We enjoyed the recent post from Robert Scoble whiteboarding about social media measurement this week.

What I like most is the implication that we need to create ways that advertisers can understand more about our audiences in order to make social media a more viable marketing vehicle. We have been working to crack this code for the last 3 years, and one thing is certain, there are many implicit and exlplicit metrics available to measure the influence of a given blogger. However, to be clear: Where advertisers are concerned, influence is most likely defined as the abilty to shape perception about a brand or drive a purchasing behavior.

With this context in mind, consider these metric realities...

--Many of the metrics we can choose from are not uniformly available across social media, and because of this, resulting measurements do not scale that well. Take comments for example. How do blogs which moderate or close comments rate in comparison to those that do not? Alan Stern expands on that and makes other noteworthy observations in this area.

--Is isn't clear that distribution of a post across aggregators like TechMeme and collaborative filters like Digg correlate with ones influence as I define above. More distribution does increase the opportunity to influence, but this is really the concept of reach, not influence.

--Loyalty is a very important concept, but it cannot be indicated by subscription measurement alone. Subscribers are not necessarily readers. In my reader, I can tell you the majority of posts go unread.

--Credibility about a certain topic is critically important to converting opportunity into influence. We need to look at the frequency with which blogs post on a given topic and publish influential posts. This correlation provides a better measure of how influential Robert is on a given subject over time, which is vital to an advertiser. The mention of DPReview attracting an audience that has a higher intent for purchasing a digital camera is a better example. However, it is the quality of the content produced by that site that brought a camera-hungry audience, and ultimately, a sale to Amazon.

None of these points are knocks on the way Robert is thinking. There is more quality niche content on the Web than advertisers know how to utilize today. In the final analysis, choose whatever metrics lead to making advertising perform in this environment and we will all listen.