Feature
Earlier in the summer, Salesforce announced that it was buying social media marketing vendor, Buddy Media. This week it announced that it closed the US$ 669 million deal and that from here on in, Buddy would be part of the Salesforce Marketing Cloud.
While exact terms of the deal haven’t been released, at the time of the buy-out it was widely reported that Salesforce had agreed to pay US$ 467 million in cash, US$ 184 million in common stock and US$ 38 million in options and restricted stock.
So while Salesforce only paid half the price Microsoft paid for Yammer, it's still not cheap, even in a "social" space that has seen a number of expensive acquisitions since the beginning of this year.
The price, though, only reflects the perceived value to potential Salesforce clients. In this case, the value comes from Buddy’s ability to organize teams and optimize social media marketing programs.
Not only does Buddy enable users to publish content as well as place and optimize social advertising, it also helps client organizations measure the effectiveness of social media marketing programs by analyzing what content is driving the most customer engagement.
With it, companies can also connect with potential customers in Facebook, Google, LinkedIn and Twitter, as well as a lot more lesser-known social networks.
Learning Opportunities
Webinar
Apr
30
Supercharge Contact Center Efficiency with Generative AI
Learn practical strategies to reduce post-call documentation time by over 8 minutes.
Register
Conference
May
1
Qualtrics X4 Salt Lake City 2024
Register
Webinar
May
2
Unleash AI for Crisis Management: Transform Threats into Triumphs
Learn how Sprinklr Insights provides real-time insights on current events, trends, and brand crises to empower your team.
Register
Webinar
May
9
Driving Customer-Centricity in the Financial Services Industry
Discover how financial organizations are leveraging generative AI technologies.
Register
Conference
May
9
An Irish Roundtable in the Valley: The Economic Impact of AI on the World of Work Stanford 2024
Exploring the Impact of AI On the World of Work with Irish diaspora leaders and tech business champions from the North of Ireland
Register
Conference
May
13
Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xpo Conference London 2024
Register
Buddy, Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Buddy, according to Salesforce, will be combined with Salesforce’s Radian6, which Marc Benioff believes will give it leadership in the cloud marketing space.
Salesforce.com now has the number one players in social listening and marketing --Radian6 and Buddy Media … With the rapid growth in technology spending by CMOs projected over the next five years, our Marketing Cloud leadership will allow us to capitalize on this massive opportunity,” Benioff said.
If fact, with Buddy, Benioff says, Salesforce will be releasing the first comprehensive marketing cloud that will engage, publish and measure social marketing impact, which is not a claim to be taken lightly given the number of other products currently available in the space.
The new Marketing Cloud is to be showcased at the upcoming Dreamforce conference in San Francisco next month.
This is the second significant announcement from Salesforce this week. Earlier in the week it released Communities, which makes social interactions easier and more productive. More on this as it happens.
