Sam Fiorella, whom I connected with at UnGeeked Toronto, recently posted some thoughts on his blog, The Social Roadmap, on the evolution of how we measure social media success. Sam brings up some interesting points about how the metrics we currently use are really just scratching the surface of what these interactions can tell us.

Of course, Marketers are always under fire from ‘upper management’ to show the real ROI of Social Media. Therefore, it’s only natural that we default to the metrics that can be gauged numerically. X number of followers, Y number of comments, Z number of retweets, and so on. Numbers make people feel comfortable, because they can derive simple conclusions from them. “Well, if our followers went up by 15% this month, we must be 15% more successful! YAY!”, and everyone feels all warm and fuzzy, high-fives all around, and everyone goes back to work.

What Sam brings to light here is the fact that those metrics, while easy to obtain and understand, don’t really provide the insight that you need to make decisions for the future growth of your business. What you need to do is look beyond just how many people are talking, and delve in to what they’re talking about, and more importantly how they’re saying it. Their demeanor in their posts goes a long way to telling you just how your business is performing, not just in Social Media but everywhere.

If you take the time to interpret what’s being said about your brand beyond just what’s on the surface, and use this as the basis for your actions, you can cater more effectively to the advocates of your brand, essentially turning your committed fans in to hardcore evangelists.

For more good stuff from Sam Fiorella:
http://twitter.com/samfiorella
http://www.socialroadmaps.blogspot.com/