• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, November 21, 2013

Marking its second acquisition this fall, social media software provider Livefyre just scooped up Realtidbits -- a provider of enterprise-grade social apps. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
 
Realtidbits specializes in real-time apps, including analytics, comments, forums, social bridge, pinboard and image galleries. Clients include The CW Network, Thomson Reuters, Dow Jones Local Media Group, The Irish Times and The Toronto Star.
 
Per the deal, Livefyre plans to integrate Realtidbits’ analytics product into its platform and will shortly migrate customers of its comments, forums, gallery and pinboard products to Livefyre products.
 
Simply put, better analytics equals more effective social media campaigns, according to Jordan Kretchmer, founder and CEO of Livefyre.
 
“Analytics around how users are participating with and around social content is going to give our customers deeper insights … about how their users are interacting with their content,” Kretchmer said Thursday.
 
Realtidbits’ entire team is expected to join Livefyre as part of the product, engineering and design teams, with a focus on analytics.
 
Realtidbits claims to power real-time engagement across 180 million page views a month, analyzing over 2 billion interactions and social shares worldwide.
 
This is the second acquisition by Livefyre in two months, having acquired publishing services start-up Storify in September. Earlier this year, Livefyre closed its third round of financing, which totaled about $15 million.

Launched in 2009, the company has expanded from a system for social commenting to a platform powering live chat, live blogs, instant messaging, content curation and other social features through its StreamHub product. Publishers use the software-as-a-service platform to improve social interaction on their Web sites and other digital properties.

Livefyre now claims roughly 400 enterprise customers, including from AOL Tech and Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal, to CBS, Conde Nast and Fox News.

Last month, Livefyre hired Sankar Patel, formerly digital director at Carat USA, to head up a burgeoning native-advertising strategy.

Going forward, Kretchmer said Livefyre’s biggest challenge will be “scaling rapidly enough to meet market demand.”
Seven out of 10 marketers expect their companies to increase spending on social media in 2014, according to a new survey of 328 marketing professionals conducted by Decipher on behalf of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association and the American Marketing Association.