Back in in 2008, my good friend Lee Odden asked:

What’s a better term: “social media monitoring” or “social media measurement”?

As someone that provides social media monitoring/measurement tools, I wanted to get a check on whether our feelings have changed towards the use of social media monitoring versus social media measurement.

To me, it means the same thing. After all, why would you monitor social media, if you don’t plan to actually measure social media in some way? Still, I can tell you that, based on Google Analytics, social media monitoring is by far and away the most commonly searched-for keyword.

That’s backed up by Google’s Insights for Search too! As you can see, social media monitoring is far more searched for than social media measurement. Here’s the chart to prove it!

So, I’ve asked on Twitter:

What would you search for: “social media monitoring” or “social media measurement”?

Notice that I’ve not asked, which is better, but, which would you search for? Here are some of the responses:

@etrevallion social media monitoring
@mollermarketing monitoring would be the one i choose over those two options
@schachin monitoring… social sounds like it needs monitoring not measurement like ROI or CTR
@aristobhupal ‘Social Media Monitoring’ for me
@tonicarr I think I would be more apt to search “social media analytics”, then I would vote for your “social media measurement”
@SurjGish Depends, monitoring & measurement are 2 different things
@JoshuaTitsworth I’d search for social media measurement.
@Cord monitoring
@Matt_Siltala if those are my only two choices “social media monitoring” is the one …
@adorosario “how to monitor the social media” [ps: you are over estimating the grammatical and linguistics abilities of Internet users]
@TurtleSEO social media measurement because its about numbers these days…even while we look at invoices
@SharmeeMavadia social media monitoring
@emha705 Social Media Monitoring
@oilman social media monitoring
@1000cigarettes would depend on my intentions. measurement if i were looking for my own results, monitoring if looking to see cumulative mentions
@janetdmiller social media monitoring
@netmeg monitoring
@jimmyrey Social Media Monitoring is what I search for when looking for people who want to buy it
@dvdsmpsn SM monitoring
@joshspickler monitoring. Definitely
@mark_barrera Social media monitoring
@chriskovac I’d search for “”social media monitoring” — “measurement” seems to vague, especially to people that are just now experimenting
@EvanKRob social media monitoring. Seems to project a proactive philosophy where measurement suggests reactive.
@Jlee350 monitoring
@KidQuick my vote goes to social media monitoring. But, my 1st search query on that topic would be something else “social media analytics”

Of course, not everyone is on Twitter, so please chime in in the comments below with your vote:

Social media monitoring or social media measurement?

Thanks!