARE WEAR”

Which Real-World Benefits Might Be Achieved through Investment in an Enterprise-Level Social Networking Community?

• Put simply, a private label, totally integrated, enterprise-empowered online community can significantly enhance an organization’s capability and effectiveness, letting you accomplish more while concentrating on long-term objectives

• An enterprise-caliber community can help nonprofits and associations solve multiple problems, providing flexible solutions to pervasive issues such as membership retention, fundraising, consistent member engagement, non-dues revenue generation, efficient support for special events, and so on

• With enterprise-quality solutions such as document sharing, video, blogging and commenting, nonprofit online administrators will be able to stimulate and harness thought leadership within the community

• By engaging and exchanging content, your association members will be able to share notes, presentations, case studies and best practices with each other. The result is a formidable library of content that will make your community the first place constituents will turn for critical, usable information

• For nonprofits, enterprise-level social communities typically feature seamless integration with donor management tools offered by ThePort’s partners, Convio and Blackbaud. After launch, your staff will be able to gather additional intelligence about donors, enabling to you create more effective marketing

• Through high-performance enterprise-enabled social interactivity, associations take events, conferences and individual sessions to the next level...powering engagement, participation and communication between speakers, attendees and the entire association-focused community. A good example is Sierra Club, whose Student Coalition community boosts chapter participation via online Events listings that promotes local leadership training.

We encourage you to comment on our blog topic about enterprise-quality online communities and the latest socially-enabled innovations that energize them.