Hootsuite acquires Sales Prodigy to boost to social selling

Hootsuite, the platform for managing social media, has acquired Sales Prodigy, a mobile app built to help sales organisations tap into social selling opportunities.Sales Prodigy allows customers to find social selling opportunities and start conversations with prospects and customers in real-time on social media.According to "The 2015 State of Social Business: Priorities Shift From Scaling to Integrating," a report by Altimeter, a Prophet Company, 64% of organizations have or plan to have a social selling program. The report notes that simply teaching sales to use social tools isn’t enough unless it’s backed up by an organization that can support and integrate social selling via a content repository, engagement tools, and performance metrics that reflects changes in expected behavior.“Many organisations 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, vice president of corporate development at Hootsuite said.“Companies like Palms Hotel and Marketo already use Hootsuite as part of their lead generation efforts. With the addition of Sales Prodigy, we’re bolstering our platform to better align with our customers needs for social selling.”“We started Sales Prodigy to help sales people build rewarding relationships with customers on social media. Hootsuite has been by our side every step of the way: as an inspiration, customer, and partner,” Mik Lernout, CEO and founder of Sales Prodigy, said.Previously, Sales Prodigy was a part of Hootsuite’s open ecosystem App Directory, a platform that supports business integrations and applications, helping organisations extend social media into existing systems and programs.