App gives more than ‘likes’

A new app launching in Boston April 3 aims to help businesses boost sales by offering customers rewards for promoting them on social media.

Socii (pronounced so-she) was founded last year by three Boston-area college grads who noticed how companies struggle to generate word-of-mouth marketing.

"Businesses spend millions of dollars every year to create it, but there's no system to do it," said Victor Dweck, a 2010 Northeastern University alum. "They use social networks like Facebook and Instagram, but their messages typically get lost in the noise. People go on to connect with their friends, not businesses."

Socii allows people to partner with up to three businesses and earn points for completing up to one activity per day, such as "liking" them on Facebook or posting photographs about them on Instagram. The points lead to rewards, including discounts and free goods.

Socii limits the number of businesses and activities people can choose to encourage them to partner only with their favorite businesses and to complete activities on a regular basis to accrue points, Dweck said.

"These aren't people who just want deals like on Groupon," he said. "These are the companies' most loyal customers."

So far, more than a half-dozen Boston area businesses — including J.P. Licks, Finale and Crema Cafe in Cambridge — have signed on to use the app, which doesn't require any new hardware, Dweck said.

"We feel this kind of word-of-mouth marketing creates loyalty among our customers," said J.P. Licks Marketing Manager Jason Provost. "When Victor reached out to us, I was like, why hasn't anyone thought of this before?"

Liz Cohen, head of marketing and design for Crema Cafe, said the company regularly tweets and posts on Facebook. But although it has more than 1,500 "likes," she's struggled with finding a way to get people to actually talk about the cafe on Facebook.

"When I saw what (Socii) was doing, it sounded great because it's a mutual thing," Cohen said. "We'll be asking customers to do things, but we'll also be showing them how much we appreciate them. Right now, we don't have that."

When the Specialty Coffee Association of America rolls into Boston on April 11 for its 25th annual expo, she said, the cafe will be able to use the app to get people attending the conference to tweet about Crema.

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