For marketing managers, talking about measurements of ‘quantity' in reference to social media marketing campaigns or the web in general is certainly easier, not to mention less uncomfortable, than talking about ‘quality'. But if you think about it - particularly in connection with social media marketing - measuring quantity in terms of the number of clicks or impressions says very little in terms of the results of a campaign. Put simply, they can give an indication of the volume that a campaign has produced but certainly not a measurement of how effective it has been. A recent Forrester research study revealed just this: marketing managers still rely more on measurements of quantity rather than quality. The reason is obvious: it's easier and more tangible to measure clicks and impressions. The Forrester research study also indicates, however, that growing numbers of businesses are moving towards KPIs that measure the brand engagement of users and brand advocacy in conjunction with more traditional quantitative measures. Only by adopting KPIs for their marketing campaigns that take these qualitative aspects into account, therefore, is it possible to determine their effectiveness. In short, clicks no longer count!

With the development of forums, blogs, micro blogs, and social networking sites, businesses must start thinking about CRM from a different perspective. People are now looking for help in ways that up until a few years ago were unthinkable. Blogger Jessica Gottlieb, for example, was sitting at JFK Airport in New York waiting for her children's flight to arrive. Since she hadn't got any news about the flight delay from the channels available at the airport, she tweeted her ten thousand-odd Twitter followers and explained the situation. A little later, the airline called her to reassure her about her children's flight. If this isn't on-the-spot CRM...

Can you use direct marketing on social networking sites? There's no doubt that direct marketing, perhaps using an anonymous or visibly impersonal account, aimed at advertising a product on social networking sites is definitely a bad more from every perspective. But can social media marketing benefit from direct marketing? The key thing is probably to first build a relationship of trust with the social networking site users and not just dive in straight away with sales messages. Once the relationship has been established and you've won the confidence of users, then more direct messages designed to sell products will be accepted by the community, because trust has been established. But if you think that social media marketing can be used in the same was as direct marketing, identifying target markets and sending out direct sales messages... Well, you are very much mistaken and any social media marketing strategy that you come up with will crash and burn.

Anyone who's been in marketing for a while knows all about the 4 Ps: product, pricing, placement, promotion. Of course. For many, they're the underpinnings of marketing and still remain a point of reference. But social media marketing involves another P, that is, a fifth P: people. Never as much as in social media marketing has the starting point been people, that is, what they say and the opinions they share. Many people still think that all you need is a well-put together company website, a few leaflets, and some banners to bring in sales and profits. They're quite wrong. It's time to stat thinking about the fifth P, the semantic web, social media, search engines, hunches...