In the spirit of the last Altimeter report we published on Social CRM, the Altimeter Group has worked with Web Analytics Demystified to help define how marketers should approach measuring social marketing efforts.

Marketers have jumped into the social marketing space, but most haven't had the ability to measure their efforts. People cannot improve what they cannot measure, and with social marketing, it's no different.

If you’re familiar with the Altimeter frameworks of developing a social strategy based on business objectives, then you’re in good shape, as this research report is the natural extension of the business objectives we put forth:

• Dialog involves starting a conversation and offering your audience something to talk about while allowing that conversation to take on a life of its own



• Advocacy: activation of evangelism, word of mouth, and the spread of information through social technologies.



• Supporting customers may self support each other or companies may directly assist them using social technologies.



• Innovation is the business objective of innovation is an extraordinary byproduct of engaging in social marketing activity.