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I’ve been working on a project for the past couple weeks that has forced me to refocus my view from small, fixed scope guerrilla engagements to deals beyond anything I’ve considered since I left corporate life nearly 3 years ago. It’s been an interesting transition which highlights the evolution of conversational marketing from some rag-tag experiments to cutting-edge strategy to almost mainstream practice.

But issues remain.

When you go big, you have to talk ROI. And social marketing is as difficult to track as traditional PR. Sure, there are some great examples of success, but it’s sales impact that will win the day in this economy. On our side is the fact that conversational marketing costs a lot less than other channels like print and broadcast advertising so more brands will enter this space in 2009.

So I’m optimistic that the current economic crisis will shift more marketing to the social web and we’ll hone our measurement of ROI. Now’s the time to go big…

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