• by April 5, 2011

Visible Technologies, the Bellevue, Wash.-based social media monitoring service, said sales soared 114% in the first quarter following the launch of its new platform, Visible Intelligence, in the final quarter of 2010.

Visible, founded in 2005, is accustomed to rapidly increasing revenues. Inc. magazine cited three-year sales growth of 1,718% when it named Visible to its Top 500 list of the fastest-growing private firms last August.

CEO Kelly Pennock pointed out that spurt had already taken Visible into a comfortable double-digit revenue range. The recent sales jump not only demonstrates "an increase in the demand for social media data insights" but also "the innovative technology we've developed to help brands listen, engage and act" on those insights.

Pennock doesn't see the momentum ending either. He is forecasting a doubling of revenues for the entire year, versus 2010.

Users of the new Visible Intelligence platform include Office Depot and Dyson, plus a bevy of agencies: Carlson Marketing Group, Interpublic's UM, Omnicom's Tribal DDB Worldwide, Dentsu's mcgarrybowen, independent True Worldwide and WPP's London-based CHI & Partners, which said it has been using the platform for social media monitoring and analytics on behalf of Lexus.

Last week, Visible Technologies said it had received an additional $6 million in financing from WPP and other existing funders -- Investor Growth Capital, Joe Grano, Ignition Partners and In-Q-Tel. Its total funding now stands at $45 million.

That announcement came on the heels of news that Salesforce.com was purchasing another social media monitoring firm, Radian6, for $340 million.

For Visible, the $45 million has helped develop a platform that can "continually scale" and "grow just like Google or Yahoo," Pennock told Online Media Daily, as vast amounts of new data enter the social media realm. The platform, according to Pennock, was developed "to help brands listen, engage and act on insights" so that they can "turn relevant social data into actionable business strategy."

UM social media division Rally, for example, enlisted Visible for a custom report on check-in behavior. "The results set benchmarks that helped us design an engagement strategy and execution for our clients in the QSR [quick service restaurant] space," said Erik Rabasca, UM's vice president, social media strategy.

Anush Prabhu, managing director, communications planning and analytics, mcgarrybowen, said Visible has become "one of our windows into tomorrow." It's now critical for agencies to "keep a step ahead" of how "social conservations are changing the ways people consume content."