i have to admit that i am most of the time lost when it comes to measuring social media. right now, all i can say is that the website which was set-up by http://www.prova.fm/advertising/' rel=”nofollow”>Prova works well. that's it. however, i guess i have to put in more effort to determine which tools work best.

Those who don't understand the overall strategy will be weeded out.

Debate is not a bad word. It's not contention, argument or even disagreement. Debate is healthy, it's respectful, it's a good thing. Our industry needs to debate more.

In re: your tweet about debating ROI, I hope you do not think I am arguing with you because I very much agree with what you are saying in principle. My original comment was initiated out of the interest of clarification (in my mind as much as anything). I enjoy reading your posts and seeing this dialog taking place.

A better comparison (because this get's to the heart of the problem) would be the examples of a company deciding to switch to an all VOIP phone system vs marketing adopting social media.

When looking at VOIP a company would compare the overall cost savings first, then the trade-offs for voice mails forwarded to email and any perceived quality difference second. They aren't looking at support, versus marketing versus general use. It's all one bucket of funding.

When marketing is looking at using social media cost can be an advantage but it shouldn't be the primary driver because then you're just losing resources. If you can show a greater return by using social media than you could using traditional channels you can often make the case for more/better use of resources.

This can be done at a system wide level but the reason you don't see it yet is because social media hasn't been deployed at a whole system level *yet*. We're close but not quite there yet. Hence real examples of ROI (not hypothesis) is usually shown by individual tactics.

Now like VOIP, the best reasons are hybrids. You get cost savings and increased returns. This is where I had the most luck when at HP.

We're still in the early days of phone deployment where only execs and key operational roles had phones.

I think you are close – but still a little off the mark. We may still be in a period of time where some people think that the ROI of social media in general still needs to be determined. However, I think that is based upon lack of knowledge or understanding.

I point to the example you gave in your blog post. Measuring the worth of a Facebook fan can be achieved. Measuring the return on social media as a system cannot. It is the use of the social media and the methods of using it that are measured.

Going back to the examples you gave, I cannot tell you what the ROI is of your corporate phone system but if I capture the data on the usage of the phones by the marketing department staff, I could come up with a metric of the ROI of every inbound or outbound phone call from each person (telephone) in that department.

Media is an environment. If someone is trying to determine the ROI of social media, they will be as successful as if they tried to measure the ROI of sight, hearing, or smelling. You can, however, measure the return of a YouTube video or podcast. Our role is to help leaders and decision makers in organizations know and understand this better and learn how it can be done.

Thanks for sticking your neck out on this one. It is a very pertinent topic.

I guess you trust them to wear pants in meetings, too.