Salesforce Snaps up Buddy Media to Strengthen Marketing Solution
Salesforce is continuing its buying spree, its latest acquisition being Buddy Media. Salesforce has agreed to pay $689 million for this company that has a social media marketing platform. Of this $467 million will be in cash with the rest coming in the form of common stock, option units, and restricted stock.
With the appreciation by marketers of the growing power of social media, platforms that can help companies to tap into social media to both monitor brand awareness and communicate with consumers more effectively are in great demand. This is apparent from the recent activity in this sector. Oracle purchased Vitrue for just these capabilities very recently.
Salesforce has ambitious plans to offer a complete social media marketing cloud based solution. Toward this it has already acquired Radian6 that can monitor social media. Buddy Media already works with over a thousand large companies such as HP, L’Oreal, Matte, and Virgin Mobile.
“The idea behind the deal is simple. By combining Buddy Media with the rest of salesforce.com’s products, including Salesforce Radian6, the leading social media listening platform, we will be able to deliver the first comprehensive Marketing Cloud that will allow customers to listen, engage, gain insight, publish, advertise and measure social marketing programs,” wrote Michael Lazerow, the Buddy Media founder and CEO, in a comment on the acquisition.
Buddy Media offers a comprehensive social media marketing tool with a dashboard and other CRM-like tools. The purchase is likely to be completed by the end of October, 2012.
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