Currently, social media has “controlled” our daily lives. Not only to communicate with family and friends. Social media is also used as a marketing platform and for other business purposes. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are the three social media platforms that drive the most traffic to a company’s website. But you know that these three social media have rules and restrictions that can restrict a company’s movement. For example, Facebook’s new algorithm is likely to harm business. If you feel that the social media available limits your range of motion, you can create your social media. There are already many content management systems or CMS that you can use to create your social media or social networking sites.

Why create your social media?

As social media becomes more popular, companies often want to create a more branded and controlled experience for their target audience. One solution to this problem is building your social media.

Build a community for your own business

Business-customer interactions and customer-to-customer interactions can impact your business. You can create a branded and more controlled user experience with your social media. All activity on your social media can focus on your brand, and you can get to know your customers better. Communication between businesses and customers can be more open with a community interested in the same things.

You can create a more personalized user experience

Social media can create a more customized user experience for your customers. You can answer their questions directly. Plus, this face-to-face interaction allows you to understand what your customers need. In this way, your business can also change to stay relevant and adapt to the needs and desires of customers.

Easier and clearer communication

With your social media, you create a platform where you can communicate directly, simply, and clearly with your customers. Additionally, communication can also become more natural as all your social media users understand the context of your conversation on social media. You can also give opinions and suggestions directly if necessary.

You can focus more on your customers.

People still need a specific online environment that brings together like-minded individuals with the same goal or industry. While mainstream social media has taken note of the need for such an environment, the solution seems unsatisfactory for some businesses and industries that require dedicated space. To solve their problems, strong communities need the ability to create opportunity. Popular social media cannot impose a sense of belonging. The reason is that a sense of togetherness does not always come from sharing everyday experiences but from meaningful contributions. It is where your social media can be a solution. With specific features designed for particular purposes, a company’s social media can offer excellent connectivity and community-building opportunities. In addition, a community of like-minded people has the opportunity to share knowledge. The more you encourage meaningful contributions, the better you can control the growth and development of your business or industry.

Increase engagement

Building your social media can be a way to increase engagement. You cannot force customer loyalty. But with your social media, you can spark conversation with more personal posts. When you know what they need and want, you can create content that drives engagement. With this content, you can also make your social media users feel involved in sharing knowledge and interacting with other users. That’s the engagement that many brands are looking for. By considering users’ specific needs, communication, and ideas, a company’s social media can support the entire culture, collaboration, and relationships of people, companies, or organizations.

Various CMS to create your social media

Below are some content management systems or CMS specially designed to help you all create your social media:

SocialEngine

SocialEngine was founded in 2007 by Charlotte Genevier and Alex Benzer. Initially, this CMS, which is now open source, was developed to help businesses create their social networking platform. These systems have no limitations in customization, complete analysis, robust security system, and anti-spam. If you want to use SocialEngine, you have two options, namely:

SocialEnginePHP

This option is designed to be downloaded and used in a user-created format. The usage license you get is a sign that you own the social media you create with this option. This option offers a complete, in-depth, and personal analysis of the response from your social network platform.

SocialEngine cloud

This choice is arguably easier as the setup process is virtually instantaneous. In addition, SocialEngine Cloud also offers social integration features, although this option is more flexible than the PHP version. You cannot freely customize your social media. Also, their analysis could be more complete and in-depth in SocialEngine PHP.

The most significant benefit you can get from SocialEngine is the customization feature. Apart from that, SocialEngine also gives you full ownership of the data that is put into the social media you create. Although SocialEngine hosts the platform on which social media is completed, all content except for the network itself belongs to its users. But SocialEngine also has disadvantages. One of the most discussed issues with SocialEngine is that many third-party plugins are incompatible with the platform. Although SocialEngine can be customized, SocialEngine’s inability to integrate with third-party plugins can be a significant disadvantage. Despite this, there are reports that SocialEngine is trying to fix this issue due to many users’ complaints.

phpFox

In January 2018, phpFox released its latest and most significant update, phpFox 4.6.0. It could be a sign that this CMS keeps updating its platform to meet the wants and needs of the customers. In the world of technology, it is only helpful if the software is called good but is updated so that it continues to meet the needs and desires of its users. It is one of the reasons why phpFox can continue to grow. You focus on the development of relevant software. You can tell this from their website design and platform.

phpFox offers a free demo that allows aspiring social media creators to try out their basic service before purchasing a social media license. One of the most appealing things about this CMS is its affordability, numerous features, and user-friendly interface. A one-time payment lets you choose the features and functionality for your network — like the option to create a video chat feature.

The numerous features also help you to create a social media that is easy to customize. Apart from that, you can also create a platform that is unique, easy to use, and highly accessible. Many of these features are available in the cheapest plans. Of course, with a user-friendly interface, you and your social media users will find it easy to use social media. Unfortunately, phpFox still lacks customer service. You will have to pay for the service if you contact the company for assistance. Even if you already have the most expensive plan. In addition, you can only get them during working hours for support or service. It is inconvenient because if you live in a different time zone or run into a problem at the end of the week, you’ll have to wait until the business day to contact phpFox.

Exo

Exo first started in 2002. Initially, eXo wanted to be an open-source project. But due to his hard work, this project became an independent company in 2003—fun fact: their first client was the US Department of Defense or the US Department of Defense. For the price, the Exo comes in three parts. The prizes are split based on the number of users on your platform. The first package is the Professional Plan, which allows 200 users to use the social media you create. The second option is the Enterprise Plan, which covers up to 1,000 users. The third plan is Enterprise Plus. This pack allows the number of social media users you can create. Exo is often cited as a perfect content management system (CMS) with tools that support social activity and are easy to customize.

Exo has a reputation for being a complete platform because they’ve perfected the balance between socializing and collaborating. Although they have exclusive add-ons and features that social network users can easily integrate, the programming is open source. Thus, users have the opportunity to build their network according to their own needs and desires. Apart from that, their customer service is always ready to help with quick and detailed answers without paying fees. The only downside that eXo has across the board is that because they offer so much, sometimes, some of the more prominent features can slow down the network. While you can fix this, the completeness of an existing open-source network can make it difficult for new users to find their way around.

BoonEx

BoonEx was founded in 2001 by Andrew and Julia Boon. Initially, the couple only focused on developing software for the community. But in the last decade, the company has grown into a great social media CMS platform. The company’s flagship product is better known as Dolphin. With the full name BoonEx Dolphin, this platform has gone through four major updates, and the latest version is called Dolphin Pro. BoonEx has been commended for standing the test of time and updating its software to stay relevant. Some of the unique benefits of this system are membership ads, the ability to blog directly on the platform, and the ability to collect payments. Social media users can fill your advertising spaces for their own ads. It keeps the network growing. Meanwhile, individual network designers are increasingly viewed in the platforms they already use.

Not only is BoonEx fully customizable, both for templates and social media integration, and it allows network designers to plan and showcase their content. Members can easily add and update blogs to their network, create custom RSS feeds, and even share documents. Third, BoonEx allows network users to collect payments through their social networks. This payment option is easy to set up, especially for charity or similar ideas. It looks neat and professional. For some networks, this could completely change the way they work simply by the convenience of getting paid through the social media they create. A frequently discussed problem with this platform is the need for more options for specific functions, such as B. Templates. While they have a marketplace that helps with this issue, paying for something as simple as a template can be annoying when a networker already has a paid membership.

NING

Founded in 2004, NING is already one of the essential CMS platforms in the industry. The company offers an easily customizable drag-and-drop theme that’s socially integrated, mobile, and refined with the latest SEO and analytics features. Despite being a United States company, its globalization strategy is spot on with the ability to read the content of its website in six different languages. NING is known as an easy-to-use social media content management system. Content on social media created with NING also ranks high on Google search results pages. In addition, the NING platform is also easy to monetize. The NING platform is known for being easy to use and seamlessly customizable. This platform always strives to stay relevant and achieve this goal through applications, many features, and affordability.

Second, NING focuses on being well-versed in SEO, which helps ensure content ranks high in Google search results pages for all platform users. It is helpful for experienced networkers and those still trying to build their user base.  There is no perfect content management system. Although it has many advantages, there are also some complaints among users. The first is that while the plans are affordable, they have limited bandwidth, and networkers will have to upgrade their plan if they exceed it. It frustrates NING users. Secondly, since the NING website is integrated with each social network on the platform, there is a higher possibility of spam. To address this problem, NING limited the number of friend requests the network could send to fifty. That helps a little, but networkers still have officially joined and are resentful.

Conclusion

In summary, no CMS platform on this list is better than the other. Before choosing a CMS to build social media, you need to know what you need and want. You can use any social media creation content management system for any business. It all depends on what you need and want for your social media business. However, every business is different, so you should choose a platform to create social media that suits your business needs. Hopefully, this list clarifies some of the options available and makes it easier for you to make an informed decision!