Salesforce.com, the enterprise cloud computing company has agreed to acquire Buddy Media, a social media marketing platform, for $745m.
With the addition of Buddy Media, salesforce.com will be able to provide companies of all sizes a full social marketing application, including social media management and advertising.
Salesforce.com chairman and CEO Marc Benioff said, "With CMOs surpassing CIOs in spend on technology within the next five years, our Marketing Cloud leadership will allow us to capitalize on this massive opportunity."
Salesforce Radian6 senior vice president Marcel LeBrun said, "Social media has caused the biggest transformation in marketing since the Mad Men era, causing CMOs to completely re-think their strategies."
"By bringing together market leaders Radian6 and Buddy Media, we are doubling down on the Salesforce Marketing Cloud to provide CMOs with the ability to manage the entire social marketing lifecycle," he added.
Buddy Media co-founder and CEO Michael Lazerow said, "With the Salesforce Marketing Cloud, marketers will be able to unify their efforts to better organize their teams, optimize their social programs and deliver real business results."
Given the increasing need for a social media management platform to market the products, Oracle and SAP are interested to acquire smaller social-media companies to tap consumers who exchange views on products and services on online platforms.
The deal follows Oracle’s acquisition of social media marketing provider Vitrue in a deal worth $300m two weeks ago.
Similar to Buddymedia, Vitrue consolidates publishing activities for social sites including Facebook and Twitter.
Founded in 2007, the Buddy Media platform allows customers to publish content, place and optimise social advertising and measure the effectiveness of social media marketing programmes.
Salesforce.com stated this platform helps customers determine which content is driving the most engagement, test different strategies and understand which campaigns are delivering the greatest return on investment.
Buddy Media enables companies including Ford, Hewlett Packard, L’Oreal and Mattel to connect and engage with more than a billion customers across Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and more.
The deal will enable Salesforce.com beef up its cloud-based social media monitoring technology gained after its acquisition of Radian6, a social media monitoring firm,last year.
Salesforce.com expects to close the deal in the fiscal third quarter ending October 31, 2012 and forecasts an increase in revenues by about $20m to $25m in the second half of the year ending January 31, 2013.
