Linkfluence buys China social-listening firm ActSocial

Through the acquisition, Linkfluence is reaffirming its ambition to become more globalised after opening its office in London in January and buying Die Medialysten from Germany in July this year. ActSocial, at the same time, is moving toward its broader vision to grow outside of China.

Though social media is a major force impacting consumer attitudes and behaviour worldwide, usage habits and platforms differ greatly in China, said Benjamin Duvall, head of product and co­‐founder at ActSocial.

"The social-listening market is more mature in China as social media is a much deeper part of consumers' lives, but brands have not been fast enough to adapt," Duvall told Campaign Asia-Pacific in an exclusive interview.

Most brands have only used social media to take action in customer service, but are straining to utilise that in consumer insight and product innovation. "These are opportunities for us, and to be part of a bigger regional network enables us to beef up our analytics technology with Linkfluence's resources and access European best practices," he added.

The new group can now boast of global presence in France, Germany, UK, China and Singapore, with an ambition to become "a world leader in social-media intelligence" by 2017, added Linkfluence CEO Hervé Simonin.

The plan is to roll out "international social listening solutions" in 2016 and to double growth every year. Many social-listening companies claim to have international reach, but their language algorithms and research techniques are really too basic for that claim, Duvall said.

Linkfluence's clients in Europe include Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Orange, Sanofi, Danone, Accor and Groupama, with ActSocial's contracts with SAP, Linkedin, DSM, Monsanto and Liquan Brewery in China transferred to Linkfluence post-acquisition.

"Our clients are mostly B2B companies, who will be mature enough to understand and accept the third-time name change (from Wildfire to ActSocial to Linkfluence)," said Duvall.