Stratecast | Frost & Sullivan Recognizes ShareThis for Innovative Approach to Social Analytics that Sets it Apart from Competitors

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Nov. 14, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Based on its recent analysis of the online analytics market, Stratecast | Frost & Sullivan recognizes ShareThis with the 2012 Global Frost & Sullivan Technology Innovation Award for its widely deployed sharing widget on the web as well as its wider roster of other products and services. More than 1.6 million websites use the widget, which is free to most publishers, but the company earns its revenues ($15-20 million in 2011) by helping brand marketers reach key influencer audiences using a combination of offerings.

Companies are increasingly looking to social analytics to keep a finger on the pulse of the market, to proactively get ahead of global trends and discussions taking shape on Twitter, Facebook and millions of other social networks and blogs, and to reach their best customers where they are the most comfortable and receptive, instead of the old "market-at-them" methods, to drive revenue growth. ShareThis comprehensively addresses all of these needs.

"What gives ShareThis' technology its edge is its unique and timely insight into what content moves people and how receptive they are to marketers' messaging based on the interest expressed through that share signal," said Jeff Cotrupe, global program director at Stratecast | Frost & Sullivan. "Through its social sharing widget, ShareThis is leveraging the best of both site and social analytics to offer brands and site publishers a combination of capabilities unmatched by competitors."

A brand can use ShareThis on two levels: first, through use of the company's sharing widget on every one of its own web properties to gain better visibility into what its visitors are sharing, which is invaluable for a site publisher. Second, brands can leverage the incredibly broad and deep trove of insight that's generated as visitors to sites in the ShareThis publisher network share content with friends, family and business associates – and use that insight to develop the optimal marketing campaigns and customer retention programs to promote its business. ShareThis helps brands identify and target the most relevant audiences at large scale based on these social interactions and, through its Social Quality Index (SQI) metric, find sites that are most appropriate to reach these audiences.

"Taking the time to share targeted content with recipients in one's social worldgroup calls for far more commitment than simply positioning oneself as a top influencer, so brands should fairly expect that acting on ShareThis data should place them in front of audiences that are more receptive and committed to a subject area than they would find through any generalized social scoring method," explained Cotrupe. "The functionality ShareThis provides simply on a site publisher basis also sets it apart from competitors."

ShareThis has consistently proven to offer superior ease of use and the kind of 'low headache ratio' prized by site administrators. ShareThis offerings deploy simply and instantaneously, self-update without fanfare or trouble and provide a wealth of insights. Any company that operates a site can deploy ShareThis effortlessly and in the knowledge that other than user-directed changes, there will essentially be little or no such thing as 'maintenance' of its ShareThis solution.

ShareThis is doing something that competitors cannot: combining three methodologies – site analytics, social analytics and share widgets – into a unified slate of offerings that help brands get a 'social moving average' of what is being shared out there, and from where, to help ensure higher levels of response to their market offers. In addition to real-time analytics and summarized sharing activity, real-time trending content widget, and SQI for publishers, ShareThis offers APIs allowing developers and third parties to customize a site's social experience. For advertisers, the company also offers Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB)-compliant social advertising units, audience segmentation and targeting, campaign audience insights, end-to-end campaign delivery and optimization.

In recognition of the aforementioned factors, Stratecast | Frost & Sullivan is pleased to present ShareThis the 2012 Global Frost & Sullivan Technology Innovation Award in Social Analytics. Frost & Sullivan presents this award to the company that has demonstrated uniqueness in developing a technology that significantly impacts both the functionality and the customer value of new products and applications. The award lauds the relevance of the innovation to the industry.

About ShareThis

ShareThis is the largest market for sharing and influence across the web, reaching more than 94% of the US population online across more than 1.7 million sites. ShareThis makes content more engaging for publishers and marketing more impactful for brands by tapping into its true influence and value. Based in Palo Alto, CA with offices in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, the company is privately held.

About Stratecast

Stratecast | Frost & Sullivan helps clients achieve their strategic goals by providing critical and objective insights. Stratecast's industry analysts and market experts provide market consulting and tactical strategic forecasting to help senior executives make critical business, technology, product, partnership and tactical strategy decisions. Stratecast's syndicated research subscriptions and custom growth consulting provide companies across virtually every vertical and world region with winning business growth strategies.

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SOURCE Frost & Sullivan