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Frustrated over measuring results? Join the club - then chill out
IS THE SOCIAL MEDIA PHENOMenon overhyped? A growing chorus of voices says yes. Critics argue there are no credible ways to measure return on investment in social media. They also contend there's no definitive data showing that social media create business, or that the number of followers you have on Twitter or friends on Facebook translates into dollars earned.
The conundrum is that both the cynics and the cheerleaders may be right.
Kevin O'Keefe, CEO and publisher of Seattle-based Lexblog, which provides social media consulting to law firms, says he does think there is too much hype about social media. "There are a lot of people who don't know what they're talking about creating a buzz about it. It's terribly effective, but that doesn't mean it's not overhyped."
Perhaps the most overhyped metric of social media is the gross number of participants. Consultants waxing on about the value of social media start with Facebook's 500 million active users and Twitter's 190 million monthly visitors. Yet tallies of friends on Facebook and followers on Twitter mean little.
"Unless you're a celebrity," says Babak Zafarnia, a lawyer and president of Praecere Public Relations in Washington, D.C., "I wouldn't get too confident about having 300 Facebook friends.
"Too often social media is a bunch of one-way conversations,"...