Social Bro rebrands as Audiense with commitment to provide deeper social media user insight
Social media marketing software Social Bro has rolled out a rebrand relaunching under the Audiense name, which implictly cements the company's focus on delivering targeted social media campaigns with deeper insight into its users.
With social media platforms themselves now almost unrecognisable in both form in function from what they were in 2011 (the year the company launched in Spain), company chief executive and co founder Javier Burón told The Drum that Social Bro (short for Social Browser) has “evolved for customers” as their expectations and demands became more sophisticated.
Burón said: “What was once a tool for browsing and segmenting social communities is now an advanced social media marketing platform delivering real business value to large brands and agencies worldwide.
“As we started to work with more brands and agencies around the world, such as Universal Music, Digitas LBi, and Havas Helia, we noticed a shift in the way they approach their marketing. Beyond basic demographic data they were all looking to build a richer understanding of their audiences and personas.”
This new entity has a newly refined focus on audiences – instantly evident from the new branding. The jarring ‘S’ in Audiense stands for the social media roots.
On why they moved away from the well-established Social Bro brand in a brave new direction, Buron admitted that Social Bro did not test particularly well with audiences in a number of markets.
Eyeing a global expansion, it emerged that the Audiense brand performed better than Social Bro in the United States, which while a new market for the company, still accounts for 30 per cent of its annual revenue. Another market with potential for growth is its enterprise users, with the user base having grown by 200 per cent in 2015.
But the move encompasses more than just a fresh perspective from a branding standpoint. Burón is promising more “listening, insight and intelligence” from the platform with a number of impending updates set to completely redefine what it can offer customers.
To deliver this new data, Audiense launched a partnership with IBM Watson in September 2015. Following this, it created a new product, called Personality Insights for Twitter powered by IBM Watson. It promises to visualise audience personality traits on the social media platform, offering a “psychological level” of detail to help target campaigns. And, there's more to come.
In short, by tapping IBM’s Watson AI, will reportedly catalyse campaigns with greater social insights, and the company has embarked on a full-out rebrand to prove its commitment to this mantra.
The company made the announcing on Twitter on Thursday evening, ready to bring all the branding in line on Friday afternoon.
We’re excited to share with you that SocialBro is now Audiense!!! #SocialBroIsNowAudiensehttps://t.co/tWRyRar5ma pic.twitter.com/AKWUE6wJZX
— Audiense (@AudienseCo) March 10, 2016