“How do I know if my social media strategy is working?” As an Account Manager at Argyle, I hear this question from the customers I work all the time. And it’s an good one.

Many of those marketers reasonably assume a good route to understanding this question is to see how their presence compares to those of other similar brands. And I recently talked with one marketer who was pretty pumped to learn about the newest social presence analyzer – the CScore.

Similar to Klout, Kred and other social influence scoring services, the CScore lets you enter your Facebook URL and get a short report on the health of your social engagement. And there’s that handy-dandy numeric score so you can understand how you compare to other brands.

But wait. The marketer is asking the question, “How successful is my social media presence?” and then getting the answer…

42?

Oh. That’s helpful…right?

Mm, maybe not so much. Now, these tools sometimes do provide interesting (and maybe even useful) metrics, but a “universal social media influence score” simply isn’t relevant or helpful. Businesses require context in order to make data mean something. How can you give a car dealership in the Schenectady a score on the same scale as a fashion magazine in Madrid? Klout, the CScore, etc. are all lacking context, which leaves you comparing apples to oranges to pluots. (Yeah, that’s a real thing. I didn’t know.)

I have hope that Klout, CScore, and other social influence metrics will eventually address these concerns for businesses. Imagine a tool that takes in data from Facebook and Twitter, segments that data by industry, location and/or other factors and compares your brand’s social media presence to others who are similar to yours. You could have a real picture of where you stand in your social media landscape.

But really, the best social media metrics for your business are the ones that relate your social presence to real business outcomes. Don’t be led astray by a numeric score on an unknown scale. Think social media ROI instead!

Thoughts? Is there a place for the current state of social influence scores in measuring social media success? What would your ideal social influence score look like? How do you place yourself on the social media spectrum of influence?