I've had a lot of folks pulling up an old blog post from 2006 about Social Media use by large companies. Back then, quite a few folks were still on the fence about blogging, Twitter and Facebook. The post, titled "Work, Work, Work, Hello Boys!" features Blazing Saddles Governor William J. LePetomaine briskly signing papers and shouting “Work, Work, Work” as he stares down the cleavage of his secretary. My point back then was that you can spend a lot of time frittering away at social media with no real strategy, admiring the shiny objects, which leads to more problems than good. (From all sorts of standpoints!)

I still believe in that post, although now I would expand on it a bit to talk about combining a strategy with a clear measurement plan to determine the return on investment (ROI).  There is no use in using a tactic if you have no plan to measure the results. At the time, it was decided that for most companies the task of running a great operation took precedence over worrying about setting up a blog or other participatory social media, and it was all a bunch of shiny objects.

Nearly four years later, a survey released by Burson-Marsteller shows that 79 percent of Fortune 100 companies now use Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or a blog. Apparently, a shift occurred and everyone saw the value, whether it be for customer service or a voice, in the use of social media.

However, another survey by Econsultancy shows 61% of companies feel their measurement of ROI from social media is either poor, or very poor. They either don't understand how to measure, or they are measuring the wrong things. My friend Kami Watson Huyse, APR looks specifically at targeted measurements in this post.

The Econsultancy survey found the 63% of companies focused primarily on Twitter are only measuring link-throughs from Twitter to their corporate website or blog.  And only a very small amount of businesses, roughly 15%,  have even thought about measuring social media efforts to determine the ROI on improving sales, reputation or brand awareness. Even fewer are measuring the effects of social media efforts on customer service or public relations. Andy Beal does an excellent job of explaining how many companies don't have a clue about their ROI on social media.

Start looking at what you are doing and why. What is the return? Have you improved your reputation or sales? Do you measure the results of your efforts in social media? If not, then you need to reconsider why you are in the space and whether or not it is worth the effort.