I think  Social Media will become easy to track by years end.   This is also the year of Social CRM -  tracking and enablement is coming to us.

It’s only mid-March and it’s already clear.

First – Foursquare is planning to Offer Up User Data with Check-in Analytics – is already testing it -  any business that wants to will be able to offer coupons to those who check in.   I’m doing an  analytics project for a restaurant chain and this offering of Foursquare is big news for this kind of business.  Here’s more information from Fast Company:

…. A new staff page feature also allows venue staffers to see who is currently visiting and communicate with customers. Notice a regular hasn’t been in your store in a while? Tweet them about a cool new shirt that just came in to entice them back.

And this is just the beginning, according to the company. Tristan Walker, director of Foursquare business development, tells Mashable that big innovations like weather tracking could allows business owners to offer specials based on real-time events. Imagine “It’s snowing, so come into Joe’s for a free small coffee with purchase!” popping up on your iPhone when you’re outside freezing and just a block or two away. Hello Joe.

By contacting someone who hasn’t been in your store for a while – and offering them something in real time is very powerful – I saw that last week when I posted on  Social Media ROI for Restaurants and the NY Restaurant Show Tweetup and meeting @paulbarron.  Here’s that interaction again:

…. set up alerts that email me every hour (now it’s every 10 minutes as of tonight) when the restaurant is named in any way.   As I was in the restaurant I got and alert from a customer who was saying she was in the restaurant – via Twitter.

As the alert took place in real time – the customer and her friend were given free drinks and discounts – in other words – we used Social Media and Social Media Monitoring (via Radian6) to reward a customer who was having a great time – and we made that time better.

And you know what …… THAT gesture was worth it in my opinion … look what the customer tweeted after the evening was over …..

TWEET FROM: KIMBERLY819 Name: KIMBERLY819 Posted on: Mar 1, 2010 1:07 AM Followers: 66 Following: 87 What a GREAT night at Havana Central!!!! My new favorite spot!!

Link http://twitter.com/KIMBERLY819/statuses/9811482654

You want Social Media ROI – you got ROI – a customer for life.

What Foursquare is about to do will make that event happen over and over again – in fact, life could get very interesting for people who are actively using Social Media. I expect Twitter to follow suit – so we won’t just have to depend on using FourSquare (even though FourSquare is great) to be able to take action in real time.   It could be – that many applications will end up becoming real time in this way specifically.

Radian6 announced what it calls the Engagement Console or “Social Phone” yesterday and it sounds like it’s a leap to stay ahead of the trends – this is essentially a new version of Radian6 with Social CRM – which they hinted in the video below.  Marcel LeBrun also hinted at what Social Media is going to end up being called next … “Social Metrics”…. I like that name!

According to the  Radian6 blog - Radian6’s new Engagement Console is a desktop application that:

• Extends social media monitoring, listening, and engagement to every desktop within your company.
• Is a complete social Web client that lets you listen to all media types, including blogs, videos, forums, boards, Twitter, Flickr, Google Buzz, LinkedIn Answers, Facebook fan pages & public discussion groups, as well as online mainstream news sites.
• Allows real-time collaboration among your team members and one-click-workflow assignment of posts enabling faster and more cost effective engagement.
• Ties into the full power of Radian6, so your teams can channel the right conversations to the right people within your enterprise.
• Records all interactions in Radian6 for comprehensive operational reporting, and conversation analysis and reporting.

Marcel also mentioned the Engagement Console was a “game changer” and that’s an interesting way of putting it – Radian6 is betting that many companies are now ready to use Social CRM powered by Radian6 and this is what going to help Social Media ROI be easier to distinguish – you’ll be able to tag individuals you interact with as well – very interesting.   I also like the idea that the activity of one person in the group is seen by the rest in real time.

In another major announcement – Quantcast is now providing Global Audience Metrics – which is a direct play on Comscore and Nielsen, in my opinion – one thing that Comscore could charge for is audience metrics by country – and now, that is going to be offered by Quantcast – for free – see below:

….. starting today you now have access to localized audience insights for digital media from every country around the globe. Our audience measurement provides web site owners with accurate, directly measured traffic, demographic, lifestyle, business and geographic audience data and, best of all, it’s free.

In addition to delivering comprehensive audience data for web sites, Quantcast also measures videos, widgets, games and more, with flexible options for understanding distributed/syndicated content and even networks that combine multiple individual properties. Our international offering is made even easier to use through standard integrations with widely-used content, video and ad serving platforms like Adobe Flash and Open Source Media Framework, Microsoft Silverlight, Brightcove, Freewheel, Auditude, LiveRail, Visible Measures, WebTrends, PointRoll, Atlas, Doubleclick, and many more.

You know Comscore’s Video Metrix ….. Game Metrix (I think they have that too)…… well ….. now you can get a free dashboard from Quantcast that will give you a lot of what you used pay a lot for from Comscore … of course, Comscore is also reinventing itself – what we’re seeing …. many of the features that were on the high end of analytics have moved to become free, which is as it should be.

I was not able to see each country as the image above shows – I think you have to own and  qualify the domains that your going to get the video stats on – that’s what it looks like to me – so Quantcast, if this is the case, only partly replaces Comscore, but still – it shows how fast things are moving in measurement – and while this isn’t strictly measuring social media – many people do think that Online Video is part of Social Media … so there.

And then there is Google – Google’s path will make Social Media measurable by years end – just by staying on the course it is on (see the video below):

If you want to see more on how Google is going to push the envelope of Social Media Measurement read my post “I’ve been saying this is coming” – Big Brother & Google’s Entrance into Social Media Monitoring – from MyCustomer.com