Report: Twitter Planning Analytics Tools For Publishers

Hot on the heels of last week’s rumors that Twitter will expand its enhanced business profiles soon comes a report that Twitter is also prepping some analytics tools for launch later this year.

As ReadWriteWeb first reported, Twitter’s Erica Anderson, the company’s Manager of News and Journalism, said this weekend that Twitter is planning to launch analytics tools to help publishers monitor activity surrounding their tweets. What’s not clear is if the tools would be limited to news/publishers, or made available to all users. (Analytics are high on my Twitter wishlist for 2012.)

Twitter could be developing these tools with technology (and staff) acquired last year when Twitter bought Backtype. That company’s Backtweets product helped publishers understand several data points related to how tweets spread and how they relate to web traffic, sales, etc.

During her presentation, Anderson showed how Twitter is already using internal tools to do things like rank U.S. federal agencies based on how well they interact on Twitter. She recommended that the journalists in the audience use Tweetdeck for making and monitoring Twitter lists, and also use Twitter’s search and advanced search tools.

Anderson’s presentation is available online. She begins speaking at the 15:45 mark, and the brief comments about analytics for publishers come at about the 1:10:30 mark.