I can jump into a pool and do the butterfly stroke, but I can be pretty sure I’m not doing it right. I may be in there thrashing away, but good intentions never spared anyone from drowning. That might be a good analogy for companies doing social. Anyone can do it, but are you doing it right?

The Harvard Business Review Analytics Services conducted a survey of 2,100 marketing executives about social media and found that only 12 percent believed they were using social media effectively.

That’s a clear indication perhaps that we’ve been a bit too focused on jumping into the pool and not focused enough on learning how to swim.

Also in the same survey we find that 75 percent of respondents don’t even know where their customers are talking about them and only 23 percent are using any kind of analytics for social. I really don’t think finding a conversation, even online is rocket science. Are we that set against opening up our ears and just listening to what our customers are saying? I’m sorry, but I can’t attribute not knowing where the conversation is to anything other than studied disinterest.

2010 has been hailed as the year of social media and I sometimes get concerned that we might confuse its arrival with understanding it. Look, all we’ve really done is been introduced – we haven’t known social long enough to really understand it from a marketing sense. Social media pretty much just showed up at the cocktail party and has been getting introduced around. In general marketers need to get to know it better – obviously for many, a lot better.

After The Gold Rush: ROI

It’s been predicted that 2011 will be the year social matures and generally that seems to mean we will see improved analytics and metrics. Perhaps you could make the analogy that we’ve arrived on the new frontier and many of us have started staking out a claim, but we can’t be sure how much gold is in them there hills.

The opportunity and challenge will likely be for those that take on the issue of metrics and analytics for to define ROI and thus, manage resources more effectively. However, understanding the metrics doesn’t mean you understand social, where human interaction matters. Yes, we surely need to measure ROI in social. And we can. No, we shouldn’t let the math replace the humanity but you can’t do businesses without doing the math, on the level of channels, campaigns, marketing plans but most of all the customer value that depends on our (perceived) value.

The first reason to be social is because that’s a great way to serve your clients better. It’s because you believe that being social is a good way to do business – relationships count, satisfaction sells.

I’ll say it again; let’s make 2011 the year of the cross-channel consumer! Our customers are not waiting for us to catch up and they are moving like wildfire across multiple channels because it’s what’s best for them, not us.

While we figure out social, we shouldn’t forget that people want us to be on every channel wherever and whenever they are with the right information at the right time. The right time is when they say it is and the right place is where they happen to be.

Sometimes the easiest way to learn to swim is asking others how they do it. It’s also much easier if you don’t swim against the current called reality.