Competition in the content marketing platforms space is about to get a little more interesting.
Today Dynamic Signal, which makes software that enables employee brand advocacy, announced that it had raised $12 million in a Series C funding. A big chunk of that money is going towards acquiring PaperShare, a content marketing and lead generation platform.
Dynamic Signal’s core product is a way for marketers to leverage the social communication powers of all the employees in the company, rather than just the marketing and sales team. The platform enables branded content to be distributed and tracked through employees’ own social channels, with the goal of promoting the brand’s image.
By acquiring PaperShare, Dynamic Signal can now boast a more tangible return for its users, as PaperShare allows not just the distribution of content through digital channels, but the ability to capture leads. It does this by gating the content through social login, recording the social media profile information of the person clicking on it. It also lets marketers turn their branded content into a display ad, which can be embedded in a hover link above text or within the body of a third party article/blog post.
Essentially, Dynamic Signal is coming after platforms such as Percolate and Contently, which also allow businesses to capture leads and sales opportunities through the optimization and distribution of their branded content. Dynamic Signal general manager and co-founder Jim Larrison confirmed the company’s aspirations, saying it was the next step in its evolution from internal management tool to a platform that generates revenue through content.
“With the PaperShare acquisition, we’re getting closer to the 360 degree view of the sales funnel,” says Larrison. “Where we need to develop is how to distribute and measure content, especially to find out what’s interesting to an audience.”
Another advantage PaperShare brings to the table is its integration with social media management platforms such as Adobe Social. If Dynamic Signal’s core strenght before was getting employees to easily promote the brand, now it can focus on developing the best type of content that will increase its chances of getting shared across all audiences.
Although Larrison says we can expect an integration of PaperShare’s lead generating features within Dynamic Signal, for now PaperShare is still available as a standalone product, which will continue to operate independently.
