Kimberly-Clark will likely add more online communities, and the ability to analyze their data, for its other corporate brands.
The WebTrends warehouse became generally available late last month.
John Lovett, a senior analyst at JupiterResearch, a unit of Forrester Research, said that companies like Kimberly-Clark can't afford to ignore information that may be spreading through the Web 2.0 landscape of company-hosted blogs and social networks.
"The rise of user-generated content has really forced brands to [seek a way] to monitor what consumers are saying about them across all the pages of the Web," Lovett said. "The ability to measure those comments and what is happening with the brand has become an important part of ensuring the integrity of the brand."
Lovett did say that while his research shows that 88 percent of companies with revenue greater than US$50 million use Web analytics tools, he believes that most are still simply collecting data as more new tools start becoming available.
Nonetheless, several vendors are moving quickly to meet what they expect will be growing corporate demand for Web 2.0 analytics tools that can be used to boost business.
For example, Omniture and Lithium Technologies in September joined forces to link their products to provide corporate customers with what they called a holistic view of user behavior across multiple Web properties, including online communities.
Omniture, a Web analytics vendor, and Lithium, a social media platform supplier, said that the integrated offering will help businesses capture social data from customer-facing blogs and forums and then integrate that information with other pertinent company online data.
The vendors said that joining of the Omniture and Lithium tools has already benefited Sprint Nextel's use of data compiled from its BuzzAboutWireless.com online community for wireless device users.
BuzzAboutWireless, based on Lithium's platform, now uses Omniture analytics to better measure the impact of social media on business drivers like customer acquisition, Omniture said.
And DemandBase in August launched DemandBase Stream, a free desktop widget that can be used to identify visitors to a corporate Web site. When a company or organization visits a corporate site, the DemandBase tool streams the identity across the bottom of desktops used by Web site operators, noted DemandBase CEO Chris Golec.
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