Elsewhere in this month’s issue you’ll find a host of articles on conducting marketing research using social media. Along with using research to monitor what the market is saying about them in blog posts, tweets and user-generated product reviews, many companies are also examining how they can use social media outlets to tell their stories, sell their wares and forge relationships with consumers.

There’s no doubt that, done right, Web-based outreach can build brands and enhance goodwill, but can you put a dollar value on those things? Does the cost of maintaining a blog or a Facebook fan page add to the bottom line? Is all the effort really worth it?

The search for answers to those types of questions should begin with a reading of Jim Sterne’s new book Social Media Metrics.

There are no single answers here, no “here is what you should do” that will apply to every situation - the Web and its data sources are obviously too vast for that, as are the differences between each marketer or researcher’s individual situations.

But the book excels as a compact, readable and good-humored assemblage of thoughts, strategies and viewpoints from a host of sources on how to think about and approach the analysis and measurement of social media data. Many of the sources and sites that provide tools or metrics will be familiar to social media measurement veterans but for those just getting their feet wet, Sterne has packaged a lot of information in a way that helps you get a quick education on this fast-changing sphere.

Have a plan

One of the messages he repeatedly drives home about measuring social media ROI also applies to marketing research: know why you want to know what you’re trying to measure, and have a plan before you start, one that explains what you’ll do with the information.

He writes, “… you must first be certain that you know what you are trying to find out (what problem you are solving for) and then be certain that you and those around you agree on your definitions of the terms you use to describe and solve that problem.”

To that end, his chapters are helpfully-titled and sequentially-organized. For example, in order to sell someone something, you have to get them to notice you (chapter two), then determine how they feel about you (chapter three), how emotionally connected they are to you (chapter four) and what it takes to get them to act (chapter five). Then you need to figure out how to listen to what people are saying about you on social media (chapter six) and use your investments in social media to drive business outcomes (chapter seven).

You’ll want to read the book with a computer nearby, as nearly every page contains URLs for source material. David Berkowitz’s “100 Ways to Measure Social Media” is reprinted, as are helpful things like the eight stages of listening (complete with the resources needed and likely impacts) and interesting case studies on Salesforce.com and its use of a range of social media measurement approaches and IdeaStorm, Dell’s foray into crowdsourcing.

Comforting breadth

No single book could cover the myriad nuances of every form - the likes of Twitter, blogs, Facebook, etc., each warrant their own volumes - but Sterne gives a concise (240-page) and thorough overview of the social media sphere that has a comforting breadth.

True, after completing it, you may be amazed at all that you need to know and all that there is to know but you’ll no doubt have a firmer grasp of the big picture and the experts and entities at the forefront of social media measurement.  

Social Media Metrics (240 pages; $24.95), by Jim Sterne, is published by John Wiley and Sons (www.wiley.com).