It's a fairly common approach in the social web to heat up the oven prior to thinking about what to bake. That’s the wrong way to achieve a goal.

We prefer to clearly define quantitative and qualitative goals prior to deciding which goodies will be served: when, where, by whom and for whom. This is essential for planning and executing a social media marketing program and measure its success.

Despite public belief, it actually is possible to create social media campaigns with clearly defined and measurable ROI. Similar to other branches of marketing, this doesn’t apply to each aspect of your game plan individually. What happens inbetween someone smelling a bakery from a block away and then walking out with cupcake in hand? How important is your storefront, your sales team, the selection of products, their presentation, etc? What are the step-by-steps to meeting your objectives? How can they be tracked?  Alternative Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are one way to illustrate the effectiveness of your program. What are your best options to measure your results and determine your success? We’ll find out!