Two of Salesforce.com’s most high profile “social media” acquisitions are showing signs of trouble. At Radian6, Salesforce.com is reported to be laying off “less than 100 people.” And at Buddy Media, the company amended its 8-K, which shows $20 million in net losses for the first six months of the year.
Salesforce.com acquired Radian6 in 2010 for $326 million and Buddy Media earlier this year for $689 million. The acquisitions were meant to complement each other with the two integrating and operating under the same umbrella. The news of the layoffs and the losses raises questions about how the work is going in combining the companies and integrating them into the Salesforce.com ecosystem.
A Radian 6 spokesperson wrote in an email today:
With the combination of Radian6 and Buddy Media, the Salesforce Marketing Cloud is the undisputed leader in social marketing and the only suite that allows brands to unify social listening, engagement, advertising and measurement. With the integration of Radian6 and Buddy Media, the Salesforce Marketing Cloud is re-balancing its resources to support its growth, including moving from a hub to a distributed model for certain customer-facing roles, consolidating marketing and dramatically increasing investments in R&D. Fewer than 100 people were impacted globally.
Buddy Media is another story. A Salesforce.com spokesperson would not comment on the losses, which total to $20.6 through the first six months of the year. The losses are countered to some degree by Buddy Media’s revenues which totaled $18 million, compared to $10 million in the first six months of 2011.
Salesforce Radian6 helps companies listen to what people are saying about them online and engage in those conversations across the social web. From blogs and comments to multimedia, boards, forums and communities like Twitter, Radian6 gathers the discussions happening online and gives businesses the ability to analyze, manage, track, and report on their social media monitoring and engagement efforts. Radian6 provides the social media monitoring platform for marketing, communications and customer support professionals. The company’s flexible dashboard enables monitoring all...
Buddy Media is the social enterprise software of choice for eight of the world’s top ten global advertisers, empowering them to build and maintain relationships with their consumers in a connections-based world. The Buddy Media social marketing suite helps brands build powerful connections globally with its scalable, secure architecture and data-driven customer insights from initial point of contact through point of purchase. Buddy Media is headquartered in New York City, with additional offices located in Asia, London, and San...
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