Report: Salesforce.com nixing jobs from Radian6 unit

Following the news of major layoffs at Zynga yesterday, it looks like the axe is falling next at Salesforce.com.

Following an initial report on TechVibes, The Business Insider is reporting that it has confirmed the job cuts hit the Radian6 unit, which was acquired by Salesforce in March 2011 for $326 million.

Citing an unnamed source, TechVibes went a step further and specified that most of the layoffs affected those in the marketing and social community departments.

Along with another recent social media-focused acquisition Buddy Media, the two companies have been integrated into the Salesforce empire to form the company's new Marketing Cloud, which debuted at Dreamforce '12 in September.

Marketing Cloud just got even bigger with new partners and features introduced at Cloudforce in New York City last week, so the timing of the layoffs might come across as quite sudden to the public.

We pinged Salesforce.com for comment, and this post will be updated when we hear back.

UPDATE: Salesforce reps responded with the following statement:

With the combination of Radian6 and Buddy Media, the Salesforce Marketing Cloud is the undisputed leader in social marketing and the only suite that allows brands to unify social listening, engagement, advertising and measurement. With the integration of Radian6 and Buddy Media, the Salesforce Marketing Cloud is re-balancing its resources to support its growth, including moving from a hub to a distributed model for certain customer-facing roles, consolidating marketing and dramatically increasing investments in R&D. Fewer than 100 people were impacted globally.