In its pursuit for improvement for its social media offerings, Salesforce.com has agreed to spend $689 million to buy Buddy Media, a company that works with customers to create and put up campaigns on famous social networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn by providing platforms for marketers to publish and monitor their social media actions. The acquisition will provide Salesforce access to an array of social media customers such as L’Oreal, Ford, Hewlett-Packard and other bigtime advertisers who work hand in hand with Buddy Media in social media advertising.
The move was just among the many steps taken by Salesforce to assess its social media offerings and expand their reach through the online advertising realm. Just the previous year, Radian6 was acquired by the company. Radian6 helps gauge a business’ effectiveness on sites like Twitter and Facebook. And now with Buddy Media, chief marketing officers will be able to monitor their social media content conveniently and easily. It would also give them the opportunity to listen to customer’s say on social platforms, content, and effectiveness of advertising in those media. Moreover, the software will help brands in managing internal processes they use for social media including security measures like who can administer social media accounts and who can publish this post. Truly, social media has become the core strategy of many executive marketing officers.
Salesforce was not the only company who are on the move of buying companies like Buddy Media and Radian6. Some technological giants like Oracle and Adobe have acquired their own advertising companies – Vitrue for Oracle and Efficient Frontier for Adobe. Many believe than more acquisitions would follow as Salesforce would put more efforts in enhancing its social marketing offers. The deal could not directly affect Facebook’s revenue that relies mostly on advertising business. The social giant provides customers with advertising space, free brand pages, and applications that serve as guide for making marketing strategies that were created by third-party companies.
