Around 36 hours ago, our client Alterian Plc announced to the market that it had acquired Intrepid Inc (by the way, if you look at there homepage, I love that fish). In the meantime, there’s been plenty of buzz about the news on social networks, including of course Twitter and Facebook, as the news spread. Which is sweet irony, given that Alterian’s latest move only strengthens its position as a key player in the social media marketing technology (and now services) space.

So what does Intrepid bring to the mix? Well, they are an international social media analytics and market research consultancy, with offices in the US, UK and Asia Pacific. In an email to Alterian’s customers, David Eldridge CEO, said “In the social media space where staff with the appropriate skills are rare, we are seeing growing demand from clients to provide packaged solutions around SM2. The acquisition of Intrepid means we are now able to offer these packaged solutions, ranging from social media analysis reports generated from SM2 around particular questions or topics to custom social media dashboards and consulting projects.”

So businesses are clearly looking for the full package – and they want quality.  And from what we can see of both companies, they’re going to get it.

We were thrilled to be involved in the making of the videos which helped to announce this acquisition to the market, to customers, to partners and to Alterian and Intrepid employees. This had to be done over the last two weeks under strict secrecy (due to stockmarket rules), but in the end Alterian was able to make the announcement with a full social marketing release, including high end videos, to get greatest impact.  Of course, all of the traditional releases were also made.  But imagine the impact of announcing something like this using an holistic approach which includes video …

So the big question is, what happened to the share price? Well, I just took a look on Digital Look, and week on week, Alterian’s share price is up 10.7%.  This increase represents about a third of the share price growth in the last 12 months.  The same website is recommending Alterian as a “strong buy”.

You can see the announcement video as it appeared on the Alterian website, here. This was one of five we created for different audiences.

So, the market clearly liked the announcement and the acquisition.  I have a sneaking suspicion that Alterian’s clients will be pleased too …

Watch this space.