Over at VoceNation I talk briefly about measurement. Like I said there, when an organization asks 'How will you measure?' I always ask right back 'How do you measure?'

What's amazing is the number of times a company doesn't have a perfect answer for how they measure things.....so why is a social media project being held to a higher standard?

A few friends in the newspaper industry have always said that the birth/death of online media was the page view. The page view (and related stats) allows online media to sell/display targeting advertising, i.e. monetize their product. The page view also shows them how little interest their is in some of their product.

The same goes for social media measurement, stats will quickly show you if you're doing a good job, or a very bad job.