Social media has gone from a nice-to-have to a must-have for all sizes of corporations. That’s led to a spate of acquisitions in recent weeks, with Salesforce.com scooping up Buddy Media for $689 million and Oracle buying Vitrue for $300 million. As part of its series looking at social as an operating system, Digiday editor-in-chief Brian Morrissey sat down with Vitrue CEO Reggie Bradford to discuss what’s behind the big-enterprise technology player’s recent social moves and how the landscape is shifting.
“The reality is you have 900 million people on Facebook, another couple hundred million on Twitter, and you’ve got over a billion people using the social networks, not just one but multiple, to manage their time and their day, communicate with friends, family members and acquaintances,” he said. Corporations are recognizing that social has become part of how they do business.”
The challenge, of course, is social is many things to many people. It’s beyond just marketing, Bradford said, reaching into customer service, human resources and elsewhere. Within marketing, the biggest challenge remains the question of return on investment. “The answer is, not yet,” Bradford said. But social media isn’t going anywhere, a reality that’s hit the top reaches of corporations. “That question will be asked by the CFO and will need to be answered,” Bradford added.
See the full interview, which includes Bradford’s take on whether Facebook can crack big-brand budgets.
The Social Operating System: Interview with Reggie Bradford, Founder and CEO, Vitrue from Digiday on Vimeo.
More from Digiday
The Trade Desk announces plans to acquire Sincera
It’s only the second purchase for the independent sector’s talisman and brings new vim and vigor to the dual narrative of ad tech curation plus M&A.
Future of TV Briefing: Inside Netflix’s CES meetings with ad buyers
This week’s Future of TV Briefing reports on the meetings that Netflix held with ad buyers during last week’s Consumer Electronics Show, during which it discussed its advertising road map for the year.
Walmart deepens its metaverse presence with new e-commerce experience selling physical goods on Zepeto
Walmart’s decision to focus on virtual clothing items for its latest foray into the metaverse shows how the company has learned from its previous experiments in the space.