Eighty-six percent of businesses cited “community” as being “critical” to their goals, and 69 percent disclosed their intention to participate in community development, as reported in the CMX Community Industry Report 2021.
Over the same time period, the pandemic shook up the normal channels of communication between brands and their respective audiences. Many companies now recognise the importance of having a robust online presence and are actively working to grow their own online communities via various social media outlets.
The issue arises when trying to pull data and information from these networks; all that can be gleaned from them are lengthy lists of names and bios that don’t really tell you much.
This creates an obstacle for the brand’s efforts to cultivate a sense of community. If you’re running a genuine business and want to do things like cultivate a following, launch advertising campaigns, and foster a dedicated client base, you won’t find the resources you need in social media platforms as they currently stand.
Serri was developed in 2021 by Saad Jamal, Wasil, Shubham Raj, and Amit Dubey. It’s a platform for creating and monetizing communities across many platforms through the use of artificial intelligence chatbots.
Jamal, the company’s co-founder and CEO, recently told media, “We offer a mobile app which unites all these community platforms across Discord, WhatsApp, etc. and one can engage and manage all of these platforms.”
The vast majority of app users have little interest in switching to a new one. The hesitation to move platforms is addressed by integrating the chatbot into sites already being used to develop these communities, where it can provide users with tailored responses and individualised suggestions.
The chatbot simply needs a few basic pieces of information to comprehend the interested target sectors and the kind of connection recommendations required, which is helpful given the ongoing concern about data privacy, especially in the marketing tech and community tech sectors.
According to Jamal, unlike competing offerings, Serri provides businesses with in-depth and actionable insights about the shifting interests and demographics of the target community members. These discoveries aid the corporation in making decisions, promote market expansion, and fuel business relationships and collaborations.
The accuracy of the chatbot’s output is now critical. AI chatbots are typically developed using data and information gleaned through online chats and exchanges. This has the potential to aid it in providing appropriate responses but also makes it very prone to providing inaccurate information. Serri is a kind of app where precision is crucial.
An appointed community manager will step in at this point. Administrators of these online communities act as go-betweens, relaying information and making suggestions. Serrch is directed by these community managers.
Serrch is an integral part of the platform and is integrated with Serri. The purpose of this is to have direct, personal interaction with customers. By combining the efforts of AI and humans, we can ensure that the information we share is accurate and useful.
Company operations are built on a subscription model, with pricing and campaign fees varying according to the volume of messages sent. At its current alpha testing phase, it is concentrating on two to three communities totaling more than 600 individuals.
The company has so far been funded through founder contributions and is now raising its initial outside funding. Market acceptability being higher in the United States and the United Kingdom compared to India, the company hopes to eventually spread its services to all of the English-speaking countries.
Competitors in the area include Threado, also situated in Gurugram, and Lens DAO, which is based in Bengaluru. The company faces competition from firms all across the world, including Singapore’s Nas.io and the United States’ Blaze AI.
Serri’s goals for this fiscal year include expanding their B2B SaaS sales team and onboarding more than one thousand new communities. It also intends to increase its footprint by forming strategic alliances in the United States, Europe, and Southeast Asia.
In 2021, experts predicted that the worldwide market for business social networks and online communities will be worth $5,539 million; by 2028, that figure was projected to soar to $16.5 billion.
