Social media monitoring group The Meltwater Group, has bought social CRM software provider JitterJam for $6m.
Together the companies will provide marketing, communications and advertising professionals with tools for tracking and engaging with customers on social channels.
Meltwater purchased JitterJam for $6m, and all of JitterJam’s employees will join Meltwater.
Both companies have achieved market leadership by delivering distinct products and solutions around media monitoring and marketing. Meltwater has grown to a $100 million a year company by delivering engaging news and social media monitoring and search engine marketing solutions.
The company has 55 offices around the world serving more than 18,000 customers.
US-based JitterJam combines email, social media and mobile engagement with an intelligent contact database to provide businesses with an integrated consumer engagement and marketing platform.
The JitterJam platform is built for consumer-facing companies who are looking to generate ROI from social, mobile and email engagement and marketing. The JitterJam platform will be integrated over time with the Meltwater Buzz product, creating the most comprehensive and engaging Social CRM platform on the market today.
“Meltwater was bootstrapped with $15,000 ten years ago and has now grown to a $100 million leader without external funding in the online media monitoring space. Also, we have proven we have the expertise to achieve rapid success in emerging markets,” said Jorn Lyseggen, chief executive officer and founder of Meltwater Group. “The Social CRM space is clearly experiencing fast growth and within three years we aim to generate $100 million a year in Social CRM solutions alone. The JitterJam technology and talent will help us achieve this goal.”
Social CRM has evolved from a curiosity to an emerging business necessity. In a recent press release, Gartner, Inc. forecasts that “by 2013, spending on social software to support sales, marketing and customer service processes will exceed $1 billion worldwide.”
The firm also predicts that “during the next two years, 30 percent of leading companies will extend the goals of their online community activities to the design of enhanced service processes, such as Social CRM.”
JitterJam’s unique blend of social analytics, CRM and digital marketing capabilities make it a comprehensive social marketing tool for businesses, brands and agencies. By using JitterJam, businesses can discover relevant conversations happening on the real-time web and engage to convert conversations into customers.
“We have been tremendously impressed with Meltwater’s rapid growth in the social and marketing space,” said Ric Pratte, co-founder, president and chief executive officer of JitterJam. “Meltwater’s expertise, highly impressive customer base and exceptional sales organization will help us bring the integrated JitterJam platform to a primed worldwide audience. We’re thrilled to be a part of Meltwater.”
In addition to JitterJam, Meltwater acquired BuzzGain last year and intends to acquire more businesses and technologies to help the company further expand its product suite.
http://www.jitterjam.com.
http://www.meltwater.com.
