Software company Salesforce Inc. announced on Tuesday (Aug. 10) that it will launch Salesforce+, a streaming service with original business-focused content.
Salesforce’s in-house studio has developed and produced the content for Salesforce+, which the company plans to unveil at its annual Dreamforce event in September.
The service, which is meant to be a business media platform, will include live experiences, original series and podcasts, unlike streaming options offered by Walt Disney Co (DIS.N) and Netflix (NFLX.O).
The Salesforce+ content includes “Connections,” a series that features marketers from companies including IBM, Levi’s and GoFundMe, and “The Inflection Point,” a collection of interviews with chief executive officers of brands including Coca-Cola, PayPal and Ford Motor.
Related news: Salesforce Invests $40M In Community Text Platform
In April, Salesforce invested $40 million in Community, the text messaging platform that lets brands and celebrities message consumers and fans, bringing the total amount raised by the company to $90 million, including investments from Live Nation, Twilio, Sound Ventures and the Sony Innovation Fund.
Los Angeles-based Community lets businesses and individuals send group or one-to-one text messages to customers who provide their phone numbers. Community “Leaders” — including brands, businesses, musicians, pop culture figures, politicians and other high-profile people — have sent more than three billion texts to Community’s 26 million-plus members since the company launched in 2019. Notable Community Leaders include Jennifer Lopez, actor Kerry Washington and seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady, along with brands including People magazine and the Pittsburgh Penguins.
The Community platform records 60 percent click-through rates and open rates of 95 percent when Leaders send messages, suggesting “a new trend creating conversations at scale in a more personalized and direct manner.” Leaders enjoy sales, revenue growth and interaction without a slowdown of communication due to algorithms or “the impersonal nature of shortcode texts,” the company says.
And it’s not just celebrities who will be engaging the average American in the next few years, according to a PYMNTS interview last year with Chase Petrey of the customer messaging platform Podium. He sees “an expectation and a growing demand that consumers will be able to message with a local business.”
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