Social is part of a nexus of disruptive forces transforming the technology landscape. It has become part of the enterprise IT lexicon in part due to the rise of the CMO, who Gartner predicts will spend more on IT by 2017 than CTO’s.

New Corum research presented at a recent World Financial Symposium (WFS) webinar suggests these trends have catalyzed a wave of M&A consolidation with marketing automation providers actively acquiring social capabilities and the social networks themselves adding functionality to increase their relevance to marketers.

In 2012, we counted 45 deals, up from 33 in 2011, involving primarily a social marketing, networking or a related tech target. With 23 transactions already on the books in 2013, we easily expect 50+ social marketing related deals to close this year. For more information, including key valuation metrics, catch the rebroadcast of the WFS event here