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Social Rewards offers a loyalty marketing platform empowering brands to cultivate customer advocacy through social media. It tracks and monetizes user interactions, converting activities like brand mentions or likes into loyalty points. This system provides businesses analytics to measure social ROI and enrich CRM data, quantifying word-of-mouth value.
Co-founded by high school friends Joe Morin and Mike Uesugi, Social Rewards stemmed from recognizing that rewarding customers for organic social advocacy builds brand loyalty. They understood incentivizing genuine social activity drives effective word-of-mouth marketing, leading to a program quantifying digital engagement.
Primarily serving travel and hospitality, especially hotel casinos, Social Rewards deepens customer relationships. The company actively pursues expansion into entertainment and consumer product sectors. Its vision empowers diverse brands to build measurable, loyal customer bases via innovative social strategies, converting engagement into tangible value.
Social Rewards has raised $600K across 1 funding round.
Social Rewards has raised $600K in total across 1 funding round.
Social Rewards is a social media-based loyalty marketing platform that enables brands to identify advocates, reward users for social engagement, and enhance CRM data through viral sharing and points systems. It primarily serves hospitality and consumer brands like Planet Hollywood, Bally's, and Las Vegas properties, solving the problem of low social media interaction by incentivizing shares, posts, and photos in exchange for rewards such as gift cards or discounts.[1][2][3][4][7] The company has shown early growth by exceeding funding goals and pivoting its core product to "Selfie With Me," a free green screen photo booth with facial recognition for events, now operating under that name with reported revenue of $5.2 million and under 25 employees in Los Angeles.[1][2]
Social Rewards was founded in 2012 in Torrance, California (later moving to Los Angeles), by digital marketing veterans Joseph Morin and Mike Uesugi. Morin, with experience in search marketing for companies like Boost Search Marketing and new car buying services, and Uesugi brought expertise in online strategies to create a platform blending deals, social media, and metrics.[2][3][4] The idea emerged from recognizing brands' need to track and reward social engagement for loyalty; it gained early traction by launching a viral marketing loyalty program and exceeding funding goals shortly after inception.[1][3]
Social Rewards rides the rise of social rewards programs amid shifts in consumer behavior driven by social media and mobile tech, where 95% of 18-34-year-olds follow brands online and demand personalized loyalty beyond discounts.[6] Timing aligns with post-2012 social platform booms (e.g., Instagram, Twitter), enabling low-cost viral marketing when traditional CRM struggled with engagement; market forces like millennial expectations for community and feedback favor it over costly point-tracking systems.[1][3][6][7] It influences the ecosystem by pioneering data analytics for fan rewards, inspiring modern gamification tools and event-tech like facial recognition booths, though its pivot reflects adaptation in a competitive field.[2][5][8]
Social Rewards' evolution to "Selfie With Me" positions it for growth in event marketing and AI-driven data capture, potentially expanding beyond hospitality as social commerce surges. Trends like one-click rewards and privacy-focused facial tech will shape it, with influence growing via partnerships if it scales anti-spam and redemption efficiency. Watch for revenue climbs past $5.2M through high-traffic events, tying back to its core strength: turning casual shares into loyal advocates.[2][6][7]
Social Rewards has raised $600K in total across 1 funding round.
Social Rewards's investors include Chicago Ventures, Lightbank, Moonshots Capital.
Social Rewards has raised $600K across 1 funding round. Most recently, it raised $600K Seed in December 2012.
| Date | Round | Lead Investors | Other Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 1, 2012 | $600K Seed | Chicago Ventures, Lightbank, Moonshots Capital |