I always am wary about anything smacking of “calculators” in social media and PR, particularly those advanced by companies with an interest in selling social media as a revolution.  But Johnson’s role as SVP of the Advertising Research Foundation lends a serious imprint to the task. The ARF is working with the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) to create a set of social media measurement guidelines for the industry, she wrote.  My only concern is that the effort — being driven by marketers — will continue the marketing-centric, impression-oriented, reach-focused, quantity over quality mentality we’ve seen so far — or that it will be full of, well, BS metrics and methods.

Johnson writes of her similar concern, “I don’t think we’re talking about a wrong way of looking at influence, but we could be looking at only one side of the equation. In measuring social media, we have to listen, observe, and study to understand who the real influencers are. Perhaps an influencer’s influence isn’t driven online, but offline. Here’s where Razorfish’s SIM Score (or perhaps Altimeter’s Social Marketing Framework) can help us capture–along with the aid of engagement in a private community, an interview or survey–the offline component.”

Read the piece — it’s worth it.