Social media has fundamentally altered the practice of public relations. And as any blogger can tell you, PR pros understand this, as witnessed by the incredible increase in blogger outreach “pitches” from corporate PR departments and firms over the past two years.

Of course, there’s more to (successful) blogger outreach than just pitching, and there’s more to the new practice of social PR than just blogger outreach. Like what? Read on to learn how social media is changing PR, how pitching bloggers is different from traditional media outreach, how to optimize press releases for search and online distribution, which tools should be in your social PR toolbox and more here in some of the best articles and blog posts on social PR of 2010 so far.

Will Traditional, Social Media Blend? by MediaPost Marketing Daily Commentary

Writing that “The most productive PR path…is a blended approach to social and traditional media,” Len Stein offers a quick but valuable process for obtaining and promoting old and new media coverage using multiple tools like social bookmarking sites, internal company distribution, your own website, marketing emails and more.

Pros & Cons of Applying Social Media to Traditional PR Campaigns by Howell Marketing Strategies

Amy Howell makes the case that “social media DOES NOT REPLACE traditional PR and marketing, but IT IS A WAY TO LEVERAGE what already works” through a series of pro and cons of applying social media stragies in a traditional business environment. For example, “PRO: Twitter gives us a great way to leverage PR.  When we help clients generate news in the traditional news publications–both print and online–we will use Twitter to post links to those stories and give our clients a “shout out.” CON: It takes time to post all client news, especially when you have multiple clients (frequently) in the news…(but) It’s worth the extra time and effort and adds extra value on top of what’s already successful.”

How Is PR Changing? by Journalistics

Jeremy Porter writes a thoughtful piece on what hasn’t changed in PR (the need to communicate to and manage relationships with various audiences) and what has (dialog rather than monologue, metrics and measurement technology, the media landscape, etc.), and what PR pros need to do differently to succeed in this new environment.

Trail of Breadcrumbs by PR-Squared

***** 5 stars
Quoting a recent study from Cision and George Washington University, Todd Defren reports that “an overwhelming majority of reporters and editors now depend on social media sources when researching their stories. Specifically, 89% said they turn to blogs for story research, 65% to social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, and 52% to microblogging services such as Twitter.” In light of this, Todd views the PR pro’s role as “casting breadcrumbs” through social media for journalists and consumers/buyers to follow back to the PR sources.

Social Media, PR, and the Shape of Things to Come by CIO Zone

Michael Neubarth reacts to a PR Week piece in which Scott Monty details three ways in which PR pros have the opportunity to “shape social media’s future.” After reviewing these three areas, Michael contends that, “In the big picture, it is social media that is shaping the practice of PR more than PR is shaping social media.”

How PR Pros Are Using Social Media for Real Results by Mashable

Christina Warren takes “a look at how PR professionals are using social media (such as driving authenticity ad building brand loyalty) to achieve real results when dealing with business-to-business relationships…(and) some of the tools of the trade that PR pros are using to measure the success of their endeavors.” Among the tools noted are Omniture (web and social media analytics), Eloqua (marketing automation / demand generation software) and Twitalyzer (Twitter-specific measurement).

How to Reach Out to Bloggers by Chris Brogan

“Are you hoping to connect with bloggers and get the word out about your product or service?” If so, social media guru Chris Brogan has several helpful tips to make your outreach more successful, such as “Be there before the sale…If you want people to write about you, they should probably know about you first,” or what I term “warm outreach” (as opposed to cold outreach, where the first the blogger ever hears of you is your pitch).

SESNY: 5 Tips To Optimize Press Releases For Search by TopRank Online Marketing Blog

Adam Singer summarizes guidance from Meg Walker of PRWeb on how to search optimize press releases. Her advice includes knowing your audience (so you’re using the right keywords and story angle), incorporating images and video, and optimizing content elements like text links and image alt- tags.

The Top Free Press Release Distribution Sites by BigNews.biz

***** 5 stars
An outstanding list of the top 15 free PR distribution sites based on five criteria: Page Rank, distribution to Google News, Alexa traffic rank, cost of optional services, and rejection rate.

10 Free Social Media Tools Every PR Pro Should Master by Social Media Today

Adam Vincenzini reviews 10 tools that he believes “MUST be part of a modern communicator’s arsenal” including AllTop (for finding the most influential bloggers in any space), Social Mention (social media monitoring tool) and SWiX (an interesting tool though it appears to be no longer free).

10 More Online Tools Every PR Pro Should Master (Part Two) by Social Media Today

Building on his post above, Adam reviews 10 more key tools for PR pros including Addictomatic (social media dashboard), HootSuite (social media management platform) and Twitter Advanced Search, as well as a few worthy but less-known apps.

Okay, so you understand the benefits of business blogs, and you’re ready to make the commitment to developing and maintaining a blog for the long haul. The next question is: where should I put the blog?

There are five common options:

Free hosting on a blogging platform site. The URL would look something like mycompanyblog.wordpress.com or mycompanyblog.blogspot.com. This option should never be used for a corporate or business blog. Free blogging platforms are fine for hosting personal blogs where there is no justification for spending money and no expectation of generating any business leads, sales or income. For business however, such platforms are an unprofessional setting, offer limited functionality, and provide very little SEO benefit.

Hosting on a corporate website using the site’s CMS tool. Many corporate websites are built on content management system (CMS) platforms such as Joomla, Drupal or DotNetNuke. These and several other open source and commercial CMS platforms offer built-in blog creation functionality. The advantages of this approach are:

• • All SEO authority (via inbound links) accrues to your corporate website, because the blog is just another section of the site. This is valuable because blog posts are often more effective “link bait” than typical website copy (“About Us,” product/service descriptions, etc.).
• • Your internal (or agency) staff, who may at different times write content for both the company blog and corporate website, have only one content creation tool to learn.
• • The blog has the same “look and feel” as the rest of the site, supporting corporate branding.
• • Whether viewing the blog or regular product/service content, visitors never leave your site.
• • Most CMS plaforms will easily accommodate multiple-author corporate blogs. They can also support multiple blogs (e.g. a widget industry blog and a widget maintenance blog)—though the common look/feel and top-level domain name make it difficult to clearly separate these.

The primary disadvantages of the CMS approach are that the blog is very clearly “the corporate blog”—it has no independence or personality of its own—and that CMS tools often lack the rich functionality and plugins that blogging platforms such as WordPress offer (e.g. subscribe to posts by email, quick polls, automatic XML sitemap maintenance, etc.).

Hosting on an existing corporate site using WordPress. This option assumes that your corporate website is built in something other than WordPress (e.g. on an open source, commercial or proprietary web CMS platform), and that you’ll be installing WordPress just to power the blog. This approach shares many of the advantages of using the underlying CMS to build the blog (SEO links, visitor are kept on the site, multi-author blogs are supported) and does away with some of the shortcomings: first, since the blog template is separate from the website template, it’s easy to give the blog its own personality, consistent with but separate from the rest of the corporate site. Second, unlike most CMS platforms, WordPress has an active developer community contributing special-purpose plugins to continually expand and enhance its functionality.

However, this approach has its own drawbacks. For one, it requires installation and setup of the WordPress blogging and MySQL database management software–not a terribly difficult task, but not one for technophobic to be sure. Where this really becomes complicated is in a multi-blog scenario (again, such as separate industry news and technical / how-to blogs), since each blog requires its own WordPress and MySQL installation. For another, functions that are often provided seamlessly by a dedicated WordPress host (see the separate blog and website hosting option below), such as nightly database backups and WordPress version upgrades, have to configured separately for a self-hosted WordPress installation. In other words, you’ll definitely need knowledgeable IT support for this option.

Hosting both a blog and website on WordPress. This is definitely an option to consider if you are just developing the website for a new organization or rebuilding the website for an existing enterprise. It offers all of the advantages of a WordPress blog while giving IT only a single platform to manage and users only a single CMS tool to learn. Though originally developed as a blogging platform, WordPress has evolved over the years into a respectably capable full CMS option for relatively small, simple websites–with or without a blog.

The downside is that WordPress isn’t suitable for large, complex websites or those requiring customer web application functionality, at least not without some highly involved development effort. For midsize to large enterprise sites, or even smaller company sites requiring specialized functionality, it’s often simpler to develop the non-blog portions of the website using another tool and treating the blog separately. Which brings us to the final option:

Separate blog and website hosting. With this alternative, a blog is treated completely separately from the main company website development platform, hosting arrangements and underlying technology. Regardless of how or where the main website is hosted, the blog is generally hosted with a dedicated WordPress host such as HostGator, Bluehost or JustHost. (Disclosure: I do use JustHost for my personal blog hosting, but I have absolutely no financial relationship with any of these companies.) The advantages of this approach are:

• • The blog can not only have its own “personality” separate from the corporate website, but even its own search-friendly domain name (e.g. widget-industry-news.com).
• • Related to the point above, your company can potentially get an extra spot on the first page of the search engines for specific core search terms. The search engines will generally display any specific website no more than twice (e.g. the home page and one interior page) on the first page of search results. Having a related blog with a separate top-level domain name gives you the opportunity to snare a third spot on the home page for certain search phrases very closely aligned with your business.
• • The blog can easily have its own look and feel, carrying over selected elements of corporate branding (e.g. colors, logo) without having exactly the same look and navigation structure.
• • There’s no burden on the corporate IT group. Setup is easy and maintenance is usually handled automatically by the host for a nominal annual fee. This frees your IT group to focus on more important things, and it means you don’t have to wait for or rely on IT to install new features, add authors, add new pages or perform pretty much any other function on the blog.
• • Authors can write blog posts, add comments, install or update plugins, and perform virtually any other function on the blog from any Internet connection. This may or not be true for your corporate website, depending on the platform used and security settings. In large companies (and many midsized organizations as well), a VPN connection or other software is often needed for corporate site editing access.
• • Separate hosting supports both a single blog with multiple authors and multi-blog scenarios. Managing multiple external blogs will increase costs (though many hosts offer discounts for multi-site hosting packages) but also provide more opportunity for search presence (e.g. in addition to your corporate site, you may own blogs like widget-industry-news.com, widget-maintenance-tips.com, etc.).

Disadvantages:

• • You’ll incur extra hosting and domain name registration fees, generally running $80-120 per year per blog. That’s not a huge outlay, but something to consider.
• • Your SEO authority will be split, with one set of links pointing to your corporate website and a different set pointing to your blog.

In the final analysis, there is no single perfect answer for all organizations to the question posed in the title of this post. There are benefits and drawbacks to each approach. The best advice is: consider the specifics of your situation and relative advantages and disadvantages of each approach before deciding on the optimal hosting arrangement for your blog.

Other helpful information on this topic:

Location? Location? Location? by SEO Inc Blog

Business Blog: separate domain or on your website by Better Business Blogging

Blog: On Site vs. Off Site – SEO Advantages by WebProWorld (forum)

Facebook is an extraordinary phenomenon. Depending on the day, it’s either the #1 or #2 most-visited site on the web. It’s inspired a movie. It has half a billion adherents. And it’s become an imperative point of presence for businesses (or has it?).

Whether you’re anxious to get started marketing on Facebook, already there but looking for better results, or not sure if Facebook is right for your company (despite the eye-popping audience numbers), you’ll find guidance here in some of the best posts on Facebook marketing so far in 2010: tips, tactics and best practices for building Facebook pages, growing your fan (or “like”) base, advertising, optimizing for search, using Facebook apps and tools, and more, from experts like Mari Smith, Lisa Barone, Ching Ya, John Haydon, Brian Carter, Marty Weintraub and Shel Holtz. Also included are a few posts from Facebook proponents, and skeptics, to help you determine if you even really need to be concerned with any of this — or if your social media marketing efforts might be best directed elsewhere.

Facebook Marketing Tips and Tactics

How to set up a Facebook fan page that works by Direct Creative Blog

Dean Rieck shares his top 10 tips for creating a managing a successful business Facebook page, from using FBML to create a landing page to promoting your page through email and your company blog.

How to Better Engage Facebook Fan Page ‘Fans’ by Social Media Examiner

As Mari Smith explains, “There are two primary components to Facebook fan page engagement: 1) Sharing quality, relevant content and 2) inciting comments. In this article I’ll tell you how to best engage with Facebook fans.”  Tactics include tying your post frequency to number of fans, creating an editorial calendar and varying the types of content posted.

Facebook Marketing Tips: Make the Most of Your Fan Page by TopRank Online Marketing Blog

Michelle Bowles offers five tips for “making the most of your fan page” such as keeping content fresh, encouraging interaction and offering discounts, promotions or information not available anywhere else.

How to Create a Campaign to Get More Facebook Followers by Proimpact7

Jan Petrovic presents a case study on how Lands’ End used a creative incentive campaign to draw 25,000 additional fans to its page.

5 Fantastic Facebook Fan Page Ideas to Learn From by OPEN Forum

Matt Silverman shares five examples of brands stretching the boundaries of Facebook to provide a unique experience including Baby Gap and Adidas.

10 Secrets of a Winning Facebook Fan Page by Palmer Web Marketing

Justin Palmer suggests 10 “must-do’s” for Facebook marketing success, like responding to every comment, strategically timing your updates and leveraging your fans to attract more fans.

10 Secrets To Creating Your Brand’s Facebook Presence by All Facebook

In another “10 secrets” post, Christopher Parr shares his tips for brand success on Facebook, such as talking like a friend (not a company), adding value through content, and doing some housekeeping (e.g. keeping your page free of “clutter, profanity, and MafiaWars spammy links”).

Creating Facebook Pages Customers Will Want To Join by Outspoken Media

Opening up with “most fan pages ARE vomit-inducing…but it doesn’t have to be that way!,” the prolific Lisa Barone details four ways to make your customers and prospects on Facebook feel like they are part of something — not just following a self-promoting brand.

9 Ways to Enhance Your Facebook Fan Page by Social Media Examiner

Noting that “Facebook fan pages number among the few social media channels that allow page customization for users,” Ching Ya shares nine great ideas for creating a unique and vibrant Facebook presence. An excellent “what to do” post though a bit light on the “how.”

10 Ways to Grow Your Facebook Page Following by Social Media Examiner

In the sequel to her post above, Ching Ya provides recommendations such as rewarding loyal supporters, leveraging your other social networks and integrating Facebook social plugins with your website in order to build a Facebook fan base.

10 Ways to Create a More Engaging Facebook Page by TopRank Online Marketing Blog

“The average user is connected to 60 pages, groups and events. This means that aside from all the other Facebook friend activity that goes on, your page is one of 60 trying to grab attention a fan’s attention.” How do you do it? This post offers 10 helpful ideas such as using a custom landing page, tagging fans in photos, using contests, and most importantly – persevering.

Facebook’s new functions (and how to leverage them) by iMedia Connection

Doug Akin previews six new features (as of May 2010) in Facebook that enable brands to expand the functionality and engagement potential of their Facebook pages. “If you only look at Facebook as a place to have a fan page, you are missing the greater offering and will likely be sitting on the sidelines when the future arrives.”

The Changing Face of Facebook Marketing – 5 Things you MUST Know by Social Media Today

Shama Hyder writes that “It seems like every day we wake up, Facebook has implemented a new policy or added a new dimension overnight.” Hell for companies and users, heaven for Facebook consultants. But given this environment, Shama outlines the “top five things you need to know about Facebook marketing” about fan pages, ecommerce, ads, apps and other subjects.

Facebook Tabs: What They Are & How to Use Them by ReadWriteWeb

In yet another post about keeping up with Facebook’s continual interface and function changes, Richard MacManus explains the difference between application tabs and boxes, why Facebook made this change, and how to effectively add and use tabs.

11 ways to promote your Facebook Page outside Facebook by John Haydon

Since, and John Haydon notes here, “Most likely, your current presence is much bigger outside of Facebook – especially if your Page is new,” you may want to take advantage of some of the ideas here to promote your Facebook presence elsewhere, such as adding your Facebook page link to your email template, answering webinar follow-up questions on your Facebook wall, and placing a LikeBox on your website.

13 Facebook Page features that will make your day by Socialbrite

***** 5 stars
It’s John Haydon again, this time in video form, answering 13 common yet vexing questions about Facebook like how to edit your thumbnail, how to set up a custom view for new visitors, and how to easily create a custom URL for your Facebook page.

4 Tips for B2B Marketing on Facebook by Mashable

While acknowledging that Facebook may have limited use in b2b marketing, Leyl Master Black nevertheless offers “tips for creating a powerful presence on Facebook that will engage a business audience” such as becoming an industry resource by sharing blog and webinar content, expanding beyond your wall using ecommerce or lead generation promotions, and “lightening up” through the use of humor, quizzes and polls.

Facebook Marketing: Ultimate Guide by SEOmoz

***** 5 stars
Tim Soulo has compiled a fantastic guide filled with best practices and tips for Facebook marketing success, starting with setting up the profile of your “brand ambassador” and progressing through your creating your avatar and adding applications, and ending with using other social media services to promote your presence on Facebook.

Facebook 101 for Business: Your Complete Guide by Social Media Examiner

***** 5 stars
Mari Smith ambitiously provides a “comprehensive guide to using Facebook” from setting up your profile (including Facebook’s mysterious and frequently-changing privacy settings) to making Friend lists to a six-step for building a Facebook business page.

Facebook Advertising

Pay Per Face: 52 Facebook Advertising Tips & Best Practices by Search Engine Journal

Brian Carter uses this post along with a white paper and video to share more than four dozen tips and best practices for Facebook advertising, which he describes as a combination of “AdWords’ copywriting and analytics with image-oriented linkbait.” Among his tips: use CPM bidding, change ads frequently, and “Always test multiple ads. Always. Always.”

10 Tips for Advertising on Facebook by PPC Hero

Christine Laubenstein recommends getting familiar with Facebook’s advertising guidelines, understanding the different ways to target users, and using Facebook’s bid estimator to help you set your bid before diving into advertising on Facebook.

Facebook SEO

How To Rank #1 In Facebook Search In 60 Seconds For Any Term by All Facebook

***** 5 stars
Dennis Yu provides an outstanding tutorial on how Facebook search works, what factors are most important, what to do (and what not to do) to rank highly in Facebook search, and what changes are likely coming to the search algorithm.

Facebook SEO Ranking Factors, 2010 Study Results by aimClear

Marty Weintraub explains, in exhaustive detail, the top ranking factors for “Suggest,” All Results, Pages, Groups, Apps and more. His aside on the Adult Filter in Facebook is NOT safe for work but is quite amusing in a completely inappropriate way.

Facebook Apps and Tools

15 Applications For A Better Facebook Fan Page by Interactive Online

Lucas Cobb lists his favorite tools for boosting the popularity of your brand’s Facebook presence including Static FBML, SlideShare, Reviews and Notes.

12 Applications to Make Your Facebook Page More Engaging by Social Media Today

Sarah Hartshorn recommends Twitter for Pages, Page Maps, Eventbrite and other apps to help “dress up your Page and make it more interesting and fun for your ‘likers’.”

How to Customize Your Facebook Page Using Static FBML by Social Media Examiner

***** 5 stars
As Nick Shin notes, “Maybe you’ve seen those really attractive Facebook pages and wondered, ‘How’d they do that?’” The answer is frequently Static FBML, a uniquely powerful and popular Twitter app, and in this helpful post, Nick walks through how to use it to achieve a variety of effects and accomplish different tasks.

How To Get Traffic from Facebook Social Plugins by Daily Blog Tips

Chris Webb explains how to use the Like Button (for blogs) and Like Box (for Facebook pages) to generate more Facebook traffic.

15 Simple Ways to Integrate Facebook into Your Website by appstorm

Contending that “There are umpteen number of ways to plug websites of any shape & kind into Facebook thereby nurturing a community, encouraging conversations, improving user engagement and increasing page views,” Justin Stravarius presents 15 such options including the Like Box, Echo, Fotobook and Facebook Connect Wizard.

Facebook Marketing Strategy

Ensuring A Successful Corporate Facebook Presence by MediaPost Online Media Daily

Aaron Strout presents what he terms the “four golden rules of creating a successful Facebook presence,” and supports these using Dunkin’ Donuts as an example of Facebook marketing success.

Six questions to ask before launching a Facebook fan page by a shel of my former self

The legendary Shel Holtz proposes half a dozen questions companies should ask before plunging into Facebook in order to avoid looking “lame and clueless to all but the least sophisticated Facebook users.”

Facebook Fans

Why You Can Say Facebook Is Worth $35 Billion With A Straight Face by Business Insider

Jay Yarow uses the theory of cognitive dissonance to explain why “Facebook pages are the best ads in social media.” Facebook pages are ranked against six other ad types such as banners, enewsletters and widgets based on their effects in driving recommendations and purchases.

Facebook Facts The Numbers Are Insane! by PRUnderground

500 million users, 3rd-largest “country” on earth, yeah we’ve all heard the numbers. But sometimes it helps to see them. Alex Miranda presents an infographic of Facebook facts, figures and myths.

Facebook Sleptics

Why Businesses Should Think Twice Before Investing Money or Time in a Facebook Page by Social Media Today

Given Facebook’s never ending stream of changes (many of which seem to break or eliminate earlier features) and ultimate control over all content on the site (no matter how much a business has invested in developing that content), Maggie McGary questions whether it’s really advisable for companies to rely too heavily on this platform.

Does Facebook Work? by iMedia Connection

Noting that “While 49% of marketers surveyed by MarketingSherpa think Facebook is very effective at brand awareness only 12% think it increases sales revenue,” Daniel Flamberg presents statistics and real-world results from leading brands suggesting that whatever the benefits of Facebook marketing, it generally isn’t producing “the kind of results the reach, usage and loyalty of Facebook would otherwise suggest.”

“Does Anything Other Than Facebook Really Matter?” by iMedia Connection

Taddy Hall does such an awesome job of chilling down Facebook fever with the cold water of reality that I’d like to just republish his entire post here, but will limit duplication of his brilliant content to this: “When it comes to how we (marketers) approach Social Media, I’m reminded of the drunk looking for his car keys beneath the street light because the light is better than in the dark alley where he last saw his keys. Sometimes doing what’s easy trumps common sense…Facebook is not just another broadcast media outlet where marketers can buy inventory and interrupt consumers. As P&G’s General Manager for Interactive Marketing and Innovation, Ted McConnell, remarked with characteristic flair, ‘what in heaven’s name made you think you could monetize the real estate in which somebody is breaking up with their girlfriend?’” Yes, Facebook works quite well for some companies (particularly large consumer brands), but it’s not always the ideal venue. Do your research (particularly for b2b marketing) and pursue audience quality over quantity.

Want to stay up-to-date on the latest social media news and thought-leadership commentary without visiting a gazillion different sites, relying on an RSS feed (or someone else’s filter) that inevitably misses important news, or following aggregation sites that regurgitate the same over-exposed content from a handful of popular sites?

Now you can, at Social Media Informer, a social media content hub launched today. SMI was developed by some of the same people as the popular B2B Marketing Zone b2b marketing portal. It also uses the same underlying Browse My Stuff technology, which enables publishers, PR agencies, corporations and other enterprises to efficiently SEO-friendly build branded content aggregation hubs.

For readers, SMI will aggregate high quality content; make it easy to navigate based on topic, source or date; and expose valuable niche content that might otherwise be overlooked.

For contributing bloggers, SMI provides exposure, traffic (only content snippets are posted, not complete posts) and simplicity (no requirement to write exclusive content).

The site also offers newsletter options making it easy to keep up with latest and most popular posts.

Can the financial return on expenditures for social media business activities– in marketing, PR, customer support, HR, product development or other areas — be accurately measured? Can social media costs be justified on the P&L, so that as belts get ever tighter in this stagnant economy, these projects and tasks can be spared the budget axe?

Among social media pundits, the debate rages on. The “yes” crowd argues that of course social media can be measured, and must be in order to demonstrate value to the business. You wouldn’t buy a new machine tool or enterprise software application without an ROI analysis, so why should social media be any different? Executives don’t care about shiny sparkly things or the latest fads or buzzwords; you’d better know what you want to accomplish, be able to quantify both expenses and revenue, and have the analytics in place to track results before even murmuring the words “social media” in the presence of C-level types.

The “no” group will counter that the metrics and tools haven’t yet matured, or that social media is too amorphous to even be measurable, or that it is rapidly becoming simply part of the plumbing or wiring of a modern organization, making ROI immaterial.

My own thoughts (for what they’re worth) on the matter are that:

• • It’s challenging to measure the true ROI of social media activities with any precision because social media is as much (if not more) about influence than direct action. For example, if John Doe clicks through to your website from a tweet and buys something, that’s easy to measure. But if John Doe is influenced to buy from you based a tweet—but completes the purchase through another unrelated channel—there’s no way to assign the value of that sale to Twitter.
• • That said, there are many aspects of social media that can and should be measured, both to show results and to help guide future activities (e.g. determining which topics generate the highest traffic and comment activity on a company blog, what time of day is most productive for tweeting, etc.). In other words, the statement “ROI is challenging to measure accurately” shouldn’t be confused with “don’t bother trying measure anything.”
• • Metrics can be useful to help determine what to do more of, less of, or differently, but should not as the basis for whether or not to engage in social media. At this point, the adoption of social media tools is so widespread as to constitute just another communication channel. It makes no more sense for a business to shun social media until ROI can be demonstrated than it does to demand an ROI analysis for installing phone lines or email.

So much for my thoughts. What do other pundits have to say? Below are summaries of a variety of posts on the topic of social media ROI measurement from luminaries such as Danny Brown, Brian Solis, Erik Qualman, Michelle Golden and Sharlyn Lauby divided into their respective camps: yes, no, and maybe.

Is social media ROI measurable? Yes.

The Real Cost of Social Media by Danny Brown

This isn’t strictly speaking an ROI article, but Danny does dive into the “I” part of that measure, detailing the true costs (investment) of social media participation.

20 Metrics To Effectively Track Social Media Campaigns by Search Engine Land

Chris Bennett lays out the list of metrics he uses to analyze, track and “prove ROI’ from social media marketing. Compelling piece except for his use of the phrase social media campaign (argh).

Social Media ROI – How 3 B2B Technology Companies Are Achieving Revenue Results by MarCom Ink

Kim Cornwall Malseed summarizes the social media wisdom and ROI results gleaned from a panel of b2b marketing pros including Holger Schulze of SafeNet, Frank Strong of Vocus and Susan Cato of CompTIA. She reports on the revenue achieved, social media strategies used and measurement systems employed for tracking.

ROI: How to Measure Return on Investment in Social Media by Social Media Today

In this long but worthwhile post, Brian Solis reviews the evolution of social media measurement forms (e.g. “return on engagement”), the disconnect between social media marketers (most of whom can’t measure ROI) and CMOs (most of whom expect it), then offers his recommendations for improving the measurement of business objectives from social media.

Sexy Numbers: Measuring ROI in Social Media Campaigns by ReveNews

While acknowledging that tight precision is impossible because the same measures from different tools rarely match exactly (and multiple tools are still needed to end-to-end social media tracking), Angel Djambazov nevertheless makes a strong case for developing ROI metrics for social media campaigns. Quoting Brian Solis and others, Angel points out that particularly in this economy, even great ideas without a hard-number rationale are likely to get slashed; ROI measurements are needed because CMOs demand them. The post also includes some strategies, tactics and tools to assist in social media measurement.

Social Media Monitoring Techniques by WebFadds

Scott Frangos presents a concise but clear outline of basic social media ROI measurement objectives, tools and analytics.

Counterpoint: Why you can calculate an ROI in social media – and why you should do it by iMedia Connection

Uwe Hook responds to the post from Ben Cathers (in the “No” section below) on why social media ROI can’t be measured, laying out a roadmap using metrics such as frequency, yield, sentiment analysis, NetPromoter score and customer lifetime value.

Socialnomics: What Social Media Success Looks Like by Fuel Lines

Michael Gass shares a social media ROI argument in video format. “Socialnomics: Social Media ROI showcases what social media success looks like. Social Media ROI: Socialnomics is by Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business author Erik Qualman. This video highlights several Social Media ROI examples along with other effective Social Media Strategies.” Though a few of the examples are vague or misleading, most are compelling. However, after showcasing companies that have achieved remarkable, quantifiable results through social media, Qualman provocatively asks, “Why are we trying to measure social media like a traditional channel anyway? Social media touches every facet of business and more an extension of good business ethics…When I’m asked about the ROI of Social Media sometimes the appropriate response is…What’s the ROI of your phone?” He seems to suggest that while ROI is measurable, it’s immaterial. Hmm. You can find more of Eric’s insights on his Socialnomics blog.

Making sense of social-media ROI with Olivier Blanchard by SmartBlog on Social Media

Rob Birgfeld talks with Olivier Blanchard, introduced as “perhaps the most sought-after expert for those looking to connect the dots between social media and return-on-investment.” Perhaps. Blanchard contends that most self-proclaimed social media “experts” have difficulty articulating ROI because they have no business management background (agreed, I’ve seen these types — which is why our agency has an MBA who helps clients with social media). With that background, he argues that “the question can be answered in about three minutes. All it takes is someone on the social-media side of the table who understands how to plug new communications into a business from the C-suite’s perspective.” He also makes the case that being able to prove social media ROI is essential. The post just doesn’t specify how to do this.

Social Media ROI — No.

Social media (finally) returns value by The Communicator

Peter Schram doesn’t come right out and say that social media ROI can’t be measured, but rather that organizations should “focus on five key areas where social media will create actual value” that aren’t strictly about sales ROI, including corporate reputation, employee engagement and customer service.

“What’s the ROI of Social Media?” Is the Wrong Question by Golden Practices Blog

Michelle Golden makes a compelling argument that ROI calculations apply only to discrete projects with a beginning, middle and end, such as a direct mail campaign. Social media is a tool, not an event, so such calculations don’t apply.

5 Problems With Measuring Social Marketing by Web Worker Daily

Aliza Sherman articulates some of the frustrations with any social media measurement, much less something as precise as ROI, including the fact that the term “social media” is nebulous and that many traditional marketing concepts (e.g., “reach,” “promotions” and “campaigns”) simply don’t apply to social media –and the industry hasn’t yet developed widely accepted new measures (though Daniel Flamberg attempted to answer this last challenge in 4 Social Media Mining Metrics).

Why you can’t calculate an ROI in social media – and that’s okay by iMedia Connection

Ben Cathers argues that, because the advanced analytics tools that would be required for such measurement have not yet been developed, “In many forms of digital media, you can spend 1 dollar knowing you will earn 1.30…Unfortunately, you cannot do the same in social media, just yet.” He suggests instead that marketers estimate the payback on social media by assigning a value to metrics they can track, such as each follower, each retweet, each “like” of an item, etc.

CEOs Love Pie: The B2B Social Media Case Study, Part 2 by iMedia Connection

In this follow-up post to Conversations that Aren’t about Mel Gibson: the B2B Social Media Case Study, Part 1, Eric Anderson writes that “today you can’t throw a virtual rock without hitting five blog posts about how we all need to simmer down about ROI,” and places himself firmly in the “simmer down” camp. He recommends instead serving them pie, as in pie charts showing measures like “the proportion of their paid impressions that can be replaced or augmented with free impressions. PR agencies have long been selling the value of this pie as earned media or ‘ad equivalency value,’ so CEOs are used to seeing it. They get it. Once you’ve done your social media market analysis, it’s relatively easy to project how big that social media pie wedge will be.”

Social Media ROI…Maybe.

Quantifying Social Results by eMarketer

eMarketer reports that while marketing pros generally agree that quantifying the benefit of social media marketing is important, they are split on whether it is possible. Measuring certain types of activity or behavior is easy; translating those measures into ROI, not so much. As this article notes, “There is a leap, however, between finding appropriate metrics and monitoring them on the one hand, and quantifying results on the other. Marketers must tie the social metrics they settle on directly to business goals, such as increased sales and leads, before social media return on investment can be quantified.”

A call for more accountable social media marketing by iMedia Connection

After acknowledging that “ROI is difficult, if not impossible, to measure with social media. An astounding majority of professionals do not even try to take it into account.  According to a survey late last year from Bazaarvoice and the CMO Club, 72 percent of CMOs did not attach revenue assumptions to social media in 2009,” Jerry McLaughlin goes on to say that marketers must do it anyway. For example, one of his recommendations is to “reach specific social media goals with a tangible ROI, such as tracked discounts or coupons.” While that’s certainly not a bad suggestion, it covers only one very limited aspect of what social media marketing can do.

5 Ways To Set Goals & Measure Social Media Marketing Success by Smart Insights

Danyl Bosomworth summarizes a Jason Falls presentation on various ways to measure social media outcomes. While the post seems to suggest that measuring ROI is easy (measurement #5 casually includes “generation of sales and leads from blog visitors and from social interactions”), it also points out several other benefits that unquestionably have value (e.g., product innovation, branding and awareness, links for SEO benefit), though that value may be difficult to quantify. The message seems to be that if you can directly measure sales and leads then by all means do so, but recognize that social media can provide many other important though less quantifiable rewards.

Marketers Use Varying ROI for Social Media by Marketing Charts

According to a new study from King Fish Media, Hubspot and Junta 42 summarized in this post, most marketers perform some type of social media measurement (e.g., website visits from social media referral sites, new fans/followers, number of links shared, etc.). However, nearly half (43%) admit that they aren’t even trying to measure ROI. And only 29% say “they will have to show positive ROI to continue their social media programs.”

How CEOs are Using Social Media for Real Results by Mashable

Though Sharlyn Lauby shares numbers here from two CEOs able to correlate hard sales data with their social media efforts, she also points out that “even when there might not be data supporting a direct relationship between social media activity and sales, sometimes other metrics point to the connection” such as exposure, branding, customer satisfaction, recommendations, even employee recruiting. The conclusion seems to be that ROI may or may not be measurable, depending on a company’s specific circumstances — or at least that not all of the benefits of social media can be captured in precise sales and ROI figures.

Don’t you love it when you pick up a book and realize in just the first few pages that the author really gets it? Even better, they don’t just get “it,” but offer a fresh and compelling approach to dealing with the specific problem, situation, condition of modern life, etc.?

Well, SNAP Selling: Speed Up Sales and Win More Business with Today’s Frazzled Customers by Jill Konrath is that kind of book. As Jill notes in the book’s introduction, today’s buyers are crazy busy. She brilliantly describes the life of the modern business worker this way:

Before even fully awake, “you’re on the computer checking what seems like an endless stream of email. When you look at your to-do list, you wonder how you’ll be able to get everything done. You have a dozen people to follow up with on the phone, three meetings, and a proposal that needs to be finished…Rather than take a break for lunch, you grab a quick sandwich at the vending machine and eat it at your desk. That way you can update your files and take care of paperwork that needs to be processed. Then you head out for that presentation that you wish you’d had more time to prepare for. After the presentation, you have a ton of questions that now need to get answered before the end of the week…By the time you get home, you’re tired. But rather than turning in for the day, you work on a proposal for a while, then finish up by checking your email one last time. The next day you get up and do it all over again.”

People are reluctant to add anything more to their frenetic schedules, least of all spending time listening to a sales pitch. No matter how compelling the value proposition for the product or service, it involves change, more work, and more time out of an already overburdened schedule. As Jill notes, for sales (and marketing) people in this environment, “what worked before doesn’t work anymore…the advice of many ‘traditional’ sales gurus is now hopelessly outdated…(and) things are never going to to go back to the way they used to be.” SNAP Selling is Jill’s answer to how to market and sell in this overworked and overstressed modern world of business.

According to Jill, today’s buyers make three distinct decisions that sales pros need to aware of. The first is when they evaluate your approach and determine whether it’s even worth their time to meet with you. Once past that hurdle, their next decision is determining if making the change required is worth the cost, time and effort required. Finally, the third decision is, having committed to making a change, selecting the best product / service / vendor for their company.

Jill describes the SNAP selling process as:

Simple (eliminate as much complexity and effort as possible from the decision-making process)

iNvaluable (products and services can be copied; your expertise can’t)

Aligned (it’s crucial to be relevant — always)

Priority (maintain a sense of urgency)

Before delving into the detail behind the SNAP model, Jill notes that “Knowing as much as you can about your targeted prospect is more important than your knowledge of your own product, service, or solution. Most sellers don’t realize this, but it’s true…(but by implementing SNAP selling processes) you won’t have to work as hard as your today to achieve significantly better results.” Now that’s a compelling value proposition!

After describing the SNAP method in more detail, the book walks you through the application of these principals and practices to achieve success in each of the three major decisions (and all of the smaller decisions involved in keeping the buying process moving forward).

Though written primarily for sales professionals, SNAP Selling is equally valuable to b2b marketers who support their sales teams. In the most successful organizations, the efforts of the sales and marketing teams are closely aligned. While the detailed work of implementing SNAP processes will fall on sales, marketing groups can certainly help in areas like research, development of content to support the SNAP process (such as industry-specific white papers and case studies), and even tools to help the sales team execute at specific points in the process. This teamwork is more challenging and rewarding for both the marketing and sales teams that simple mass lead generation and follow up.

In short, SNAP Selling is an invaluable guide to effectively marketing and selling to today’s stressed out, overworked and time-starved business buyers, and beating the competition, by providing relevant and compelling business value at a personal level.

With the amount of helpful content about social media marketing growing faster than Facebook’s user base or Lindsay Lohan’s court appearances, it’s tough to keep up. Here’s a modest contribution to help with that effort; more than six dozen of the best, most bookmark-able articles and blog posts about social media tactics, tools and strategies written so far this year, by leading writers like John Jantsch, Lori Dicker, Lee Odden, Lisa Barone, Jay Baer and many more.

Social Media Marketing Tips, Tactics and Guides

Building Social Bookmarking Networks 101 by Search Engine Journal

Todd Heim supplies a helpful guide to best practices for building a following on and generating traffic from social bookmarking sites like Digg, Reddit, Mixx and Propeller. Todd’s guidance is straightforward and practical; finding the time to do this well is the hard part.

HOW TO: Create Custom Backgrounds for Twitter, YouTube, & MySpace by Mashable

Matt Silverman steps through the process of creating cool custom backgrounds for popular social media sites, with easy-to-follow instructions and rich example illustrations.

What is Social Media Optimization and Why Should I Care? by Kuno Creative

For those who know little if anything about social media (there are more such people than you may realize; some in rather lofty positions at that), John McTigue offers an excellent primer covering the most popular tools, sites and strategies.

30 Tips: The Productivity Guide of Social Media by WebStudio 13

Andrew Ran Wong provides a valuable list of productivity tips for Gmail, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, Google and other social networks to help readers get more done in less time.

5 Ways That Sales People Can Benefit From Using Social Media by OPEN Forum

Despite the widespread use of the phrase “social media marketing,” marketing is not the only business use of social media, as John Jantsch reminds us. Here he outlines five ways that sales can use these tools as well, from social CRM to teaching prospects how to solve business issues.

6 tips for connecting with social media content by iMedia Connection

Noting that “Smart and savvy companies have positioned themselves as authoritative experts and trusted sources of information by creating their own content,” Gordon Plutsky outlines a six-step process for consistently connecting with prospects through relevant, compelling content.

10 Principles for B2B Sales by Better Closer

Social media has dramatically altered the buying process as well as marketing practices. In this post, Bill Rice provides sales people with 10 principles for using social media in sales, from setting objectives and listening to creativity and tools to improve social media efficiency. Given the importance of sales-marketing alignment, this is a worthwhile read for marketers as well.

Are you reaching your Best Customers through social media? by Cultivating Your Customers

Mark Price summarizes a Fast Company case study on how restaurant chain Houlihan’s engaged their best customers through some exclusive social media programs to increase sales and profits, and what other social media marketers can learn from the chain’s experience.

A Cheat Sheet to Help You Conquer Social Media by Fast Company

Not sure how to navigate through various social media sites? Addy Dugdale shares this handy CMO guide to the social landscape, which “takes all the major social media sites in the U.S. and analyzes their capabilities in four sectors: customer communication, brand exposure, driving traffic to your site, and SEOs.”

5 Ways to Use Social Media for Things You Are Already Doing by Social Media Today

Possibly inspired by Social Media is Simpler Than You Think, John Jantsch explores five ways to use social media for common business tasks such as prospect follow-up and market research.

10 Essential Social Media Tips for B2B Marketers by Mashable

Christina Warren tells b2b marketers how to use Twitter effectively, find their “social voice,” efficiently monitor industry developments through social media, expand their influence and more in this excellent post.

How to Monitor Your Social Media Presence in 10 Minutes a Day by HubSpot Blog

Rebecca Corliss reveals an easy five-step, 10-minute daily process for keeping on eye on what’s being said about your company across popular social media venues. Depending on how active your company is in social media, it may take a bit more than 10 minutes and may have to be done more than once per day, but at a minimum this is a great place to start.

10 Tips for Using Social Bookmarking Sites Effectively by Online Social Networking

Larry Brauner shows how to use a “very social and spam-free strategy” to dramatically increase website traffic from social bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon and Amplify.

8 brand personalities Facebook and Twitter users hate by iMedia Connection

If you want to be a success in social media, then you definitely don’t want to be part of any of these groups. Kevin Barenblat presentes a taxonomy of social media failure types, including “canned responders,” spammers, lurkers and serial re-tweeters.

More than 50 bookmarks of Social Media Case Studies by Social Media Tactics You Can Trust

Michiel Gaasterland shares his collected list of 500+ case studies, from small businesses to global brands around the globe.

5 Workarounds In Avoiding Social Media Fluster by Social Media Philippines

The always fascinating Rob Angeles how to ramp up a social marketing quickly without simply “jumping in” with no plan.

6 Reasons You’re Not Rocking Social Media by Small Business Trends

For those whose social media marketing programs aren’t quite meeting expectations, Lisa Barone offers several possible reasons (and advice on how to fix things), such as having poor content, putting the wrong people in charge or simply not listening.

10 signs it’s time for a social media makeover by iMedia Connection

Following on the theme of Lisa’s post above, Lori Dicker offers a collection of indicators that your social media marketing has gone astray such as “An intern handles all your social media efforts” and “Your company does not have a (written) social media policy” and how to place efforts on the right track.

3 Simple Steps for Creating Social Media Visibility by Social Media Examiner

For those still struggling with where to start in social media, Denise Wakeman lays out “a three-step formula to get you started creating a visible presence on the web, resulting in more opportunities for your business: leads, prospects, sales, media queries, speaking gigs and joint ventures.”

Taking the First Steps in Social Marketing by iMedia Connection

Contending that “finding exactly which of your customers and prospects are on which social networks and who are the most socially connected, is the first step to figuring out if and how to integrate social media into your marketing mix,” Gary Halliwell illustrates how to tie your CRM data to social media marketing efforts, and why this is crucial to creating value for your company through social media.

Five Rules for Responsible Social Marketing by Fast Company

Just as etiquette is what separates us from the beasts (well, that plus some DNA), so social media etiquette often separates the successful from the spammy, the engaging from the enraging, the outgoing from the obnoxious. David Lavenda supplies five rules here (such as “Respect people’s privacy online, even if you don’t have to”) to help you stay on the positive side of those word pairs.

10 Ways to Cut Through the Social Media Noise and Be Heard by Social Media Examiner

Chris Garrett advises marketers to simplify their messages, use appropriate channels and appeal to ego among other recommendations to make their social media content more likely to get noticed.

The “No Duhs” of Social Media by Social Media Bits

Sharon Lane lays out the basic elements for social media success, such as knowing your audience, being authentic and being patient. Good post for newbies as well as those at the “a little knowledge is dangerous” phase.

90+ Essential Social Media Resources by Mashable

A collection of short summaries and links to a huge list of posts about Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, mobile marketing and business development. It’s sort of like this post, except that all of the links are to other Mashable articles. Hmm. Guess Webbiquity is a bit less about ego and more about sharing the love.

16 Lessons on Using Social Media for Business by Social Media Today

Adrian Swinscoe shares an excellent collection of social media do’s and don’ts such as defining your goals to keep yourself on track, great content is crucial, and perhaps most importantly, “It takes time, persistence, consistency and commitment to generate results.”

The 7 Secrets of Social Media Conversion [INFOGRAPHIC] by The Unbounce Blog

*****5 stars
Oli Gardner reveals key tactics for converting social media followers into buyers, from using a landing page with a clear call to action and offering “social proof” through badges and widgets to optimizing post-conversion opportunities.

4 Social Media Mining Metrics by iMedia Connection

Daniel Flamberg proposes four key metrics that can give marketers “actionable intelligence to identify competitive strengths or vulnerabilities, shape messages, identify informal opinion leaders and influencers or suggest the best choice of media channels” along with suggested tools to track those measures.

4 Ways to Measure Social Media and Its Impact on Your Brand by Social Media Examiner

On the same theme as Daniel’s post above, Nichole Kelly her shares her four key social media metrics and shows how these fit within the sales conversion funnel.

25 Characteristics of Highly Effective Social Media Campaigns by Social Media Today

What sets successful social media marketing programs apart from the failures? Lots of things, and Sosthenes Boame helpfully lists 25 factors such as providing value, being “not spammy,” building trust, consistency, and incorporating visual images.

12 Social Media Marketing Myths by Roxana Portalatin

Social media is cheap or free. It’s a fad. It’s for kids. This post demolishes these and other common social media myths.

Top 10 Social Media “Power Friending” Tips by OPEN Forum

Amber MacArthur condenses her book Power Friending: Demystifying Social Media to Grow Your Business into these 10 key tips to grow your social media presence and influence, such as acting authentically, telling stories and listening well.

Top 6 Social Media Mistakes And How to Fix Them by Social Media Examiner

Kristi Hines details half a dozen social media mistakes to avoid (or correct) including having the wrong connections, sending the wrong messages, and restricting your activities to “things that can be measured for return on investment.” She also lists “using social media profiles for link building” as a mistake, though there are situations in which this makes sense; you may want to grab a profile on a lesser-known social media site for purposes of reputation management or brand protection. Even if there isn’t enough relevant traffic on that site to make a large effort in network-building and interaction worthwhile, any links you include in your profile still have value.

50 Tips Granny Never Told You about Twitter & Social Media Etiquette by Social Media Today

Noting that “social media is no different than the social circles that existed in the 20?s, 50?s, 70?s and even 80 ‘s. Yes, the same rules apply. Just executed on a different platform and at a higher volume,” Pam Moore passes along 50 social media etiquette tips from Great Granny Walton. Among these nuggets of fold wisdom: “Be a friend to get a friend,” “Plan yer work and work yer plan” and “It is just darn right rude to auto DM when Tweeters follow ya’!”

Social Media Tools

Social media tools that marketers shouldn’t miss by iMedia Connection

Lori Dicker presents an outstanding list of free and fee-based tools for social media monitoring, measuring and messaging.

Managing Your Reputation Online: 5 Essential Tools by CIO Magazine

Kristin Burnham reviews five excellent tools for monitoring your online reputation, including Addict-o-matic, SocialMention, and the impressively comprehensive Yasni.

Where To Find Social Media Power Users by Search Engine Land

Want your story on the front page of a popular social media site? You need help from the power users in that community. Greg Finn introduces a dozen tools and pages to help identify the most influential users to connect with on various social sites including Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon and Twitter.

Top 10 Free Social Media Tracking Tools by ineedhits

Rene LeMerle provides mini-reviews of his favorite free monitoring tools, from the obvious (Google Alerts, Social Mention) to the less familiar (Boardreader, Samepoint).

Social Media Glossary by Social Media for the Socially Awkward

Social media jargon can be confusing for newbies, and even seasoned pros occasionally run across unfamiliar terms. To help out, Sean Horrigan has compiled this glossary of social media terms from aggregator, blogs and crowdsourcing to thumbstream, widget and wikis.

The Ultimate Glossary: 101 Social Media Marketing Terms Explained by HubSpot Blog

Speaking of social media glossaries, Kipp Bodnar provides a more extensive list of terms and definitions here.

11 Free Tools for Social Media Optimization by TopRank Online Marketing Blog

The ever-modest Lee Odden reviews tools to help spot trends, research keywords and analyze social media activity to help improve “visibility on standard, social and real-time search.”

8 Social Media Monitoring Tools by Onflow Interactive

A quick list of eight leading monitoring tools, from Alterian and Radian6 to UberVU and Sysomos.

Google: the killer social media monitoring platform by Social Media Today

Trevor Jonas explains how Google’s various tools — from Google News and blog search to Google Reader and Analytics — combined create a powerful and free social media monitoring platform, and how these would enable Google to “absolutely blow away any of the existing monitoring services tomorrow if it wanted to.”

10 Essential Social Media Tools for B2B Marketers by Mashable

Christina Warren reviews 10 tools on her list of social media favorites, including some surprises. Note: most are fee-based, but worth the cost for midsized to large enterprises active in social media marketing.

10 Free Social Media Tools Every PR Pro Should Master In 2010 by the COMMS corner

An alternative list from Adam Vincenzini of 10 key social media tools for those prefer free to fee.

7 Social Media Aggregation Tools To Simplify Your Streams by Social Media Today

Sarah Hartshorn details her favorite aggregation tools — like Hootsuite, Netvibes and Flock — for more efficiently monitoring and managing an organization’s social media presence and activities.

The 39 Social Media Tools I’ll Use Today by Convince & Convert

***** 5 stars
Jay Baer reviews his favorite tools, organized by category: Twitter-related, Facebook-related, Virality & Search, Photos, Tracking, Content Creation, Listening, Email and iPhone. This collection is comprehensive without (quite) being overwhelming.

Master List – A Wiki of Social Media Monitoring Solutions

***** 5 stars
Some day in the future, when social media is a mature marketing channel, there will likely be only a handful of high-quality, comprenhensive monitoring tools on the market for marketers to choose from. Today, however, social media monitoring tools are still in their wild west phase: there are a large number, of varying quality, each of which does something or a few things very well, but none of which are yet the “Holy Grail” of monitoring. Ken Burbary has done a masterful job of compiling this list, currently at 145 social media monitoring alternatives. The list is likely to grow before it consolidates.

195 Social Media Measurement Tools & Technologies by Sales Rescue Team

Yet another huge list of social media monitoring tools.

Social Media Employee Policy Examples from Over 100 Companies and Organizations by Social Media Today

In an organization of any size, you’ll have multiple people using social media sites. In large organizations, this can be hundreds or thousands of employees. While management can’t, and shouldn’t seek to, tightly control all such interactions, it is imperative to have basic guidelines in place. That’s where a social media policy comes in, and if you’re not sure how to write one or what to include, check out this extensive set of examples.

57 Social Media Policy Examples and Resources by Social Media Today

More corporate social media policy examples, this list from Dave Fleet.

11 Free Services for Scheduling Social Media Updates by Mashable

Social media monitoring and interaction activity can be tough to maintain. So Erica Swallow helpfully provides “a list of 11 free services for scheduling social media updates, either across multiple social platforms or just for Twitter. At the end of the list, you’ll also find a quick note on 11 paid services that you may be interested in investigating, as well.”

Social Media Marketing Strategy

Social Marketing Strategies by Brand Nexus

A fact- and statistic-rich SlideShare presentation covering social media reach, growth, demographics, consumer and b2b buyer behavior on social networks, spending levels by industry and strategies for success.

4 ways social media can save you time and money by iMedia Connection

Noting that social media be used for various business purposes (marketing, PR, market research, customer service), Larry Weintraub cuts to the chase with practical guidance, writing “ultimately you want to do one thing: sell more products or services. Let’s take a look at how each of these  four components of your social media strategy can help you sell more.”

Razorfish: Social Influence Marketing Trends by Digital Buzz Blog

Another social media SlideShare presentation, this one focused around trends and rich with both useful guidance and examples from brands that have achieved social media success. It also includes a helpful section on metrics, introducing the SIM score.

Is Social Media Just Another Channel? The Potential of Social Media for B2B Markets by The Social CMO Blog

Alex Romanovich contends that social media is far more than just another marketing channel; it is phenomena that is “forcing corporations (brands) to look at how they engage with their clients, how they use information, and how they respond to events…the benefits and opportunities it presents are something we’ve never seen before. It is becoming the connecting thread that links all points of the Value Chain.”

10 Awesome Social Media Presentations by thought leaders of the Industry by Daily Bloggr

Got some time? Here’s a nice collection of 10 exceptional social media SlideShare and YouTube presentations, including “Web 3.0 – This time its personal,” “Content Strategy for Social Media” and “How to make the best use of SEO and Social Media.”

Social Media History Animation by Hai Le

Interesting video filled with trivia and statistics on the growth and current state of social media, such as that there were 90 trillion email messages sent last year (though roughly 80% were spam), Facebook serves six million pageviews per minute (is that possible?) and that YouTube serves one billion videos per day.

Social Media-Integration-Theory-Model by Israel Garcia’s No-Blog

Israel Garcia offers a compact model of how social media has changed the historical pattern of corporate and marketing communications, and how to capitalize on that trends. He also makes a compelling case for doing so, pointing out research showing that “consumers are 67% more likely to buy from the brands they follow on Twitter, and 51% more likely to buy from a brand they follow on Facebook.”

Why we need to kill “social media” by iMedia Connection

Rob Key argues that the term “social media” needs to be killed because (almost) all media is becoming social, and it isn’t the tools or buzzwords that really matter in business so much as what social media can do in areas like risk management, media relations, product life cycle management, customer care, HR, market research, and innovation.

11 Killer Social Media Presentations Worth Watching by HubSpot Blog

Kipp Bodnar showcases 11 outstanding social media presentations from experts like Rohit Bhargava, Marta Kagan, Christina “CK” Kerley and Jay Baer.

9 Ways To Convince The CEO To Use Social Media and Enter The 21st Century by jeffbullas.com

Jeff Bullas offers several suggestions for selling social media to executives. #1, “scare them” is tempting but perhaps not the ideal approach, while #5 (use website grading as a baseline measurement) has real potential. #4 (buy them a book) works well if [italics] you have the kind of boss who actually reads books.

What Can Social Media Do to Improve Your Business by My Venture Pad

Writing that “the intention for gathering (social media) data should NEVER be for spamming but to help integrate your value proposition into what people are truly interested in,” Eric Tsai lays out a framework for gathering data, analyzing it, and using it to make decisions and modify activities so that you can ultimately do “more of what works and less of what doesn’t.”

Social Media Strategy from A to Z by Techipedia

***** 5 stars
Tamar Weinberg has written one of the most thoughtful and creative blog posts of the year, explaing social media strategy through the alphabet from “always be listening” to “zealous” (and yes, she even includes entries for the letters q and x). Simply brilliant, a must read.

Social Media needs a (GASP!) budget by iMedia Connection

Uwe Hook helpfully makes the case that “Social Media is not free. Social Media is not cheap. Social Media requires a considerable of time and resources to make it work.” A toe-in-the-water approach doesn’t work with social media; it requires a commitment and a sustained investment, because while the payback can be considerable, it won’t happen overnight.

B2B Social Media Strategy: 5 Steps to Gaining Executive Buy-in by B2B Bloggers

Michael Brenner provides an outstanding guide to getting executive buy-in for social media marketing, beginning with showing them the numbers behind the new reality and progressing through resources to help you answer the (inevitable) hard questions and developing a social media roadmap.

We Can’t ‘King Canute’ the Social Media Tide by iMedia Connection

Gary Halliwell writes that “there are only three things standing in the way (of social media marketing success). The bad news is these are potentially tricky issues if not addressed correctly.”

12 Reasons to Use Social Media to Grow Your Business by My Venture Pad

***** 5 stars
“Why exactly should we do this social media stuff?” Rather than fumbling to articulate a brilliant answer when you get that question from an executive or client, refer to this outstanding post from Pam Dyer, packed with ammunition like increasing brand recognition, improving SEO, taking your message directly to buyers, and making it clear that you “get it” (at this stage, as Pam notes, “If you don’t have a presence, you appear as if you’re not very savvy.”).

Is a social media bubble ready to burst? by iMedia Connection

If the boss or client remains a skeptic even after following Pam’s guidance above, you may need to pull out this post. “Aha!” your skeptical counterpart will say, “I knew it! Social media is just a fad.” Actually, it’s not that simply, and you may be surprised by the conclusions Michael Estrin draws in this insightful post.

Is Social Media a Big Joke? by The Confident Copywriter

First a bubble, then a joke? Is this more fodder for social media skeptics? Not quite, but Victoria Ipri offers a helpful reminder here to avoid jargon — both when selling social media and when using it. In her words, “simple, to the point, interesting, thought-provoking, but not especially flowery or verbose” messages are key in both situations.

9 Things to do Before Entering Social Media by Small Business Trends

***** 5 stars
In another outstanding post from Lisa Barone, learn what it’s crucial to do before getting immersed in social media marketing. Just as a strong foundation is critical to the long-term stability of a home or building, so steps like crafting a social media policy or rulebook, assigning responsibilities, and making a commitment to responding are vital to social media success.

Three ways to act on your social media monitoring by Fresh Networks

Once you’ve decided on a set of metrics to monitor and tools to use (see the section above), now what? Matt Rhodes notes that “What you do with your social media monitoring is as important, if not more important, than getting the monitoring in place in the first place. Different brands will want to engage with the conversations they discover online in different ways,” and suggests three actionable areas based on monitoring results.

Defining your social media goals by iMedia Connection

Ben Cathers provides guidance on the different approach and metrics to use depending on whether the primary focus of your social media efforts is for customer service or customer acquisition.

5 reasons why brands fail with social media by Engage Sciences

Whether you’re already engaged in social media marketing and not seeing the results hoped for, or you’re just getting started and want to avoid common pitfalls, this post will help you avoid strategic mistakes (such as treaing social media as a silo) and steer your efforts in the right direction.

Conversations that Aren’t about Mel Gibson: the B2B Social Media Case Study, Part 1 by iMedia Connection

Eric Anderson eloquently makes the case for b2b use of social media marketing. “B2B sales tend to be complex and consultative, after all, and where do B2B buyers go for consultation? A surprising number start with simple Google searches, and those Google searches increasingly lead to, yep, industry blogs and forums.”

Why Executives HATE Social Media by The Deming Hill Blog

***** 5 stars
A long but brilliant post on the executive view of social media, starting with, as the title indicates, some of the reasons C-level people hate social media including “don’t feed me another fad” and “eagles don’t flock.” Midway through, however, the tone changes as the author writes “Maybe I don’t HATE social media after all.  Maybe I just hate the Quixotic context in which most social media conversations exist, featuring a perpetually moving target, combined with an obsessive, cult-like worship of the default worldview,” then proceeds to detail five of the top benefits of social media from the executive perspective.

How To Create A Killer Social Media Strategy by The Business Insider War Room

Alyson Shontell quotes Nicole Melander, PhD, who teaches American University’s MBA course on social media for business, saying “At this point companies don’t have a choice (about participating in social media). They have to play in the arena somehow. The conversation is happening, it’s just a matter of how much a company chooses to participate.” Melander then presents a five-step guide to creating a business social media strategy.

25 “P”s of Social and New Media Marketing by Social Media Today

Expanding upon the traditional five “P’s” of marketing (product, price, place, promotion and people), Ky Ekinci proposes 25 P’s for social media marketing such as promote (carefully), play, protect, plan, and perhaps most importantly — persist.

Trends with Traction: Meaningful “social” measurement with Net Promoter Score by iMedia Connection

Adam Kleinberg extols the virtues of the Net Promoter score, introduced by Frederick Recihheld in his book The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth. He makes the case that this metric is one of the most vital, meaningful and valuable ways to measure the impact of social media marketing activities.

While there are unquestionably many ways that social media marketing results can be measured, the debate rages on as to whether it’s truly possible to quantify the ROI from these activities. Some experts contend that because social media activity is rich in metrics, you can and should be measuring ROI constantly. Others argue that social media is a tool, not an event, so applying an ROI to social media is akin to calculating the ROI of your phone, or that at this point the business risks of ignoring social media are so great that ROI is immaterial.

Measuring the ROI of social media is challenging for several reasons, the most significant of which is the problem of “last click attribution;” just because a sale or lead “came from” Twitter or Facebook as the last click doesn’t necessarily mean that site deserves all the credit. The prospect or buyer likely had several other exposure points to your brand prior to that click (visiting your booth at a trade show, hearing someone from your company speak, seeing an ad, reading about your firm on a blog or an industry trade press article or analyst report, etc.). Assigning proper credit to each of these sources is impossible; assigning all of the credit to any one of them is inaccurate.

Still, much of what happens in social media is highly measurable, and these metrics can lead to an least indirect evaluation of the value of different media, activities, topics and tactics. Here are four areas of social media metrics worth tracking, even if they don’t provide direct ROI calculations.

Influence: a.k.a. “reach,” these are high-level measures of your brand or company’s presence in social media, such as number of Twitter followers, Facebook fans, LinkedIn group members, mentions across social media (you’ll want to pick one social media monitoring tool for this and stick with it for a while, for the sake of consistency of month-to-month comparisons). This category can also include metrics like blog visitors and RSS / email subscribers. While larger numbers are generally better, keep in mind that it’s easy to inflate a Twitter following (note all of the spammy “Internet marketers” with ridiculously large follower counts) and that in terms of generating business value, quality is more important than quantity.

Engagement: A level deeper than influence, these metrics include the number of RT’s and #followfriday recommendations you get on Twitter, posts to your company’s Facebook wall, questions answered on LinkedIn or Yahoo! Answers, comments posted on your blog, etc. Anything that measures social interaction. Again, more is generally better (spammy blog comments aside), as engagement is the “social” in social media.

Sentiment: Are the comments, posts etc. being made about your company, brand, product or service generally positive, negative or neutral? This is a very important metric to track, but accuracy can be a challenge, particularly for mid-sized companies. Small companies may have so few social mentions to track that the process can be done manually, leading to theoretically perfect accuracy. Mid-sized to large firms may rely on fee-based social media monitoring tools like Radian 6, Alterian SM2, Cision or Vocus which provide automated sentiment tracking, while global brands can use tools like Neilsen BuzzMetrics or Cymfony.

No automated sentiment tracking tool is perfect (for example, “It sucks having a cold but NyQuil is helping” may be tagged as a negative brand reference for Vicks because of the way that sentence started). Accuracy is most problematic for mid-sized firms that have too many brand mentions to track manually but can’t justify the cost of the most sophisticated tools. For large brands, the number of social media mentions is so large that errors in automated tracking tend to cancel each other out, meaning that overall sentiment analysis can be highly accurate even though individual items may be mis-flagged.

Activity: Most web analytics tools, such as Google Analytics, can be used to track the number of visits, traffic quality (e.g. average time spent on site, number of pages viewed, bounce rate) and even conversion (lead or sale) sources. Again, while this information is certainly helpful, it shouldn’t be relied upon as a precise ROI measurement for several reasons, including the last-click attribution issue noted above, and the fact that some analytics packages (Google included) don’t measure social media referrals accurately; Google Analytics dramatically undercounts Twitter visits, for example.

Particularly in this tough economic environment, where every expenditure is receiving even greater than normal scrutiny, numbers matter. The C-suite expects justification for every dollar spent, including investments in social media marketing. You can’t afford to ignore what customers and other influencers are saying about your brand, but need to quantify the benefits of social media monitoring and participation, in some manner, as well. Calculating ROI with any precision is problematic, but there are still many aspects of social media which can and should be measured. These provide a picture of the benefits of specific social media tools, tactics and activities which can justify expenses and help guide activities—even without perfect cost-benefit analyses.

Stumped for new blog post topic ideas? Struggling to increase blog traffic? Want more comments? Higher search position? Better results from social media? Younger looking skin in just three days?

Can’t help you with that last goal, but excluding that one you’ve come to the right place. Learn how to make your blog the center of your social media efforts, build traffic, write great posts and more here in some of the best tips, tactics and guidance for blogging of 2010 so far.

100+ SMB Blogging Ideas to Kick Start 2010 by Small Business Trends

Running low on inspiration? Muse taking a break? Lisa Barone offers 100 topic ideas to kick start your blog posts, divided into various categories such as Go Social, Highlight Your Customers and Get Personal.

How to Never Run Out of Blog Topics to Write About by Internet Marketing for Business Owners

If, somehow, you’re still scratching your head for blog topics after reading Lisa’s list, Jarom Adair supplies about 30 more ideas here, from tips and survey follow-ups to customer testimonials and scaring your readers with horror stories of business decisions gone wrong.

Ten Must Read Tips to Start a Small Business Blog by TopRank Online Marketing Blog

Lee Odden writes that “there’s a litany of things you COULD do with setting up a blog. Even if…filtered it down to what one SHOULD do, the list (is) amazingly long.” So, in the interest of helping out new business owners (or business owners new to marketing on the web) without overwhelming them, Lee “decided to create…a short list of what a small businesses CAN do when starting a blog.”

Marketing Your Blog: 10 Essential Tips You Should Know by Hongkiat

To make your blog stand out from the crowd, Edward Khoo provides 10 tips including using controversy (carefully), simplifying the subscription process and this gem: “Create different profiles for each social media site. On LinkedIn, you want to be all about business. On Facebook, show a little of your personality – the carbon-based life form behind the blog. On Twitter, shine the spotlight on your blog. Each profile should be designed to show a different facet of you and your expertise.”

Blogging Tips: How to Promote and Publicize by Spin Sucks

Gini Dietrich lays out a six-step, eight-minute process to use social media to promote blog posts. Some of the tools take a bit of time to set up initially, but it’s a quick process from there on out.

SEO’s Magic Bullet by PR 20/20

Based on the top ranking factors for SEO, Keith Moehring explains how one key tool, still overlooked by many companies, may be the silver bullet for SEO success.

7 Days to Turn Your Blog Into a Social Media Hub – Day 1: Defining Your Hub by Danny Brown

Danny Brown explains why your blog belongs at the center of your social media efforts (just as it’s positioned in the web presence optimization model) and how to use it to keep all of your social media marketing efforts aligned.

Why a Blog Improves Social Media for B2B by My Venture Pad

Still not convinced that a blog should be the center of your social media strategy? The brilliant Ardath Albee lays out a dozen more reasons to make it so, such as “The Internet moves fast. Publishing a new article once a month on your website isn’t enough to keep up a consistent dialogue.” “Blogs are a kind of ‘natural nurturing’ – the more often you touch your prospects, the more your ideas are top of mind for them. (hence, your company)” and “Blogs allow comments longer than 140 characters.”

Submit Your Blog to 50+ Free Blog Directories by Kittu K

Links are vital to SEO success, and one way to accelerate link-building for a blog is to use this helpful list of 50+ free blog diretories sorted by PageRank.

5 Sure Fire Tactics to Promote a Business Blog by TopRank Online Marketing Blog

Michelle Bowles provides some high-impact tactics to build traffic for a business blog, somewhat similar to the recommendations for successfully launching a new blog presented here a while back.

12 ways to Increase comments on your Blog by Technshare

A dozen great tips for generating more comments on your blog, from do-following comment links and thanking commentors to asking for feedback and moderating comments promptly.

Search Optimization Tips for Bloggers by SEO Wizardry

Pete Hollier offers tips for search optimizing a blog, some of which also apply to standard websites (keyword research) and some unique to blogs (using SEO plugins).

Much has been written about content marketing from the delivery side. As advertising is increasingly looked upon with skepticism if not simply tuned out, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to buy your prospects’ attention; it has to be earned. Substituting thought-leadership content for ad copy—telling rather than selling—should benefit both buyers and sellers, by increasing the knowledge of buyers and shortening sales cycles (though this latter effect may be masked by current economic conditions).

For those whose job it is to generate leads and sales through content and social media, here are five excellent new resources to help increase your knowledge.

A B2B Marketer’s Guide to Great Facebook Pages from HubSpot (29 pages)

Though Facebook is generally more effective for b2c marketers than on the b2b side (as even this report notes), there are nevertheless b2b companies standing out from the crowd by getting results through Facebook. How are they doing it? This report highlights five tips, 15 examples of winning b2b Facebook pages, and eight additional resources on using Facebook for business.

Among the tips: build an active wall by encouraging “likes,” posting useful content on a regular basis, and monitoring and responding to wall comments. Take advantage of the medium using pictures and other media. Companies cited as role models include web conferencing provider Dimdim, HR software provider Taleo and telecom firm Unified360.

Don’t create a business Facebook page without checking out this report. And if your business already has a presence on Facebook, but it isn’t delivering the results you’d hope for, this report will likely give you ideas on how to improve your presence and interactivity.

Social Media Marketing GPS (91 pages)

Insights from more than three dozen social media marketing experts including Ann Handley, Marc Meyer, B.L. Ochman, Yvonne DiVita, Beth Harte, Scott Monty, Peter Kim, Liz Strauss and David Meerman Scott on topics ranging from social media research, ethics and strategy to branding and metrics—all in 140-character snippets. Yes, as Shel Israel writes in the foreword, “It had to happen—an entire book, one tweet a time, and yet it is a real book that will help you understand what SM is about.

SMGPS will tell you the why & how using social media, 1 tweet at a time. You’ll learn essentials in digestible little spoonfuls.

The book will explain why old-school broadcast practices are waning and new conversational methods are on the rise.

This is the way it should be. These days, companies cannot waste money. They need to cut costs.

And SM is MUCH more efficient.

Writing a book in tweets is like writing a very long #Haiku series.

Reading it should be both interesting and useful.”

10 Key Online Marketing Trends for 2010 (3 pages)

As online marketing continues to rapidly evolve, web analytics provider Unica surveyed 155 marketing pros about their technology usage and plans to develop this concise report. While some of the findings are hardly earth-shaking (e.g., budgets continue to shift from offline to online, and “[companies] will expand their social media participation and continue to nurture a wide variety of social media tactics”), others are more interesting.

For example, the report predicts that by the end of 2010, more than 3/4 of companies will use targeting and personalization on their websites. Two-thirds of marketers “complained about IT’s support for marketing’s technology needs,” a major factor driving adoption of on-demand or SaaS applications. And adoption of mobile marketing is expected to more than double this year, despite recent findings from groups such as Forrester that less than 5% of U.S. online users have ever used location-based applications on a mobile device, and only about 1% do so regularly.

2010 Lead Generation Marketing ROI Study (32 pages)

This report explores the state of current b2b lead generation efforts and, more importantly, provides recommendations for marketers on how to improve both the productivity of lead generation programs and the measurement of ROI. Nearly half of all b2b marketers said they can’t predict the impact on lead production from a 10% increase in budget.

But among marketers who do have the information to make such predictions, 6 in 10 indicated they could deliver more than a 10% increase in leads. Lead tracking metrics tend to favor last-click attribution and lead quantity over quality (which will hardly come as a shock to most b2b marketers). Yet marketers recognize that high-engagement tactics (such as webinars) drive higher quality leads than do “promotional” tactics such as incentives and limited-time discounts.

The report recommends using richer metrics to measure not only the last click leading to a conversion, but also the effect of other activities (e.g., social media, PR, advertising) that support that activity. This requires use of exposure and interaction metrics in addition to direct lead conversion measures.

MarketingSherpa’s Top 7 B2B Case Studies for 2010 (64 pages)

As the introduction here notes, “It’s one thing to pick up a workbook that provides you with best practices. But, it’s an entirely different challenge to implement those best practices into the real world…MarketingSherpa know(s) this better than anyone. Sherpa’s reporters spend much of their time scouring the business world for marketing case studies. And not just any case studies—but the ones that offer marketers practical solutions for their companies.”

This report presents seven hand-picked case studies from MarketingSherpa’s vast library showing how companies can improve ROI while increasing leads, generate effective content, improve search engine rankings, nurture leads through the funnel and more.

Disclosure: As a RevResponse affiliate, I receive an obscenely modest spiff for each download of the Social Media Marketing GPS report. The others I just think are helpful and interesting.