Social media marketing has become a way of life and the market is gradually maturing giving its global usage. Lots of innovations and rapid cutting-edge technologies continually emerge in the world of social media. As more and more data is collected from the masses of users that are active on major platforms (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, and others) social media management will be about following the right accounts or profiles, listening to mentions along with analyzing thoroughly sentiment about your brand and engaging your audience actively.
As businesses enter this busy online technological world the challenge becomes identifying what social media software tool to turn to. This all depends on the sector you are (small business, enterprise, corporation, etc.) and what is the scale of your existing operations.
According to a Venturebeat.com report a survey was conducted and collected from 1,133 social media managers that build companies´ brands on social networks from specific social media management tools available in the marketplace.
On the enterprise level you have Oracle, Sprinklr and Komfo. For smaller businesses you have Meshfire, Sendible and Hootsuite. In addition, for the medium sized company you can turn to once again Sendible, Meshfire and a newcomer Oktopost. The VB insight also includes a separate list of social media management resources like TweetDeck, Buffer, SocialFlow, Spredfast and Crowdbooster.
Social media management acquisition happenings
The social media marketing sphere is exploding with activity and plenty of data to go after. With that being said companies in this industry want to be next best thing or most relevant platform to target consumers.
A Forbes.com broke the news that New York-based Sprinklr, social media management company, bought Brazilian startup Scup. Scup is one of the leading providers of social media monitoring, analytics and customer care. The move seems innocuous, but the aim is to become an all-in-one platform to compete for the likes of Oracle, Salesforce, etc.
Sprinklr is no stranger to acquisitions and this is just the latest. Previously as of Aug. 2014 they acquired TBG Digital and is one of the largest Facebook advertising companies out there.
Furthermore, Sprinklr has also joined the Pinterest Market Developers Partners (MDP) program further confirming their ongoing efforts to become one major platform for most enterprises.
One of the biggest headlines made in social media was by none other than Facebook´s purchase of WhatsApp for $22 billion. This has helped the company expand its efforts into the mobile space and expand into international markets.
Elsewhere a Socialfresh.com post highlights the top 10 purchases of social media companies and their increase since the start of 2011. For example, Twitter in 2014 made 10 acquisitions whereas in 2013 it acquired 7. Google in 2011 showed an interest at the onset in this space but as of 2014 just only two companies have become part of the search engine.
Takeaways and conclusions
Social media management will continue to evolve and as social media and customer relationship management (CRM) continue expansion in 2015 these spaces will experience further integration in their services. To learn where the action is happening for the top social media marketing companies look at the topseos.com summary for the best for May 2015.
This social media acquisition spree is of no surprise. Companies are looking to cement, dominate or expand their reach for their targeted audience. The difference really comes down to who is using the best social media software provider or service.
The company that best combines all of the data, processes it and can accurately measure how to target their efforts to smart social media savvy users will bring home the gold.
