Online Community Results periodically profiles new community platforms. This guest post comes from Justin Lichtenstaedter, Co-Founder & CEO of Yapper. If you’d like to have your community platform profiled here, contact Ben.
For years, technologists and marketers alike have been predicting the year of SoLoMo (Social Local Mobile). SoLoMo refers to a mobile-centric version of search and social networking that incorporates location-aware features. SoLoMo is gaining steam as a result of the growing popularity of smartphones, and provides greater local precision to search engine results than what’s available via a PC.
So is 2015 the year of SoLoMo? All signs point to yes.
In previous years, the predictions were based on the potential impact of SoLoMo. In 2015, the prognostications are based on consumer behavior. We spent the first half of the decade sharing, liking, friending, and favoriting everything and anything with hopes of becoming Kings and Queens of the Internet. We will spend the next half of the decade carefully reclaiming our online identities into something more manageable, more real, and more authentically us.
Combining our intimate relationships with our mobile devices and our physical location with search and social media will help us bridge the gap between who we are online and who we are in real life. Everyone’s focus is now less about expanding their online networks, and more about adding context within our local communities.
Enter DC startup, Yapper. Yapper is changing the way association members connect. Their mobile platform combines real-time location sharing with social networking tools to create the most relevant community-building platform on the market. Yapper gives the user the ability to make real, meaningful connections whenever and wherever they please.
Yapper offers a customizable mobile app platform for associations that helps their members get and stay engaged with their fellow members in their local community. Yapper focuses on everything social and makes it easier than ever to bridge the gap from online communication to real life interaction. Yapper helps users meet new people, participate in relevant conversations, and attend local events, using proximity to ensure a highly relevant experience.
Yapper provides the user with a directory of all members in the association. The user has
the ability to filter members by location and keyword. The location filter can be adjusted from ¼ mile to the entire world allowing an individual to locate other community members at the same networking event or while traveling abroad. The app sorts members based on distance from your current location making it easier than ever to turn virtual relationships in into real world interactions. Yapper also allows the user to search by keyword giving you the ability to identify someone at a specific company or in a specific position that is nearby.
The most unique feature that Yapper has created is their group chat functionality. While traditional messaging apps require users to pick which peers they want to participate in the group chat, Yapper allows the user to pick the radius they want for the group chat. Every member that is within the defined radius can then participate in the conversation. This ensures that discussion topics are locationally relevant and can help eliminate spammy e-mail blasts and Facebook/LinkedIn posts. These group chats allow for informal, spontaneous dialogue and can allow members to self-organize events and the dissemination of local content.
It has never been easier to find events being hosted by your association. Whether it’s a national conference or a regional event, Yapper aggregates all events by distance from the users’ current location or gives the user the ability to input an address to see events in a different region. Their mobile platform not only allows users to RSVP to events but gives them the ability to chat with other people who plan on attending before the event, maximizing networking opportunities at the event. The events component works great at a national conference where each session can be listed in the app and all participants can communicate with one another making it an immersive interactive experience on two levels.
The regionality of Yapper provides every user with a customized experience that is catered to their location and interests. Yapper is the first platform of its kind and will allow association members to connect with their community and build relationships in ways not previously possible. Yapper is focused on building closed network apps for specific organizations creating a private, secure channel of communication for members only.
The promise of SoLoMo may finally be here and Yapper hopes to lead the way in local community building for associations.
To have your community platform profiled here, contact Ben.