I hate Forrester. Let me say that again: I hate Forrester. This article on ReadWriteWeb is a great example why. They love to say things like, "You're measuring social media wrong," and then they present an equally wrong solution—and this feels like a recurring theme in their reports.
At some point you realize that measuring ROI for things like social media is too complicated to fit into a small chart. You can't just make up numbers and throw them into simple equations. Here's a tip: If you really want to measure the effectiveness of a social media campaign, hire a statistician. Hire that person before you begin planning the campaign, because it can be measured. Is it difficult? Sure, but it's possible with a bit of planning. The harsh truth is that most agencies don't want to know if their work actually moved the needle, since they will say it did either way. I'm guilty of this myself. But if anyone is going to win in social media, and I mean really win, they are going to start measuring things properly—the way we do for everything else. Otherwise clients will just bounce from shop to shop, from buzzword to buzzword, flavor of the week, month, etc..
I also hate when Forrester ends on a note like this, as they often do:
Many marketing investments are not intended to furnish immediate financial results but instead create long-term brand value. The greatest and most valuable brands weren't created in one quarter to the next but with an eye toward building lasting relationships with customers.
That seems to me like a cop-out. Good marketing should result in measurable financial results. If it doesn't, then it probably wasn't that good—and that's okay—but let's not pretend like "created long-term brand value" should be used to cover up bad advertising. After all, if you are creating long term-brand value that should be measurable too, just in a future time period.
