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Social media is all the rage these days. With over a half a billion people on Facebook alone, consumer participation in social media has become ubiquitous. Marketers and businesses are active participants, too, with 90 percent of CMOs reporting activity in at least three social media channels in 2010.1 Your company is probably one of the many already involved with social media, or perhaps you’re ready to begin, but there’s one crucial question that most companies are working frantically to answer: How do you know if social media is working for you?

1 “CMOs on Social Marketing Plans for 2011.” BazaarVoice and The CMO Club, 2011.

Responsible businesses cut straight through the hype of social media to answer this burning question by developing an understanding of social media effectiveness using measurement. Yet, this is also where most organizations falter. Understanding requires defining your social media metrics and analyzing data to make sense of your operations in a programmatic way. Building a program of social media measurement is a complex undertaking that requires knowledge, skill, and collaboration, but it will be one of the most important tasks that you’ll take on this year and in the years to follow. It’s imperative because there’s a desperate need to understand the impact that social media has on your business. And I guarantee you that it will impact your business; it’s just a matter of how much and how quickly. The tide is rising for social media, and ...

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