Jeff Bennett's Blog

Omniture has announced a new feature for SiteCatalyst that allows online marketers to measure brand activity on the popular microblogging site Twitter.   This makes Omniture the first online analytic solution to provide actionable insight based on Twitter data.

It has been my perspective that publishers and eCommerce sites should look to the social media ecosystem, just like they look to Google, Yahoo and MSN, as a source of highly valuable organic traffic.  My firsthand experiences are confirming that there are many ways to integrate sites into this ecosystem as a natural extension of the audience.

Forrester backs this point of view with one of their latest research reports.   “Approximately 5 million people use Twitter, a service that lets people — and marketers — send frequent, short updates to their followers. Twitter is uniquely valuable to marketers because it’s more immediate and interactive than any other digital channel.”

Despite the launch and subsequent shuttering of a new Skittles.com, which was a Twitter-based site, Twitter is enabling a rapidly growing group of engaged consumers to communicate about topics and brands.

Omniture customers can import Twitter data into SiteCatalyst, allowing them to answer important questions about their business, such as “who is talking about my brand and whom are we reaching?” The SiteCatalyst integration with Twitter data also enables marketers to take advantage of the SiteCatalyst real-time alert feature, which can be used to send e-mails and SMS messages to mobile devices based on pre-determined criteria, such as a spike in mentions of brand-related terms.

This is evidence of the growing importance of Twitter and the social media ecosystem.