Socio filled the technology gap in executing this brand new initiative we launched in 2021. We needed the software to facilitate a community environment while allowing the platform to live stream using our own chosen platform. Socio came in at the right price for the scale and scope for what we needed.

From the research process to executing our program, Socio exceeded expectations the entire way. We needed a solution outside of our current website/database because our program was for people outside our membership. Socio's registration component was very versatile and facilitated the unique group registrations and discounts we offered with ease. The Community platform we used for our 5-month event was super user-friendly and intuitive for our attendees and staff conducting the event. You do not need any advanced experience with web development or technology to build out the community as you need. The Socio support team is also quick to respond and always very helpful.

The standard template to build out the community is pretty rigid. We had to adjust some of our styling and graphics to account for what Socio's template allowed. It was not prohibitive in our facilitation of the program, but just more inconvenient. The other thing we disliked was the inability for event admins to make account changes for users. Several times we had users change jobs, therefore, changing their emails. Each time, we had to go through Socio support to get them access to their account. It would be a much better process if event admins can adjust usernames/emails for their users.

We first used Socio as a conference app at our conference in 2019, after selecting it from a list of 20+ options we'd tested. Our attendees loved it, and while there were some hiccups on site with managing customer service and notifications not always being real time, we were overall very impressed. For our 2020 conference we again looked at dozens of competing conference apps, but in the end Socio remained the best fit for our specific needs. Due to Covid we ended up having to cancel our 2020 conference, and Socio was gracious enough to credit our purchase for use at our 2021 conference. As the pandemic went on though, we made the decision to switch our 2021 conference to a virtual conference, so started the process of reviewing virtual conference platforms. After looking at dozens of these, we finally came back to Socio and demoed their version. We were very impressed with the production quality they offered for our sessions and keynotes, and the networking opportunities they'd built into their platform. Only one other conference platform was close to their level, but Socio was a better fit for us all around so we are moving forward with them for our conference next March.

The software had all the features we were looking for, and implemented in a way that was easy for admins and users alike to use. Socio is also always improving their platform and adding, new useful features. I'm also really impressed with how well they were able to transition from a conference app to a full virtual conference platform, especially their implementation of the live video sessions and the networking opportunities.

The sponsor and exhibitor listings could be better. The logos are small and only allow square formatting, and the listings are functional, but nothing fancy compared to what I've seen in other conference apps and virtual conference platforms. I was also disappointed that they don't support live captioning for their new conference video solution.

Apart from being less popular, the software works seamless and it helps us run weekly team meetings successfully.

We use Webex Events for our weekly team meeting to communicate with the team at office and the team working remotely. The video conferencing feature is by far my favourite as the quality is great and connects seamlessly.

The deployment of the software is not an easy one as 90% of the team at our organisation are always hearing about it for the first time.

Socio is helping us by giving us an app for our yearly conference that enables hundreds of people to connect and provides them with useful information. We have also realized that we may want to use this app for more events during the year.

I love the new metrics and analytics on the back end. It made it very easy to track all things that the Attendees were focused on during the event. I also love the ability to be creative and add links, attachments, pdfs, etc..

There were a few things that I disliked. I dislike the fact that I cant reset attendees' passwords for them in the backend of the app. This was a severe issue, especially during the event, when people needed to download the app quickly and couldn't reset their password because they didn't have access to their email. I also wish that the socio app had the ability to add more than one email address to a specific person's profile. For example, if someone in the back end logs in under their personal email and not the email that we have on file, it creates two different users in the back end. It would also be nice to be able to link to more things internally in the app. For example the ability to link to maps, social feed and additional app icons created. Also, the ability to slow down the banners would be great — maybe a few options like 5, 10, 15 seconds before switching. It would also be helpful to make it even more distinguishable between past events and current events. We probably had 20+ people who accidentally logged into the 2019 event instead of the 2021 event and they became very confused. Maybe a warning that comes up, saying "Are you sure you want to access a previous event?”