HubSpot Acquires Social Media Firm Oneforty; Attempts Guinness Record For Largest Online Seminar
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- Published in DemandGen Reports
HubSpot announced yesterday its acquisition of Oneforty, a social media marketing company based in Cambridge, MA. Oneforty developed a directory of social media applications that will be merged into the HubSpot App Marketplace. Additionally, Oneforty’s social media marketing tool called SocialBase also will be incorporated into the HubSpot product.
News of the acquisition comes just two months after HubSpot acquired marketing automation provider Performable. In March 2011, HubSpot received $32 million in Series D funding from Sequoia Capital, Google Ventures, and Salesforce.com. “Having Oneforty join our team and working with them on transforming marketing is exciting,” said HubSpot CEO Brian Halligan. “The combined social media expertise of HubSpot and Oneforty will benefit all of our customers.”
Oneforty CEO Laura Fitton and her team will be joining HubSpot's team in its Cambridge office immediately. The acquisition extends the HubSpot team to 285 employees. “Together, we’ll turn marketing on its head,” Fitton wrote on the Oneforty blog. “Inbound marketing — ‘helping people buy’ instead of forcefully ‘helping companies sell’ — helps your customers solve their problems. It makes people’s lives easier. It lets them find you when they need you most. It guides customers into a lifecycle of returning to your company and even talking about your solutions to others.”
In addition to its recent acquisition, HubSpot is attempting to break a world record by hosting the “largest online marketing seminar” called “The Science of Social Media.”
HubSpot’s Scientist of Social Media, Dan Zarrella will present during the webinar, evaluating new data about social media and marketing, on Tues. Aug. 23, 2011.
Attendees will learn how to build their reach, engineer contagious ideas and measure results, all through data-backed, scientifically proven best practices. “Social media marketing shouldn't be left to luck,” Zarrella said in a HubSpot release. “Basing business decisions on superstition and myth is dangerous. We need to move beyond the guesswork into real science and data. I'm very excited that we'll be a part of history and set the bar for the biggest webinar ever,” he added.
Guinness World Records manager Kimberly Patrick said the attempt to have the largest online marketing seminar is a great example of how record breaking is adapting to the digital world. “This record, and many others which have come to us in recent years, prove that record breakers are increasingly interested in online-based achievements,” Patrick noted in the release. “Whereas it might not be as physically visual, an online record like this is visual in a different way in that it can reach people all over the world, instantly. Participants themselves can be a part of the record even if they are nowhere near Cambridge, MA.”