Twitter ( TWTR ) was up 5.81% to $24.39 in after hours trading Friday evening.

The company reached out to San Francisco-based financial advisors Lazard Ltd. to aid in a potential deal, the news service reported Friday.

SAN FRANCISCO – Google it talking with Lazard Ltd to explore a possible Twitter purchase, Bloomberg reports .

The purchase could unlock a trove of data for Alphabet's Google, data that it has been walled off from with the rise of Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat.

The company already partners with Twitter to include tweets in search results. It has also included Twitter in its DoubleClick advertising service.



Former Google executive Omid Kordestani joined Twitter's board as executive chairman last year.



Twitter declined to comment on the rumor. Google did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

Twitter had previously hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to aid it as it explores potential deals, according to reports.

A pioneer in social media, Twitter has stagnated and experienced severe management turmoil recently. Rivals such as Facebook, Instagram,WhatsApp and Messenger and Snapchat have outpaced it in the past few years.

Contributing: Jessica Guynn