News is spreading like "Wildfire" that Google is all set to galvanize its social media presence. Google Inc. said on Tuesday July 30, that it had acquired Wildfire, a start-up social marketing firm. The acquisition is expected to help Google boost its presence in the social media market.

Wildfire Interactive Inc. was started four years ago and is based in Redwood City, California. The start-up firm helps marketers attain their targets via ad campaigns on social media sites like Facebook, Google+, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest etc. Since its inception, Wildfire has grown to 400 employees and serves 16,000 customers. The firm's impressive customer portfolio boasts of names like PepsiCo Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc.

In a blog post, founders Victoria Ransom and Alain Chuard said that "We believe that over time the combination of Wildfire and Google can lead to a better platform for managing all digital media marketing."

The terms of purchase were not disclosed; however, according to several unnamed sources and blogs Google acquired the firm for close to $250 million.

On its official blog, Google wrote that it was thrilled with its acquisition of a "platform for brands to manage their pages, apps, tweets, videos, sponsorships, ads, promotions and more, all in one place.'

Google went on to say that "With Wildfire, we're looking forward to creating new opportunities for our clients to engage with people across all social services. We believe that better content and more seamless solutions will help unlock the full potential of the web for people and businesses."

Brands that are looking to run contests, games, sweepstakes et al on Google+ can now do so without any hiccups as the acquisition enables Google to provide advanced software and services. Meanwhile, Wildfire continues to remain the marketing tool for brands on Google's competing platforms. This scenario puts Google in a catch 22 situation; whereby, the company's Google+ competes with Facebook for higher traffic, but at the same time Google hope for its rivals success as that would result in monetary gain.

Many would remember that Google had bid on Buddy Media but lost the deal to Salesforce. With Oracle buying other social marketing leaders Vitrue and Involver, Google's top-tier options in the space got limited to the last man standing, namely Wildfire.

Google may have purchased one of Facebook's biggest marketing partner, but is yet to make inroads into the social space. Wildfire offers ad buying via its partnership with start-up Adaptly, which offers a gamut of services: social app and contest development, social monitoring, page management etc. Wildfire asserted that its operation will not see major changes.

"We remain focused on helping brands run and measure their social engagement and ad campaigns across the entire web and across all social services - Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, Pinterest, LinkedIn and more - and to deliver rich and satisfying experiences for their consumers. To this end, Wildfire will operate as usual, and there will be no changes to our service and support for our customers," the blog post read.

With Google averring that "the ultimate goal is better and fresher content, and more meaningful interactions," it remains to be seen how the partnership will unfold. Whether Google will ultimately reap benefits courtesy Wildfire and establish social media presence is a big question mark.