Business decisions are influenced by data. Webtrends Social Measurement, powered by Radian6, is part of the "Open Exchange" agreement to give companies access to information from across the Web. The application provides marketers with insights into conversations and trends across social networks based on company products and services.

Radian6 has built a complete social media monitoring and analysis application that lets companies listen, share, learn and interact with existing and potential customers. Through Webtrends Open Exchange, businesses have a view of how consumers interact with products and services on Web sites, pay-per-click (PPC) and advertising campaigns and direct marketing, as well as the buzz across the social Web.

Jascha Kaykas-Wolff, Webtrends VP of marketing, described "Open Exchange" as a "partnership and philosophy, a method to develop products among partners."

Webtrends and Radian6 are working to release a co-branded data integration product in the next few quarters. The integration will rely on a series of API to access data on blogs, social networks and free Web sites. The agreement is based on the philosophy that much of the accessible data across the Web should remain free.

Webtrends relies on Webtrends Social Measurement, powered by Radium6 internally. A workflow tool built into Webtrend Social Measurement allows the company to monitor tweets in Twitter or mentions on blogs.

For instance, the application identifies the tweet. The community manager on the Webtrends marketing team assigns someone in the organization to respond. "She can call on Eric in engineering to comment on the technical blog post about Webtrends," he said. "We can then track it and make sure the engagement happened."

Three in four adults who go online used social media tools to connect with each other in 2008, compared with 56% in 2007, according to the Forrester Research report "The Growth of Social Technology Adoption."

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