Google Takes a GIANT Social Media Leap

Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) has bought social media advertising company Wildfire Interactive for a reported $250 million. Wildfire helps brands manage their social media campaigns across websites and has almost 16,000 customers, including Spotify and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN). More important, it counts Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), a Google flesh in the thorn when it comes to social media, as its biggest client.

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According to BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis, Wildfire’s portfolio will give Google access to “intelligence” and Facebook’s customer list. “You’re buying a company that’s focused on servicing a competitor’s product. You can find out more about Facebook marketing,” he told MarketWatch. “It’s a dog-eat-dog world.”

Google has struggled in its social media attempts, and though it has lately seen some success with Google Plus, Wildfire can give it a much bigger boost.

“With Wildfire, we’re looking forward to creating new opportunities for our clients to engage with people across all social services,”Jason Miller, a Google product management director wrote on the company’s blog post on Tuesday. “We believe that better content and more seamless solutions will help unlock the full potential of the web for people and businesses.”

Wildfire wrote on its own website that the company will continue to partner with other networks and “operate as usual.” Google will reportedly slot Wildfire into a group of online ad services offered through its DoubleClick business.

Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL) and salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM) are among other large names to have made investments in social-media marketing startups recently.

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