With every passing day, a brighter light is being shined on Social Media. As it has gone from novelty to consideration to essential marketing element it is receiving more funding from brands, which in turns means greater scrutiny.

As a result, we’re seeing more and more articles talking about the ROI of Social Media. ComputerWorld did a nice case study on the Georgia Aquarium which was able to track a revenue figure to their SocMed efforts.

Another recent effort to examine Social Media ROI comes from Social Signal’s CEO, Alexandra Samuel, writing on the Harvard Business site. She takes a more qualitative approach, which I agree with, cautioning against being mesmerized by the quest for such things as numbers of followers and friends.

Disturbingly, according to a recent survey by Mzinga and Babson Executive Eductation (read story here on Mashable) 84% of Social Media programs don’t measure ROI. While I’m alarmed by that stat, I’m not surprised by it. This is new territory and best practices haven’t been established in some cases, and in others things are moving so quickly that it is hard to settle on a criteria for measurement.

When thinking about Social Media ROI I believe it is important to recognize and account for the fundamental shift that Social Media has brought about: Consumers play a much more active role in the marketing environment now.  ROI has to be more than just what the brand is getting out of their marketing investment. The Consumer ROI needs to be factored in as well.

The relationship between marketer and consumer has become a symbiotic one. In the past, it was tacitly understood that  what was good for the consumer was good for the marketer. In other words, a happy consumer bought more products.  But the level of consumer involvement is much greater now, they are now prosumers, and their level of involvement goes well beyond simply paying for an item at the store, or even online.

It’s now encumbent upon the brand to provide more than just a good product. Consumers need to receive greater value from the brand because they (the consumer) are investing more in the brand.  How does a brand factor in Consumer ROI? I think this is a question for the marketing industry to seriously consider, and I don’t claim to know the answer, other than to say that brands need to develop a Commitment Marketing strategy to match the investment that their strong brand evangelists are making.

As consumers continue to voice their opinions and preferences via Social Media, and as their lives become more hectic, they’ll be asking the question: “What am I getting out of this relationship with Brand X?” In other words, what’s their Consumer ROI. Brands need to provide a compelling answer to that question and from there it’s easy to see the relevance of Consumer ROI and the importance of trying to measure it.

Further Reading: Check out this intriguing post by Christopher Penn on Personal SocMed ROI. A must read for bloggers.