“Why Social Media Analytics are Bullsh*t” is the title of this business2community blog post by Harley Rivet, who gets it right when he says:

I think the main focus of measuring social media should be on how much value you’re providing.  Are you answering questions? providing information that is worthy of sharing? participating in conversations? or trying to help somebody solve a problem? In a nutshell, how well are you forming or strengthening relationships. People do business with people they know, like and trust. There aren’t really metrics to measure that other than the formation of a relationship. Break free of trying to prove social media ROI with analytics and just do the right thing.

Lee Odden addresses that elusive question.

Earlier today I’m looking at the Web site for the CW in Philly and I went to click the “like” button on the home page.

Got an error.

Oops.

Takeaway for marketers: Having a “like” button on your home page is probably a good idea. It’s probably a better idea to test it.

Facebook and LinkedIn are two of the Big Three social media networks these days. Most people who use both keep them pretty distinct: Facebook is social, LinkedIn is professional.

Now comes BranchOut, an ambitious Facebook app that aspires to becomes what LinkedIn is to the 500 million or so Facebook users.

I think once this shakes out, the difference between BranchOut and LinkedIn will be more or less the difference between Monster.com and The Ladders: quantitative vs. qualitative.

Still, BranchOut has a one-click import-your-profile-from-LinkedIn function, so count me in as a BranchOut user … for now.

Back in October I tipped you off to Daemon, an excellent techno-geek page-turner. Now comes Freedom(tm) — it picks up where Daemon left off, and the pages turn just as quickly. You can find out more about both books (and read preview chapters) over here.