Salesforce.com has plans to acquire Radian6 - a social media monitoring platform, further validating the practice of tracking social conversations.

Just yesterday, Brafton reported that product discussions on social networks are common among young consumers, and monitoring social media brand mentions should be a priority. Now, Salesforce.com has plans to acquire Radian6 – a social media monitoring platform – further validating the practice of tracking social conversations.

Salesforce announced the planned acquisition today. The company explains that Radian6 will “[extend] the value of the Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Chatter and Force.com with social intelligence.” The cloud computing company aims to cull data from public conversations to enhance the conversations that happen on its own social network, Chatter.

The company is not alone in its effort to use social data to improve the relevancy of content on its own social site. As Brafton recently reported, LinkedIn's news aggregator – LinkedIn Today – uses Twitter shares to help determine which articles will be most relevant to its users.

For marketers, this suggests that it's important to have a multi-platform presence, as content shares on some social sites may boost visibility in other social channels. Moreover, it validates social media monitoring as a means of getting a pulse for what matters to consumers.

Marketers can understand brand perceptions by tracking brand mentions, and they can inform future content marketing by listening in to chatter to understand consumers' informational needs. As Brafton has reported, more than half of marketers plan to monitor social conversations as part of their social media marketing campaigns this year.

Katherine Griwert is Brafton's Marketing Director. She's practiced content marketing, SEO and social marketing for over five years, and her enthusiasm for new media has even deeper roots. Katherine holds a degree in American Studies from Boston College, and her writing is featured in a number of web publications.