This week, I had the opportunity to interview Jim Sterne who is finishing a new book, on measuring the business value of social media marketing.

I asked Jim what metrics and KPIs marketers should take into account regarding social media marketing. But I also wanted to know what he thought about all these new metrics and KPIs “social media mavens” are introducing all the time. What can be measured and what can’t?

This is what Jim answered: “Social media KPIs are all dependent on the individual organization and its goals. But generally, we are looking at ‘impressions’ or reach. How many people had the opportunity to see the message? Next, we want to track influence to see whom we should be catering to and making sure we treat them well. Then, there’s the question of sentiment – something we may never be able to monitor technically – to help us get a handle on and track brand attitude. Finally, we need to measure business outcomes. Is our activity on social media driving visits, downloads, registrations and sales?” Read the full story

I’m happy to share some great news for Social Media Citizens readers. We are teaming up with Social Marketing Forum and Social Email Marketing blog in order to bring more value for our communities. As a result, I am very happy to announce  that we going to have the guest bloggers from  Social Email Marketing and Social Marketing Forum – one of the fastest growing social media community in Europe. I definitely recommend to join it and I hope you will enjoy some fresh content on our beloved blog!