Radian6 may provide social media monitoring tools but Salesforce.com has obviously been keeping close tabs on the five-year-old company. Salesforce.com has acquired Radian6 for approximately $276 million in cash and $50 million in stock. The transaction is expected to be completed in Salesforce.com’s fiscal second quarter ending July 31, 2011.

“With Radian6, salesforce.com is gaining the technology and market leader in social media monitoring,” said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO, Salesforce.com, in a statement. “We see this as a huge opportunity. Not only will this acquisition accelerate our growth, it will extend the value of all of our offerings.” 

Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter have earned millions of fans. In fact, Facebook has more than 500 million users, Twitter has more than 175 million users and LinkedIn has more than 100 million. As a result, more and more companies are interested in tracking what’s being said about their brand and products online with social media monitoring tools such as Radian6.

Late last year, TechZone360.com reported on Salesforce.com’s anticipated revenue of about $2 billion in fiscal 2012.

“After taking a decade to achieve our first billion dollar year in fiscal 2009, we believe that our strong growth this year will allow us to deliver approximately $2 billion in revenue in fiscal 2012, making Salesforce.com the first cloud computing company to achieve that milestone,” said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO Salesforce.com, in a press release.

Results for Salesforce.com’s fiscal third quarter include total revenue of $429 million, an increase of 30 percent on a year-over-year basis. Subscription and support revenues reached $403 million, an increase of 31 percent on a year-over-year basis. And professional services and other revenues hit the $26 million mark, an increase of 10 percent on a year-over-year basis.