#michael lazerow

Where there’s a weirdo, there’s a way: why weird wins over vanilla every time

Michael Lazerow wants you to be weird. Because weird is good. He’s in the right place: he’s at South by Southwest Interactive in Austin, in a vortex chock full of smart chocolate chip weirdos rolled up in a big all of marketer and VC goo. But even burnt, and we are all pretty burnt after three days of non-stop SxSW activities, it’s still tasty,

Michael gets messages late at night from Gary…

Michael Lazerow, Founder Buddy Media

For years, Salesforce has been on the front-lines of social media marketing by providing tools and resources for organizations to measure their social media influence.

As you may have read this morning, Salesforce has purchased Buddy Media, one of the top social media marketing companies, for $689 million. The real headline is that Salesforce now has control of the world's top social media marketing companies since it also acquired Radian6 just last year. 

So, what does this mean for the Salesforce, one of the biggest cloud-based sales companies? Obviously, there is more to the story than their revenue increasing. While the company has been growing rapidly, especially with this latest acquisition, it has also been preparing a new service that has only been hinted at until now.

Michael Lazerow, CEO of Buddy Media, has commented, “The idea behind the deal is simple. By combining Buddy Media with the rest of salesforce.com’s products, including Salesforce Radian6, the leading social media listening platform, we will be able to deliver the first comprehensive Marketing Cloud that will allow customers to listen, engage, gain insight, publish, advertise and measure social marketing programs.” 

This is great news for companies looking to get the most out of their social media platforms, especially during a time when social media branding is so critical to a company's success. With the implementation of this "Marketing Cloud" on the horizon, there really seems to be no limit to how sophisticated our cloud-based technology is going to become and how agencies will dramatically change how they research and measure online impressions.

All things considered, the real question is: who will really capitalize on this new technology and who will be left behind? Salesforce is a good example of a company who refuses to be the latter.

Jon Negroni is the Director of Public Relations, Promotion, and Marketing at Richter10.2 Media Group. For more information regarding Richter10.2, check out our introduction video here.