The murky fate of Saint John, N.B.-based Radian6 since it was acquired by Salesforce.com in March 2011 became crystal clear this morning when the software firm announced its new Marketing Cloud service.
Salesforce announced the suite of Web based tools from its Dreamforce conference in San Francisco, billing it as a comprehensive tool for social marketing. The firm is making a major effort to brand its series of cloud-based products as catering to the “social enterprise” – a term it tried but failed to trademark earlier this year – and the social analytics capability of Radian6 is playing well into that focus.
Salesforce.com introdcues its Marketing Cloud product.
San Francisco-based Salesforce is combining Radian6’s technology with that of Buddy Media, another recent acquisition. Radian6 customers will recognize the firm’s social listening, engagement, and measurement capabilities wrapped up in the new Marketing Cloud product. The software taps into social networks including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and more to alert companies when their brands are being discussed. Seventeen languages are supported, and a mobile iOS app is available.
The Web service basically integrates a marketing work flow CRM-style software with information gleaned from the social Web. Users can seamlessly talk to their customers or prospective customers while creating in-house work orders or ticket numbers relating to those accounts. Real-time data is delivered to an analytics dashboard that can be customized with widgets.
A year ago, Radian6 chief marketing officer David Alston told ITBusiness.ca that the Saint John firm was still being sold as a separate package and the brand was being left to grow independently while accessing the Salesforce.com customer base. Today’s announcement marks a clear break from that approach and the start of one that sees deep integration of Radian6’s social technology into the Salesforce cloud suite.
Marketing Cloud is now generally available on the market, with a starting price of $5,000 per month – a service aimed squarely at the enterprise market.
