Using Metrics in Strategy and the De-Evolution of Using the Social Web

This academic year, I find my personal use of social media to be declining. I'm attributing this trend to my increased use of social media for professional and academic work. In all honesty, it's no fun when you *have* to use it and you're attempting to use it for specific or (worse) unspecified purposes. My marketing project, which will rely a lot on the social web, has taken over my daily thoughts to the point that I'm no longer wasting time on the web surfing. And if I do find myself taking that odd break, I'm not as inclined to share what I'm reading with my personal network. In a way, that would be creating yet another obligation on my to-do list. The obligation would be to respond or discuss what I'm posting with anyone who has a reaction to it. Of course, I'm still posting but not to the extent that I was last year. I'm also more interested in using the web for research over entertainment. I've definitely got some goals to meet and find that there is always more and more avenues that I have not fully vetted.

Happily, I just got a book in the mail for my winter break "fun" reading, which is on Social Media Metrics (actually that's the title).  I've been engaging social media for a while now and wish there were more information on how to measure one's impact or success. So far, after cracking open the first few pages in the book, I'm delighted to see a list of 100 ways to measure social media. There were many that I had not thought of or considered. The book also frames metrics for social media as a way to meet social media strategy goals. Goals like, "increase web presence" are a bit too broad and this is an issue I've run into while working on strategy for a local start-up. Social media goals should be in line with your concrete business goals, which could include things like:

• increase revenue
• lower costs
• increase customer satisfaction

Ask yourself every day, "is our strategy leading us to acheiving these goals?" I've read on several blogs that there is no way to measure social media ROI and that anyone who claims they can, is selling snake-oil.  Well, I hope to find out more about this and implement it over the break. I'm sold on the importance of social media. But now, I want to see how well I am using it. Why can't personal pages on FB have stats like they on other pages?