Social marketing firm Buddy Media is being bought out by Salesforce.com in a $689 million stock and cash deal. The transaction will close Oct. 31 (the end of the third fiscal quarter).

Among its 1,000 customer, Buddy Media includes the companies ofFord, Hewlett-Packard and Mattel. Thanks to its capabilities of sending targeted marketing content through YouTube, LinkedIn and Facebook, Salesforce.com will build on the monitoring technology in social media through its recent Radian6 purchase.

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According to Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff, the Marketing Cloud leadership will enable the company to take advantage of the massive opportunity within the next five years.

The purchase is arriving on the heels of rival Oracle’s buyout of Virtue, who is the competitor to Buddy Media.

Benioff recently said Facebook is the new corporate homepage. He said by bringing in Buddy Media, the customer relationship management applications for sales and services will enable Salesforce.com to provide business with the change to manage the lifestyle of social media through one amalgamated platform.

With the offering, Benioff said, Salesforce.com can construct a big direct sales force that’ll target CMOs. He said CMOs are partnering up with CIOs with some of the CMOs having their own CIOs with the CMO still in charge.

Salesforce.com took a look at all companies in the space before it settled on the social marketing firm. According to Salesforce.com, Buddy and Radian6 have many of the same customers.

Constellation Research CEO Ray Wang said, there are three key use circumstances for social media in CRM - crisis management, marketing and support.

Wang said the reasons are good for the significant disparity in price for both buyouts. He said Buddy Media has a much bigger existence with many advertising agencies liking how the company works in kicking off their campaigns.

Wang said Microsoft, IBM, SAP and Eloqua still need to make a play in the social marketing area. But, he said, there are more than enough vendors for acquisitions. Although, the bad news is, independents may have a rougher time stating their case.

Wang said HootSuite, Sprinklr and Shoutlet are all possible acquisition targets.