Social media measurement to remain a thorny issue

Working out just how much social media campaigns are helping with an overall online PR strategy will remain a “thorny issue” for marketing firms this year.

That’s according to a new report from Econsultancy, which revealed that last year many companies were required to show the value of social media.

According to the study, 2009 is going to need to see “best practice guidelines” created to make sure that social media is a useful part of online PR.

A large part of this should be the use of metrics to find social media’s impact, but this could be harder than it seems.

“An ongoing problem for the industry is that online PR as a discipline is poorly defined in the first place, which can make it difficult to know exactly what to measure,” the company said.

“It’s important to understand that online PR is about defining your brand and coordinating customer communication at every touchpoint.”

Erick Qualman, from Search Engine Watch, has suggested that social media will continue to grow in popularity this year.

A large part of this will be the increasing availability of the content through portable devices such as mobile phones and netbooks, he added.