Ryan Holmes, CEO of HootSuite Media.RAFAL GERSZAK/The Globe and Mail
Looking to stay ahead of its growing competition in the lucrative field of social media analytics, Hootsuite Media Inc. is buying a company that specializes in making sense of big data.
Vancouver-based Hootsuite announced on Wednesday that it has acquired uberVU, a Cambridge, Mass., company that over the past five years has built a customer base of more than 200 companies for its products, which measure the resonance and success of social media posts.
"UberVU represents the next generation of analytics solutions, and brings with it a world-class product team," said Ryan Holmes, chief executive officer of HootSuite. "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."
Financial details of the acquisition were not made public.
Founded in 2008, Hootsuite quickly differentiated itself from myriad other social media clients by expanding its product line into a host of social media management products. The company's software, for example, allows users to schedule posts for certain times of the day and monitor the reach and impact of those posts using social media analytics. The company's software has grown to manage everything from Twitter to Facebook to LinkedIn and Google+.
It is those analytics tools that have become the central part of Hootsuite's sales pitch, especially to enterprise clients looking to quantify the success or failure of their social media campaigns. In all, Hootsuite's user base is now more than seven million. It employs more than 300 people.
The company has a little more cash to spend as of late, thanks to a funding round last summer that gave Hootsuite a $165-million (U.S.) injection. At the time, Mr. Holmes said the company planned to use the money to further its international expansion (its products now come in some 16 different languages) and make acquisitions.
With the uberVU purchase, Hootsuite gains more analytics capabilities. Among uberVU's products are tools that alert a user when there's a sudden spike of interest in something they've posted. The company also allows users to monitor the top trends across social media at any given time, and create posts and messages related to those trends.
Among the company's enterprise clients are NBC, Getty Images and MTV.