Hootsuite acquires social-selling app Sales Prodigy

The company will use Social Prodigy's technology to build out its own social selling offerings

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Updated with comment from Hootsuite

While Hootsuite is best known as a social media management company, it also offers social selling tools, which allow its customers to develop relationships, via social networks, as part of the sales process.

Now the company is getting ready to bolster that side of its business through the acquisition of Sales Prodigy, a social media tool for sales executives, it was announced on Tuesday. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed.

Founded in 2014, the Vancouver, British Columbia-based Social Prodigy offered technology that would listen to the social media activity of its customer's leads, and them contact them on their behalf. The company would also notify its customers, in real time, when it found an opportunity to engage, or a key piece of intel.

Going forward, Sales Prodigy will be shutting down.

"Existing users will be able to access the app until approximately April 15, it has currently been delisted for the iOS, Google Play and Hootsuite app directory while the team focuses on integrating into the social selling solution at Hootsuite," a Hootsuite representative sold VatorNews. 

Team at Sales Prodigy will be coming to work for Hootsuite, the company said in a short note on its homepage.

"All Sales Prodigy employees have joined Hootsuite, where they will be working in our Labs team and leveraging their technology and expertise to further develop the Hootsuite social selling solution," the representative said.

Hootsuite als has plans to integrate Social Prodigy's technology into its platform, allowing Hootsuite's customers to find social selling opportunities and start conversations with prospects and customers in real-time on social media. 

"Customers are already using Hootsuite to unify their social efforts across marketing, customer service, employee advocacy and social sales, however we’ve seen a big gap in the market for social selling solutions and we want to address it. The Sales Prodigy technology extends the Hootsuite platform with capabilities that uniquely positions Hootsuite to satisfy the growing needs of sales organizations harnessing the power of social," the Hootsuite representative told me. 

"Hootsuite has been by our side every step of the way: as an inspiration, customer, and partner. We are super excited to join the team and help sales people everywhere build rewarding relationships on social," Sales Prodigy wrote. 

Hootsuite is a social media management system for businesses, allowing them to collaboratively execute campaigns across multiple social networks from a single, Web-based dashboard.

Businesses can launch marketing campaigns, identify and grow audience, and distribute targeted messages. Its customers include PepsiCo, Virgin, Orange, Sony Music, Telus, HBO, WWF, UPS, Panasonic, and 237 of the Fortune 500 companies.

The company also offers social selling tools, which gives sales representatives resources to find and nurture leads on social media.

"Many organizations have invested in social marketing and social support, but there's a big gap in the market for social selling solutions, and we want to address it," Matt Switzer, VP of corporate development at Hootsuite said in a statement. "With the addition of Sales Prodigy, we're bolstering our platform to better align with our customers needs for social selling."

The two companies have had a previous relationship, as Sales Prodigy was a part of Hootsuite’s open ecosystem App Directory, a platform that helps organizations extend social media into existing systems and programs.

Founded in 2008, Hootsuite is used by over 10 million people around the globe and over 800 of the Fortune 1000. It is used in over 175 countries and it offers its product in 16 languages, and 6 support languages.

It has over 1,700 Enterprise customers, including Oakley, Levis, Siemens, Orange, Sony Music, Local World and others.

The company has raised $285 million in funding, from investors that include Fidelity Investments, Hearst Ventures, Blumberg Capital, Millennium Technology Value Partners, Geoff Entress, Accel Partners, Insight Venture Partners, OMERS Ventures and Silicon Valley Bank.

This is Hootsuite's first acquisition since it purchased social telephony company Zeetl in September 2014. Other past acquisitions have included social media management system Seesmic, and social marketing platform Brightkit.

It also bought Swift App in 2010, as well as TwitterBar, TwapperKeeper, What the Trend, and Geotoko in 2011.

(Image source: flickr.com)