Thus far in Hootsuite‘s well-documented and successful ride as king of the “social relationship platform” space, it hasn’t ventured into the acquisition game too much.
That changes today as the company announced it has purchased Cambridge, Massachusetts-based uberVU, an innovative social analytics solution.
Hootsuite didn’t disclose the terms of the deal.
It looks like the acquisition is all about Hootsuite’s pursuit of providing analytics for its enterprise customers, as the company noted that 75 percent of Fortune 1000 companies are in this category. In uberVU, it gets a team full of “world-class” engineers who have worked with the likes of 3M, NBC, Heinz, Fujitsu, SC Johnson, Getty Images, indiegogo, L’Occitane and others.
uberVU also provides a dashboard, but its platform allows companies to act on data leveraged from its social interactions with customers. It was founded in London, UK, and raised just over $500,000 via Seedcamp. For Hootsuite, it’s the company’s first acquisition after raising its monstrous $165 million venture capital deal in August.
The acquisition further allows Hootsuite to beef up its offering for its premium product, in a freemium model game where the outcome is obviously to convert free users to paying ones. Currently 95 percent of the company’s users are using the free version with basic controls.
“uberVU represents the next generation of analytics solutions, and brings with it a world class product team,” said Hootsuite CEO Ryan Holmes. “This acquisition brings together uberVU’s best-in-class analytics with HootSuite’s social engagement solution, getting us one step closer to our vision of a simple, scalable, and secure platform for a rapidly evolving social media landscape.”
In a release the company claimed it pioneered the category of social media management in 2009 when it launched. Today, HootSuite has more than 8 million users in nearly every country around the world who use HootSuite’s “social relationship platform” for social media management, social marketing, social customer service, and social selling.
“By joining HootSuite we are realizing our vision to bring analytics to the front and center of the social business,” said uberVU CEO Mark Pascarella. “This acquisition is a testament to the strength of our platform, and we are thrilled to be part of HootSuite’s exciting story.”
For now uberVU will continue to operate as a standalone product, but eventually it will be amalgamated into Hootsuite.
In a blog post, Holmes commented that the days of social media relationship platforms acting as one-trick ponies, may be coming to an end. Consolidation seems to be the best bet to please users, who want to use one platform for several different uses as it pertains to their dealings with customers.
“We’ve seen that single-purpose social media monitoring tools frustrate users by making it difficult to put data to use and turn insight into action,” wrote Holmes. “By bringing uberVU on board, HootSuite is adding powerful analytics capabilities to our battle-tested engagement platform. This is a direct response to feedback from HootSuite customers and has accelerated our existing analytics plan.”
