Vancouver-based Hootsuite Media has acquired Geotoko, a location-based marketing tool.
Geotoko aggregates data about consumer behaviour gathered when they use check-in technologies such as Foursquare and Facebook Places.
The acquisition will add to the existing capabilities in HootSuite’s social media management dashboard.
“Over the next year I think geo and local marketing is going to become more and more important for our customers, small and medium enterprise users,” HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes told Business in Vancouver.
“It’s going to be a huge hot point and something that folks are going to need to put into their marketing mix.”
This is the fifth acquisition for Hootsuite, which previously acquired What the Trend, Twapper Keeper, TwitterBar (now HootBar) and Swift App (now HootSuite for Android).
Holmes said the acquisitions are part of Hootsuite’s growth strategy.
“We’re looking at rolling up various strategic companies. This one was fantastic for us because it wasn’t just good technology, it’s also a great team.”
As to which aspects of HootSuite’s dashboard the company is looking to improve, Holmes said: “We’re going to be fortifying across the board, adding deeper functionality and expanding on the current offering that we have. Analytics will always be a big piece for us and looking at team workflow – those are two hot point items for us.”
Holmes declined to disclose the value of the Geotoko deal.
According to a Hootsuite blog post announcing the deal, “the Geotoko technology reports on geo-based social media interactions like key influencers, customer sentiment, and demographic patterns to help businesses draw conclusions about audience behavior, as well as help brands reward customers for checking-in via Foursquare and Facebook Places.”
Over the Thanksgiving long weekend, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was believed to have been spotted in Vancouver, spawning speculation he was here to buy Hootsuite – a rumour Holmes quashed on the company’s blog site a few days ago.
Jenny Wagler
Twitter: JennyWagler_BIV