Most social media “listening” systems have a way to evaluate the influence of the various sources in your social media ecosystem. They do that by looking at a variety of factors such as number of incoming links, number of comments, number of unique people who comment, Google Pagerank, etc.

The issue is vertical and for the WOM marketers that create a measurement issue, the solution is as follows:

1. The influence is on the context or subject. That is the user capability in terms of the vertical.
2. Influence flows through networks – Influencers can influence other influencers. So reputation should look at what the Word of Mouth marketer influenced other and what was their effect on the intended target audience. This will require calculations to go one step further.
3. Considering target audience composition in determining the contextual influence.

Reputation and influence Measurement is a very complex and strategic process which is absolutely meaningless without an end objective or frame of reference to work with. The measurement of social media isn’t just about producing endless amounts of numbers. You need to think strategically and act tactically.

Here’s a 5-step prescription for WOM measurement progress:

1. Define Objectives - The intended outcome of the activity to the spend and effort.
2. Test the effectiveness of your message strategy to determine the recipients’ behavioral outcome.
3. Develop test-and-control constructs to determine the true predictive value of the awareness or attitude change, and its effect on behavior.
4. Conduct post-campaign interviews with current and new customers.
5. Be absolutely clear on your expectations. State them in as tangible of financial terms as you can.

Since the rise of Social Networks like Orkut in India everyone are looking at possible ways to leverage this phenomenon to gain benefit in one way or the other. It’s not only the networking bug has bitten but now they are trying how to use these networks for Social marketing.

SOCIAL MARKETING: Though the marketing on social media platforms and other social networks earlier was not upto the mark, now it seems marketers are more interested in knowing the "right" way of social media marketing.

Brand marketers have started realizing the opportunity in communities by launching their own brand communities, like Sunsilkgangofgirls or whispers beingirl.co.in or ponds i-blushed.com. They now seem to be realise the value of engagement vs push/spam/banner advertising. And this engagement isn’t only related to Marketers launching brand sites it also moves on to sponsoring online spaces where its target audience is engaged and also being present on those platforms. For example xbhp.com a biker’s community which was started as an individual forum was sponsored by Castrol at an early stage. Besides for sponsored communities one also sees a great use of these social networks with respect to creating groups of employees and fans to promote ones brand.

SOCIAL RECRUITING: Social Networking has started attracting the HR managers and recruiters who have had enough of sifting and sorting through millions of resumes. Social networking & business networking are fast becoming hunting grounds for recruits.

Recently even techtribe which is techie social network launched job referrals for its users and is also giving an iphone as a freebie to attract more visitors.

According to me Blogs especially corporate blogs can be a powerful way of attracting like minded and knowledgeable talent that understands your business and can connect and participate in the conversation with you. But unfortunately very few Indian companies have exercised the blogging option to hire prospective employees.