A SMUG Is Born: A social media understanding group to help everyone get up to speed on social media issues and standards.

by Katie Delahaye Paine

There have been numerous efforts of late to bring some order to the chaotic world of social media measurement. SNCR had its first metrics standards meeting last spring in San Francisco. Phillip Sheldrake held his Influencer Scorecard summit last December. Nate Gilliat had his analytics camp last month. And last week, the WAA released its standards document.

So when Dr. Don Stacks invited me to part of a meeting of the minds last Saturday, I couldn’t decide if I should be relieved or alarmed. 

As it turns out, I feel genuinely excited that maybe now there is a place for all these efforts to come together.

The meeting consisted of representatives from virtually all possible concerned groups – PRSA (Christina Darnowski), IPR (myself, Don Stacks, Don Wright, Michelle Hinson), academia (Marcia Watson DiStaso, Penn State; Paul Argenti, Dartmouth, Tina McCorkindale, Appalachian State University), WAA (Jim Sterne), SNCR (Jen McClure, Mike Kelly and myself), IBM (Jennifer Galitz McTighe), and several others.

The Social Media Understanding Group's goal is to provide an “on ramp” for folks to get up to speed on the issues and emerging standards for social media. Right now there’s a Facebook page, and ultimately there will be a web site that will serve as a repository for all the various documents and initiatives and research floating around.

Our first effort will be to conduct research to determine exactly where and what people are doing and where and what they need. So stay tuned.