• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, March 6, 2009

Omniture SiteCatalyst now integrates with Twitter to let online marketers monitor and measure tweets. The feature lets marketers import data from Twitter feeds through an Omniture Genesis API into Omniture SiteCatalyst. It tracks preset keywords to monitor who is talking about their brand.

The SiteCatalyst feature also helps identify brand advocates and cynics. Product managers can pinpoint important feature requests and recommendations from loyal followers that can help plan product roadmaps, as well as monitor the chatter about rival brands. A blog post on Omniture's site provides instructions on integrating the tool.

At a recent Omniture Summit, the telecom firm Comcast talked about being able to identify brand allies and foes, according to Matt Langie, senior director of product marketing, Omniture. Through the Tweets, marketers can really learn what customers are thinking, he said. "You learn things like 'I really wish they had feature C because it would make it so much easier to use,' for example," he said.

These are the kind of things that typically marketers hear anecdotally, Langie said. Now, you can read them directly into Omniture from Tweeter feeds.

According to Forrester, nearly 5 million people use Twitter, where users send frequent, short updates to followers. Many of the followers look to tie themselves to the brand by joining in on the conversation.

The SiteCatalyst integration with Twitter enables marketers to take advantage of a real-time alert feature to send emails and SMS messages to mobile devices based on pre-determined criteria, such as a spike in mentions of brand-related terms. The tool also offers a feature that classifies Twitter users into marketing segments such as customers, vendors and employees.

The brand-related alerts allow marketers to create an unlimited number of keyword reports that scan full "tweet" text and route relevant "tweets" to corporate employees based upon specific keywords of interest to them. Product managers simply specify the specific terms of interest and receive reports containing all "tweets" mentioning their brand and those keywords without having to manually monitor the Twitter service.

For example, Omniture product managers can get tweet reports on SiteCatalyst, Discover or any one of a dozen products, Langie said. Automating the process saves marketers time and allows them to receive relevant information as needed.