AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Spredfast, provider of the first enterprise-class social media management and social CRM system, today announced that Rod Favaron has joined the company as chief executive officer, effective immediately. In addition, Favaron will join the Spredfast board of directors. Favaron’s appointment caps off a year of successes for Spredfast which include aggressive customer acquisition, Series A funding from Austin Ventures in April 2010 and ongoing recognition by industry analysts as an innovative player in social media marketing and the growing social customer relationship management (CRM) market.
“2010 was a great year for Spredfast and the social CRM market. Companies now realize that social media is a crucial communication platform for engaging customers, and companies that embrace social get a great advantage,” said Ken Cho, co-founder of Spredfast. “We’re thrilled to have someone with Rod’s talent and background on board as Spredfast gears up for another year of explosive growth.”
“The social media market is drawing a lot of attention right now because social has become strategic. Companies that focus on great social engagement gain a significant advantage - from consideration to customer acquisition and retention. Spredfast has built a great position in this market,” said Mike Dodd, Partner at Austin Ventures. “We are excited to bring an experienced leader like Rod on board to guide Spredfast through this next phase of growth.”
Bringing to Spredfast over 26 years of experience of building technology businesses, Favaron was most recently Chairman and CEO of Lombardi Software, which was acquired by IBM in 2010. Prior to joining Lombardi, Favaron served as CEO with Mediaprise, Inc., a brand asset management software company; SVP Sales & Marketing for pcOrder.com, a pioneer in e-commerce software and Internet content services; and as General Manager at Mentor Graphics Corporation. With Favaron’s addition to the company, co-founder Ken Cho will take on the role of Chief Strategy Officer.
“Spredfast has a visionary team providing enterprise customers across industries with the systems and tools needed to coordinate and track all of their social activity,” said Rod Favaron, Spredfast CEO. “Businesses are racing to learn how to take advantage of social media to grow revenues and improve market share. The team at Spredfast has done a great job in the last year to become a leader in the emerging social CRM market. We will accelerate product innovation, scale the go-to-market team and continue the focus on customer success as we look forward in 2011.”
Since launching in January 2010, Spredfast has worked directly with customers, across industries and the globe, to determine what their needs are in order to build a strong, robust platform for companies to manage their social engagement across a variety of platforms including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, multiple blog platforms and more. Throughout 2010, Spredfast continued to deliver many product innovations to market including:
- Consolidated Analytics – a social dashboard that shows activity, reach and engagement in a single view across all social networks.
- Social Activity Benchmarks – built directly into the product, these benchmarks provide guidance on performance compared to other organizations using Spredfast.
- Integration with other enterprise systems – Spredfast integrated its Social Profiles with key systems like CRM (salesforce.com) and web analytics (Google Analytics, Omniture) to provide both expanded customer profiles as well as track initiative activity across all media – earned, owned and paid.
- White Label Platform for Digital Marketing Agencies – several agencies built and launched a social media listening and engagement offering based on Spredfast.
- Mobile – a new mobile application for iPhone allows users to monitor social streams and post microblogs while out on the ground at events.
Over the past year, Spredfast has increased its customer base to include companies such as Nokia, HomeAway, AARP and Bayer in addition to agencies such as Porter Novelli, Digital Influence, Spring Creek Group, Gage Marketing and Raidious. To find out more information about Spredfast and how enterprises are using the platform to manage their social media interactions, please visit www.spredfast.com.
About Spredfast:
Based in Austin, Texas, Spredfast is an enterprise-class social media management and social CRM system that allows organizations to manage, monitor, and measure their social media messages, and the effectiveness of each piece of content, across multiple social media channels. Spredfast allows its clients to extend their branded content and engage with its audience from a single administration interface to the blogosphere and the major social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Flickr. Some of the enterprise adopters on board with Spredfast include AOL, Nokia, AARP, Bayer, Convio, HomeAway, Porter Novelli and Spring Creek Group. For more information, visit http://spredfast.com/.