So I think everybody that is online interacts with social media in one way or an another. Whether it is a profile on facebook a community on ning or watching TV on Hulu. Many industries are now starting to somewhat understand the power of social media and are starting to get in to the game.

The one I am going to pick on is the automotive industry as I have been working with it in the last few months. I see trainers attracting followers on ning and pretty much everbody twittering, yet when you look at most dealers websites they are still very one dimensional aside from a few badly designed research tools. However my question is how do these companies define a process that allow them to interact in different channels, understand the social value of their participators and convert them in to product and service evangelists. On top of that how do they start to define the true monetary value of a lurker and translate that in to a life time client value and hence be able to find that ever elusive ROI and cost per sale.Because I am a professional online marketer I could define my own metrix and datamine my analytics for meaningful results that would allow me to understand which channels got a better pickup rate and cross match that with my cost, but most companies do not have the time or knowledge to achieve this and agencies who do this for their clients are far to lean on the ground at this time, because they do not yet fully understand this new medium.

In the last year or so analytics have become far better, but in my opinion there is a long ways to go until tradionally offline and non tech businesses have to tools that are easy to use, understand and act off of to make sound business decisions relating to participation in social media.