Brandwatch buys top-influencer analytics firm PeerIndex

Brandwatch, the maker of technology for acquiring social intelligence, has purchased PeerIndex, an analytics firm that finds and measures social influencers.

Above: Giles Palmer, CEO of Brandwatch.

New York-based Brandwatch wants to merge the companies’ technical capabilities for measuring social influencers and the content that makes the biggest splash on social media. This deal means that marketers will be able to identify the most influential people on the Internet, as well as the most impactful content.

The acquisition gives Brandwatch ownership of the world’s largest independent Twitter author database, the companies said. The deal is Brandwatch’s first acquisition. London-based PeerIndex’s Twitter tech and engineering team will be absorbed into Brandwatch’s future development.

Marketers and brand owners use Brandwatch’s tools to see what people are saying about their brands in social media.

“Content without context only goes so far, and we’re telling the world just that with our acquisition of PeerIndex,” said Brandwatch CEO Giles Palmer in a statement. “Understanding more about the actual people behind the conversations happening online is crucial to marketers, and this is about creating technologies that will allow them to target audience segments at scale with astonishing accuracy. ”

The companies say the deal will bring deep targeting and analysis. PeerIndex’s Twitter author database and other tech will be integrated into the Brandwatch content analysis platform. This will allow marketers to make better decisions when it comes to assessing the importance of authors, demographics, and psychographic insights on the market, the companies say.

PeerIndex has data on 300 million author profiles on Twitter. (I had to look myself up, and I’ve got a rating of 70 out of 100 in terms of social influence. Larry King, by comparison, is a 93.)

Azeem Azhar, CEO of London-based PeerIndex, is joining the Brandwatch team to lead a stealth project that combines the companies’ technologies. PeerIndex has a team of 10, while Brandwatch has 300 employees.

Azhar will also play a role as a company product evangelist.

“Brandwatch is an amazing company, and we’re delighted to be teaming up with them,” said Azhar in a statement. “Combining their fantastic commercial platform with our technology insight will bring groundbreaking new products to market.”

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Brandwatch raised $22 million earlier this year and said it grew 100 percent in revenues from 2012 to 2013.