….imagine telling a CFO or someone in finance that you need cash to improve “brand reputation” through a “conversational marketing program” involving blogs, wikis, vlogs, photo sharing, tagging, twittering, and crowdsourcing. I guarantee the response will be something on the lines of “how many buggy whips will it sell?” I don’t think Social Media Marketing is ever going to go away – I am a huge fan – indeed I think it could be the tactic that actually thrives through this shitty economy, but only if practiced at extremely low cost and with some evidence that it can drive revenue…

I’d respond that proof of value must be driven by more than simple minded closed loop ROAS. You can harvest demand for so long, you also need to create it. And conversations, properly managed, can do that. See the Open Forum site for a great example, or Wepc.com.

Which leads to your very good point about measurement. You noted:

“Vendors: Sorry. That $150,000 a year “reputation monitoring” system you want me to buy? Nevermind, time for DIY.”

At FM, we’ve done this, and much more, for you and it comes with the territory (IE, free for partners). It’s called the CM Toolbox, more here:

http://www.clickz.com/3631168

Anywho, I agree it’s time to step up and show value. But then, I’ve always felt that way. Thanks for pushing the conversation forward.

http://minethatdata.blogspot.com/2008/11/measuring-paid-search-e-mail-and-social.html

I do believe you can say “brand-building” with a straight face so long as the next two words you say are “increased sales.” But it’s all about scrappy, roll up your sleeves action which has a appreciable business impact, i.e. sales or an acceptable proxy.

The recession will suck. It will also drive all of us to put up or shut up about how to move business through social media. And act sincerely in regards to helping clients do same. Helping clients do same means helping them do a lot themselves. This new discipline – measurement – will demonstrate how social medi and word of mouth can move product through new and repeat sales.

I, too, think that social media can demonstrate its real efficiency. Look for people who come at it from that angle first. We can’t stop innovating or else we will devolve back into impression-based models with diminishing returns. Every experiment and innovation must be scrappy and with a way of assesing perfomance.

I do think that clients who look to outsource their social media initiatives like they outsource their media buy may be kidding themselves. Call it DIY. Call it team collaboration. Everybody needs to roll up their sleeves and help by actually “doing” something (vs. just talking as per your “broken record” of punditry won’t help).

Now lighten up. We will go from dour to do-er next week. Today we kiss the kids, laugh at Uncle Joe, eat a bunch and watch the teasers for Battlestart Gallactica!

Why? Because what you’re talking about in your post is moving from the non-measurable to the measurable. I believe social media can do that, and do it well – building on the measurability of the online medium. And I think you’d agree that no client, no matter how smart, has the hours in the day to do everything themselves. Or do they want to. So I think what you’re pointing to is a future where the agencies that are feeding off old models of “cut and paste media plans” and launching hope based branding campaigns for millions of dollars will be out of work. But the ones that can demonstrate value, do a lot with a little, and consistently show results will be in high demand. Personally, I’d much rather be an agency guy working in a group like that.

Actually, I believe I already am.

At least that’s what I’m hoping will work.

“Fish where the fish are” is what my grandfather always told me. The people you and others need to influence and brand reputate are online. Period. Doing good stuff there is hard damn work as you attest. If can’t be done for free, by you, by me or Bell’s team.

I agree that checking the Facebook, search, blog and Twitter boxes on the checklist isn’t enough. But to really manage multi-channel in this way takes focus and yes, resources and dollars.

Now more than ever, let’s stop with the traditional fluffery backed by fake stats and sales contributions and dig our heels in – Jaffe had a good post on this recently.

Easier to say, “CFO, I’m cutting our traditional marketing budget in half, only stuff that can be measured stays. Our audiences are online and I’m taking $XX and going there with a coordinated effort from Mktg, Sales, Ecomm, and PR”