The recent weeks have seen stronger emergence of Social Media Analytics. With the acquisition of Radian 6, Coremetrics; with deeper and stronger solution offerings from Clarabridge and Attensity, the growing interest in Textual Processing engine from Forest Rim have clearly shown the evidence of the same. Why is this a popular topic? reason being it provides companies a true indication of where they stand in the eyes of their best ambassadors i.e their customers. This metric provides them direct feedback and enables them to take corrective actions.

Another important focus of Social Media analytics is the emerging measurement of the long tail and the volume of customers that drive the long tail. There are several organizations that have seen the benefit of the long tail; even President Obama saw evidence of this in his fund raising during the elections of 2009.

Crowdsourcing of ideas and opinions have been a trendsetter for B2C companies. This saves  the companies a lot of money and provides "agile" techniques to manufacture and sell products or services. Measuring these crowds and their influence provides a baseline for the companies to achieve better in every iteration.

Measuring Social Media will emerge as the key BI trend for this year. Let's watch