Last week, Seismic announced the acquisition of social selling platform Grapevine6 and immediately launched LiveSocial. Grapevine6 targets professional and financial services companies, including wealth management, insurance, and banking.  It supports four of the top five North American wealth management firms.  Financial services customers include TIAA, Merrill, and Wells Fargo. 

Professional Services firms use Grapevine6 to amplify their thought leadership and share “authoritative content.”

Seismic and Grapevine have a background in “meeting the needs of the financial services market with industry-leading compliance technology,” said Grapevine6 CEO Mike Orr.

LiveSocial employs Proofpoint and SafeGuard Cyber integrations “to meet the varying security, compliance, and archiving needs of each of our clients.” Every share is checked for regulatory and company policy compliance.  LiveSocial also archives “contextual information, including remediation workflow and content classification, which saves you time and money during an audit.”

Grapevine6 also sells into the technology sector and “is the largest social selling program at SAP.”  

“Social media has transformed the buyer’s journey.  Savvy buyers now use social media to not only gather information and connect with peers but also to research the sales professionals and advisors they’re partnering with.  The current sea change to digital communication is an opportunity to better serve customers by enabling salespeople to humanize relationships with personal stories — the true promise of digital selling. Partnering with Seismic over the past few years in creating a content ecosystem, we realized how aligned we are in our vision for digital selling and that an acquisition created a win-win for all Grapevine6 and Seismic customers.”

Grapevine6 CEO Mike Orr

LiveSocial is a mobile-first platform available on iOS and Android devices as well as desktops.  Employees may share content on social channels, SMS, and email.  Other features include “one-touch” sharing and scheduling, automatic scheduling optimization, and AI-suggested comment starters that “receive 32% more engagement.”

Grapevine6 supports leading email platforms as well as client email platforms. It integrates natively with SFDC Marketing Cloud and MS Outlook.  

LiveSocial pricing details were not disclosed.

The full Grapevine6 team is joining Seismic, with Orr heading up the LiveSocial team.  LinkedIn lists 97 Grapevine6 employees, with 67% headcount growth over the past year and 169% over the past two.  The firm maintained steady hiring throughout the pandemic.

No financial terms were disclosed.