Viacom’s reasoning for pulling the shows seems so obvious and fair that for once it’s hard to even be mad at them. Instead of airing the shows on Hulu, the Conglomerate will post episodes on their own subsidairy websites. While this may cause a slight incovinience for consumers, the content is still free, and available in the same capacity as it was on Hulu. While users will complain that they have to deal with yet another video platform, and visit yet another URL, it’s really not that big of a change. The big win is for Viacom, who now will use its own sales force to sell adds, and keep 100% of the revenue, instead of giving up 50% to Hulu.

It would seem that like The Daily Show and Colbert Report, any super popular show may outgrow its need for Hulu. Hulu offers an easy to use platform and a built in audience. Since the video streaming technology is easily replicable, why would any show with a built-in fan base want to use it in the first place? It makes sense for smaller shows, who stand to gain viewers from Hulu’s massive built in audience, but you can’t blame Viacom for making what seems to be a sound and reasonable business decision.

Hulu should have done more than beg for Viacom to stay, they should have done everything in their power to ensure their shows were getting better rates, premium placement, or any percentage of adverttisments they wanted, even all of it! Without these big name shows, Hulu could be in risk of losing lots of its core viewers to other sites ran by the networks.

What if Hulu made a sliding pay scale based on actual television viewership of the shows? The smaller shows that need Hulu for its platform, advertising network and fan base should have to pay more, while the popular shows should receive better deals on rev share. While this may sound like a strategy that enables the rich to get richer, it might be the best way for Hulu to keep its biggest stars. Hulu, who has since its inception struggled to find revenue streams, might be facing its biggest challenge yet.

And just for fun, here is a link to my favorite Daily Show clip of the week. Hulu, you let a good thing get away.

When I’m pitching a client on social media services they inevitably ask three questions:

1) How much do I have to spend?
2) Where will you spend it?
3) What is my ROI going to look like?

It’s this third question that I struggle with. No matter what anyone tells you Social Media ROI cannot and will not ever be projected as accurately as other forms of online marketing like SEM, SEO and banner advertising. Social Media is about brand building, buzz generation and customer engagement, and while all of these things can be quantified and measured, none of them lead to a precise ROI.

ROI insecurity is the biggest hurdle we address when acquiring new clients. The expectation is that Social Media Marketing should work like the other forms of marketing that clients have invested in in the past. Many of our customers expect to be able to track dollars to clicks to conversions in real time using their Google Analytics. Other customers, with less digital experience, expect similar metrics using the conversion measurements of the brick and mortar marketing world. When it comes to social media these people scoff at the idea that ROI can’t be precisely measured.

And yet, 88% of brands plan to dramatically expand their investments in Social Media this year, according to the Internet Advertising Bureau. But if social media is so weak on proving ROI, why is this happening? In other words, what is causing the vast majority of brands to invest millions in a strategy that lacks a clear cut return?

When we launch a social media campaign we build an engaged community on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and a variety of other social networks. We give the brand we are working with a voice through their own blog. We manage customer service and protect the brand’s reputation in real time. We work with the influencers, bloggers and tweeters in the brands target demographic to earn authentic praise and referrals. And while we do rigorous data analysis to show our customers shifts in sentiment, increases in coverage and growth of site traffic we will never have the hard revenue evidence that direct marketers and “traditional” online marketers can show.

Given this reality, I believe it is time to reposition our trade. Social Media is not marketing, it’s Social Media. Social Media sits at the intersection of public relations, customer service, brand building and corporate communications. Social Media offers brands the ability to interact with hundreds of thousands of customers and prospects directly and authentically.

Social media removes the PR and journalist middle men. This is a very powerful shift. Akin to what Search Engine Marketing did to the traditional marketing world of TV, radio and billboard ads, a world in which CMO’s routinely said, “I know half of my marketing dollars are wasted, but I’m not sure which half.” Search Engines changed this calculus by allowing brands to track dollars to clicks to conversion.

Social Media has had a similar effect of the “traditional” earned media world. A decade ago public relations firms would charge whopping monthly retainers for their address book of influential journalists at exclusive publications. Social Media demands authentic, direct connections with the consumers themselves. This gives brands, consumers and guerilla social media teams (like ours) the advantage.

We are not a marketing firm, advertising agency, or public relations group we are a Social Media Team.

I spoke with a number of people on the list to congratulate them on their inclusion. When I was speaking with Brendan Cooper – London based social media consultant who started Porter Novelli’s social media practice – he suggested that we create an index.

By pulling quantifiable data from around the web we will be able to rank the influence of the members of our industry. While this will undoubtedly be a fun, competitive, ego boosting endeavor, I also believe their is real utility in this kind of index. Just a few weeks ago BusinessWeek ran an article that compared the masses of social media “experts” to snake oil salesmen. Last week Mashable pointed out that there are 15,740 self-identified “social media experts” on Twitter. As businesses grapple with doubts about social media ROI and the benefits/risks of increased transparency, our industry will face increasing scrutiny. An index of influence will help to tell separate the wheat from the chaff.

And so I need your help. What variables should we consider for this index? Speaking with Brendan has helped me to come up with some good ideas and I’d like to hear your thoughts about them:

Blog: PageRank, Technorati Authority, Traffic and Number of Comments.

Twitter: Number of Followers, Number of List Inclusions, Number of Tweets Retweeted and Number of @ Replies.

Facebook: Number of Friends and Number of Facebook Fans.

LinkedIn: Number of Connections.

Other: Number of Clients, Power/Influence of Clients – this would be a qualitative judgement ranked 1 through 10 where 1 is Joe the Plumber and 10 is Coca Cola.

Thoughts, Critiques, Suggestions?

Over the next couple of weeks (or months) we will be finalizing the site to include a full portfolio of work, a more dynamic blog and a real education section. If there is anything else that you would like to see on the site let us know. One aspect I am personally thinking about including is a Smarter Social Media Index, which will rank the influence of the thousands of “Social Media Experts. ” More about this in a later post.

However, if you are a proponent of the ‘Freedom of Speech’ movement then the dislike button is just another tool for you to further express your disdain for the junk you see posted on your home page. What you think about that? Should the ‘Dislike Button’ be a new feature to rave about on Facebook?