What is Twitter doing to WOM Tracking?

There has been a lot of recent press predicting the demise of Twitter. The stories all basically claim that Twitter lacks holding power. Statistics show that a large proportion of tweeters have no followers, or they are only following one person. In short, they are failing to build their personal network. Sharing San Francisco with Twitter as our home base, I hope the press is wrong.

But, I do have one gripe with Twitter. It has added a layer of complexity and cost to Word-of-Mouth (WOM) Tracking. With the recent growth in Twitter users, the number of mentions per day on the brands we have tracked has skyrocketed. Because most services charge on a “number of mentions basis,” the cost of WOM tracking is increasing. However, the quality of what we receive is not worth the added cost. Due to Twitter’s 140 character limitation, it is hard to put a brand name in context when it shows up in a tweet. It’s not impossible, but it takes a lot of interpretation.

I know this is a researcher’s problem, and it will be resolved. I imagine tracking services will start allow Twitterless tracking. Or they may charge a reduced fee for the Twitter mentions. It has taken a lot of effort to convince companies that they must do WOM tracking. I just hope this short term, Twitter driven added cost doesn’t scare them away.