One of my favorite and most often used pieces of research when speaking about social media marketing is a bit of data from a 2010 Bazaarvoice survey of chief marketing officers and their expectations for the use of social media. Back then, the fastest-growing metrics identified as critical for a company’s social media marketing efforts were revenue, conversions and average order value.

The reason I loved the research so much is that when you threw those three metrics at most “social media gurus” they looked at you like you had three heads. When you’re not groomed in marketing and business and you believe that “joining the conversation” is all there is to social media, you don’t get very far with company CMOs or other executives.