Starting with the following caveat,

As you can see, this process and framework is not cut and dry, black and white. Rather, it’s highly subjective, requires tremendous judgment, and is open to interpretation. But it is a starting point for an otherwise nebulous activity.

… Charlene Li, from Forrester Research, takes a stab at defining what’s hitherto been an intangible pain-in-the-neck for all corporate blog evangelists (such as myself) for so long. Here’s the oft-quoted Figure 2, that outlines the measurement best:

(Source: New ROI of blogging report from Forrester)

What’s easy to measure:

(a) Press Mentions – this is the greatest indicator of current value and is also the easiest to measure
(b) Search engine placement
(c) Word of mouth

What’s not easy to measure: (due to amorphous value considerations)

(a) Savings on customer insight – this is not exactly impossible but may prove to be more time-consuming & nebulous than imagined; measuring the no. of times blog comments provide useful business insight.
(b) Blog traffic – what are similar content channels to blogging? is it advertising through RSS feeds?
(c) Increased sales efficiency – I believe an increased number of clients and prospects reading your blog will inevitably lead to increased sales but I’d love to read the Forrester Report to figure out how they measure that. Do you have a better idea of how it’s done?

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It’s ironic how new media’s true worth is calculated on the basis of the old media it finds placement within!