The social media measurement smackdown

I was speaking on a panel for Social Media Week New York when one of my fellow panelists said, “This ROI stuff is just a bunch of crap. I’m so tired of it. You can’t measure what you’re doing and people should not even try.”

I began to twitch.

“I agree,” said the second panelist. “Too much focus is placed on measurement.”

My head began to throb.

“As a social media marketer, I can’t measure what I do,” said the moderator. “I just do it.”

At that point, the dam broke.

“Respectfully,” I began, “I disagree with everything that has just been said! As marketers we should measure EVERYTHING. And generally, we can.”

It went downhill from there. This dialogue is nothing new. It is merely a symptom of an anti-measurement bias creeping into the blogosphere.

The gurus aren’t helping.

Unfortunately, the tone is being set by some of our most beloved social media celebrities such as Gary Vaynerchuk, David Meerman Scott and other high-profile pundits.