[...] Can Social Media Be Analyzed? [...]

For the moment, I suppose it’s very much a black box, which is why I like the bio-metaphor. As SMMs, its our job to unlock the inner workings of the box.

Thanks for pointing out Chris Brogan. I’m new to the space – and will definitely read through his work.

And by the way, in a recent comment on TopRankBlog someone mentioned a study that measured the effectiveness of word of mouth/social media marketing. If I can get my hands on a PDF, I’ll gladly send it your way.

I like the idea of measuring it the way you do bio research. That is a very cool metaphor, I will chew on that awhile.

There’s also a good set of best practices that the experienced (or the observant) can engage in. Folks like Chris Brogan are doing wonderful work getting those practices defined and getting the word out.

So, perhaps it is simply that we do not have the tools to analyze social media right now? While the system at a macro level might seem chaotic, some academic type studies could yield data helping both current & future marketers better quantify and support their efforts.

In fact, such studies would go a long way to making social media marketing more attractive and more understandable to the average business owner. It may just be that social media marketing is more akin to say, biological research – you poke, prod, collect data, analyze, hypothesis and continually test until some actionable insights can be found.

Though social media marketing is more complex given its inherently dynamic nature, I like to think it can become measurable!

It’s interesting stuff.