To be fair to the myth, I’d like to point out that it seems to allegorize the nebulous statistics of the “demographic”. In the same way that people attempt to explain Click-through rates in terms of CPM, I believe that the sales funnel attempts to show the flow of that portion of the demographic that is predisposed to follow that path.

I’d like to add my two cents to the quest for a scientific study: the owners of the social media metadata are the only ones capable of initiating such a large-scale study. I recently read about Twitter’s collection of tweet stream metadata:
http://regulargeek.com/2009/11/25/twitter-is-fighting-with-their-users-for-metadata/
While the focus of the post was on the Retweet changes, there is a quote from and a link to a post by Robert Scoble describing just what Jason appears to be seeking.

As an aside, I’ve quoted Jason’s blog before and I’d like to say here, “Jason, you da Man!”

Cheers,

Mitch
.-= Mitchell Allen´s last blog ..Twitter Reciprocal Following: Ack! =-.

You’re right. In a world where we need to do a multi-million dollar study to demonstrate that texting while driving is dangerous – and even then the governors of several US states are still not convinced the practice should be illegal – we NEED more than anecdotal evidence that social media (blogs in particular) are good for business and worth the investment of time and effort.

The Huthwaite institute spent several years and a million dollar over two decades ago to document Neil Rackham’s theory that there are two “types” of sales (Major Sales and Minor Sales). The problem with doing a similar study on blogging is – who has that kind of “skin” in the blogging game to justify such research?

There are lots of “small scale studies” that I know are going on – but most are focused on gathering anecdotal evidence.

If anyone knows of a large scale, scientifically sound research study which will provide the metrics Vered and Jason are seeking, be sure to let me know!

I agree with Vered — it’s hard to explain that the purpose of social media isn’t to immediately produce “leads” or sales. Still those clients have a good point — eventually it needs to product something measurable.

One thing I’d like to hear more about from you Kathy (or really anyone!) is how to reconcile the need for metrics and tangible evidence with the direct benefits of engagement and attention.

That is, it’s one thing to tell stories about how someone was enticed by a blog and later told a friend and the friend bought — that’s fine — but what about on-going, measurable effects that clients can see?
.-= Jason Cohen´s last blog ..Why business blogs should focus on cheerleaders, not lead-generation =-.