By a neat coincidence as I was looking at ways to market a new music app I came across the news that leading social referral tool Extole has just raised $10m in funding. That doesn’t surprise me as their product makes a lot of sense, as underlined in VentureBeat’s report:

“Nearly every company has a social presence these days, but personal recommendations are often a more powerful way to boost sales. If you’ve never heard about a company before, but your friend has, you’ll likely trust her opinion over that of a complete stranger. But keeping track of how much customer referrals really help your business can be hard, so Extole has created a way to track word-of-mouth marketing.

“The service seeks to find and tend to customer advocates, people who rally around and talk up their favorite brands and get rewards for doing so. Extole not only provides tools for clients to market themselves, it also advises its clients on how to use its services, achieve certain goals, and gain brand ambassadors.”

You can measure and budget carefully, and in return receive qualified referrals who thanks to the social nature of the acquisition (at least in theory) are also more likely to stay loyal customers compared with more classic tools like Facebook advertising, despite its granular targeting merits. Enough talk, take a look at my SlideShare I put together for virtual card provider Entropay a couple of months back.