Salesforce.com, the Californian cloud service provider, has bought social media tracking outfit Radian6 for $326m (£203m) in cash and shares.

Radian6 was one of the first firms to offer social media analysis, monitoring websites like Facebook and Twitter. Its services are being used by companies like Dell and Kodak, who need to understand what is being said about them on social networks. Salesforce.com’s chief executive and former Oracle rookie Marc Benioff says that Radian6 is going to become an integral part of their service range.

"With Radian6, Salesforce.com is gaining the technology and market leader in social media monitoring," said Benioff. "It will extend the value of all of our offerings."

In a statement on their website, Salesforce.com claims that more companies use their services than any other on-demand CRM system.

The move is part of the growth of social media and the growing reliance on it for corporate PR. A legendary example of companies ignoring social media is the plight of Canadian folk singer Dave Carroll, whose $3,500 guitar was broken by baggage handlers at United Airlines. They refused to pay him compensation and their customer service team were rude and unhelpful, so he performed a song (on his broken guitar) called “United Breaks Guitars” and uploaded it to Youtube. It has over ten million views.

Once disregarded as a novelty by many, Twitter is one of the world’s largest real-time information networks. Companies are surging onto the system as they discover the marketing potential of consumer-led communication. It allows users to communicate in real time, broadcasting ‘tweets’ of no more than 140 characters. Organisations like Radian6 allow companies to “engage” with any of the 140 million tweets which get sent every day.

Reported by Sam Doving.

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