SocialFlow is a social media optimization platform for leading brands and publishers. The company uses the Twitter firehose, click data derived from its proprietary link proxy, along with proprietary algorithms, to optimize the delivery of messages on social networks. The company believes that understanding and utilizing key metrics of engagement, such as clicks per tweet and clicks per follower, is central to growing a large and active social media following. Their analysis and data visualization of the way news filtered out around the death of Osama Bin Laden via Twitter received international news coverage and led to questions about the role of Twitter in journalism. SocialFlow is associated with Betaworks, a New York-based startup studio, incubator, and venture capital company that promotes real-time information flow on the internet. It is currently headquartered in New York City.
History
Early history
SocialFlow was founded in early 2009 by Frank Speiser and Mike Perrone, who sought to apply a scientific approach to the task of building and sustaining engaged social media audiences at scale. In 2013, SocialFlow was targeted by the Syrian Electronic Army, a hacking and cyber-criminal group organized in 2011 to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during the Syrian civil war. The group gained access to SocialFlow’s social media accounts after sending a phishing email to the company’s employees. The attack resulted in the brief takedown of SocialFlow’s website and publishing platform that lasted about 20 minutes. To promote internet security and account protection, SocialFlow published a detailed account of the hack and their security response in a blog post.
Investors
SocialFlow announced April 7, 2011 that they had raised $7 million in Series A funding. The Series A round was led by Softbank, with Softbank NY, RRE Ventures, betaworks, Highline Venture Partners, AOL Venture Partners, SV Angel and a group of high profile angel investors participating. On April 16, 2013, SocialFlow announced they raised $10 million round in Series B funding. Fairhaven Capital led the round and was joined by existing investors SoftBank Capital, RRE Ventures, AOL Ventures and Betaworks, as well as new investors kbs+ Ventures and Rand Capital Corporation.
Corporate affairs
The company announced June 7, 2011 that Peter Hershberg joined the company as President.
Research
SocialFlow gained considerable media attention when it published "Breaking Bin Laden: Visualizing the Power of a Single Tweet". The study demonstrated how Twitter had evolved into a primary news source, as the death of Osama Bin Laden broke on Twitter. Their next study "Engaging News-Hungry Audiences Tweet by Tweet" looked at the Twitter audiences of Al-Jazeera English, BBC News, CNN, The Economist, Fox News and New York Times and revealed the similarities and differences between each respective organization's audience, while simultaneously demonstrating the true value of audience engagement. Another notable study created by SocialFlow looked at the launch of the KONY 2012 video through social media. As noted by Forbes writer Anthony Kosner, a study by the SocialFlow research group showed that, rather than emerging from big liberal enclaves on the American coasts, the initial wave of social media traffic that launched the KONY 2012 video originated in mid-sized, relatively conservative cities in middle America.
