By Allan Maurer

Eric Boggs

DURHAM, NC – The Argyle Co. Inc., which sells social media marketing  software, issued a status update today – it has closed on a $325,000 seed financing, all from NC Research Triangle-based investors.  Eric Boggs, co-founder and CEO  tells us, “We help marketers understand how their content and social media presence correlates to their bottom line.”

The company previously received a $33,000 grant from NC IDEA, which may not be a lot of money, but “It ignited us into action and made a huge difference in terms of product development,” says Boggs.

Boggs and his co-founder, Adam Covati, described on the company web site as someone who can “drink coffee at a mind-boggling clip,” met while they were at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School (where Boggs was a Dean’s Fellow and earned an MBA).

Adam Covati

Both men worked for Bronto Software before taking the entrepreneurial leap.

“I wanted to build or join a startup and when Adam and I got together, we thought we could build a business around an idea he was working on.” They started with a handshake in December, wrote the first lines of code in February.

Boggs, who is among the many Internet entrepreneurs, executives, venture capitalists and thought leaders participating in the upcoming Internet Summit in Raleigh, Nov. 17-18, says the company’s product helps publish content on different platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, blogs and so on. Everything can be done from a single dashboard, a real aid to anyone who has to deal with multiple content updates to multiple platforms daily or often.

Everything driven by measurement

But the key element of Argyle’s product, which is getting good reviews since its launch in April, is “Everything is driven by measurement,” says Boggs. That, he says, means marketers can track the progress of their messages and improve performance over time.

It measures conversions—probably the metric that interests marketers most—but also leads acquired, how many people download something, and more. “The market need we’re trying to address are businesses for whom social is a strategic channel and outcome or metrics driven,” Boggs says. While a lot of companies are using social media in incidental ways to have conversations with customers, others are using it to drive revenue and need more sophisticated tools to measure its effectiveness.

“It’s pretty obvious that social media is here to stay and has changed the way business and brands interact with their customers,” Boggs says. The imperative for many firms to have a blog, Twitter and Facebook accounts is becoming more common, he notes. Even small and medium-sized businesses are using it and want to understand how it impacts different areas of their efforts.

The current version of the Argyle product sells for $149 a month.

Boggs says Argyle Social expects to launch two other products this year, one for agencies and an advanced version, both enhanced versions of the core platform.

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Tags: Adam, Argyle Social, Covaci, Durham, Eric Boggs, facebook, financing, Kenan Flagler, Marketing, measurement, NC, NC IDEA, social media, Twittter, UNC Chapel Hill