Soket Selected As People's Choice During the 2011 GRA/TAG Business Launch Competition

ATLANTA, GA, May 27, 2011 (Press-News.org) Soket, a SaaS-based command center that provides a single place for local businesses to orchestrate their web presence, was honored with the People's Choice Award during the 2011 GRA/TAG Business Launch Competition, Tuesday, May 24.

Management of online promotions, events and customer interaction has become increasingly complex as more technologies emerge and hyper-local businesses struggle with how to use these channels, determine if their efforts are working and find time to manage content. While individuals love social media and networking, local organizations generally see it as yet another task they must complete each day to try to get people through their doors, with 37% of local business citing lack of time as their biggest marketing challenge, according to a recent survey by MerchantCircle. Zach Hofer-Shall, an analyst with Forrester Research in a recent report states that "finding and acting on insights gleaned from online and social discussions is a tricky practice. It takes the right combination of clarity of objective, business planning, technology, and most importantly, people to do the work".

Soket saves organizations time and cost while improving marketing effectiveness. By using Soket organizations can:
• Manage their content (events, photos, status updates, etc)
• Syndicate this content wherever their audiences are (social networks, individual websites, etc)
• Aggregate information from social networks and external sources such as news articles and blogs related to their brand (social listening)
• Promote in new and highly targeted ways
• Analyze data to improve success

"Whether it's a PR or marketing agency that is managing ten businesses or a local business managing its own presence, our goal in creating Soket is to make managing a company's web presence simple," stated Marcel Crudele, president and founder of Soket. "Using our command center, businesses can easily manage and syndicate their online content, aggregate information from social networks and external sources such as news articles and blogs related to their brand and easily analyze the data."

Since its creation Soket has had a growing number of paid beta users including Atlanta-based Trevelino/Keller, an integrated public relations, social media and brand communications firm. The company is preparing for its market launch in Q3 of this year.

"From an agency's perspective, Soket provides an all-inclusive management tool for Facebook, Twitter, a business's website, etc," explained Genna Keller, principal, Trevelino/Keller. "Agencies no longer have to rely on multiple websites or applications to manage a brand's entire web presence. This saves time and energy and allows a brand's image and messaging to be seamlessly translated from one website to the next."

In April, Soket was selected by The Georgia Research Alliance (GRA) and Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) as a finalist in the GRA/TAG Business Launch 2011. GRA/TAG Business Launch supports Georgia's burgeoning start-up community by helping local entrepreneurs launch their businesses. Since founded in 2006, the competition has become one of largest of its kind in the U.S., providing $450,000 in cash and more than $1,000,000 in donated services, and has helped more than 130 young entrepreneurs connect with successful entrepreneurs and investors in mentoring relationships.

About Soket
Soket is a SaaS-based command center that provides a single place for local PR and marketing agencies and local businesses to orchestrate their web presences - from social networks to their own websites. Soket makes the management of online promotions, events and customer interactions simple, resulting in cost and time savings for the business while improving marketing effectiveness. For more information on Soket please visit the website, http://soket.com/.