Salesforce today launched Social.com, a marketing dashboard that unites the social monitoring of Radian6, acquired by Salesforce two years ago, and a beefed-up version of the social advertising tool the company acquired with Buddy Media last June.
“We believe more than ever that social marketing is the future of the ads business and how companies are connecting to their customers,” said Eric Stahl, the vice president of web content and strategy.
Social marketing is expected to be an $11 billion business by 2017, according to a recent study from BIA/Kelsey.
Social.com is the first tool to offer both social monitoring and ad placement, an integration that Salesforce says will make it far more feasible for companies to advertise based on real-time social media trends and conversations.
The Social.com dashboard allows corporate users to access their customer data and their social listening research from the same place and to import social interactions into their customer relations management, or CRM, databases. The dashboard allows marketers to create and place ads, monitor their performance and boost investments in the better performing content.
Marketers can place ads on Facebook or Twitter using the software.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff highlighted the opportunities Buddy Media’s social advertising tool presented at the time of the acquisition.
Prior to today’s launch, the social advertising tool accounted for 2.5 billion ad impressions per day.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
After filing financial statements for Buddy Media that showed a $20.5 million loss last quarter, Salesforce today laid off about 100 employees at its other acquired social analytics arm, Radian6. 
