Why Google Bought the Social Media Marketing Platform Wildfire

In an effort to increase its presence in the social media world, internet giant Google just bought the social media marketing platform Wildfire.  In case you haven’t heard of Wildfire until now, it is a company that lets brands run marketing and ad campaigns on social networking sites, including Facebook, YouTube, Google+, Twitter, Linkedin, and Pinterest. You have probably seen an ad campaign on Facebook run by Wildfire but just might not have recognized it.

To give you an idea of just how big of an impact Wildfire can have, the company “Edible Arrangements” ran a campaign with them where new fans of their facebook page were given a coupon for free chocolate dipped strawberries.  The result of this campaign was a 170,000 increase in Facebook likes and a 2x increase in profits compared to the previous year.  In the four years since Wildfire was created, it has grown to serve over 16,000 customers including 30 of the 50 top brands.  The presence Wildfire has in the social media marketing community is huge, and now, with the power of Google behind it, it will be interesting to see how social media marketing develops in the coming months. What impact do you think Google running Wildfire will have on social media marketing?