Tracking Returns on Blog Outreach: A Lesson in Futility?

A comment from "Social Media for the Masses" (Adotas):

Yes, when? The "four equally valuable" parts to achieving ROI on investment from blog outreach efforts: consumer
generated content, third party validation, social media, and search
results. Tracking search results? Easy cheesy. Finding UGC and re-using it for marketing purposes or to drive more traffic? Again, not a problem.

But using the bloggers’ validation (i.e., their unique
content discussing the brand) to spread word across social media
outlets and platforms is not only tricky to do but seems, to me, pretty impossible to track. The best part about so-called influencers is that they move in mysterious ways. And the ones they apparently influence are even more confusing to keep track of. So how do you measure the effect of this tactic?

Other than asking bloggers for their own metrics, finding overlap in your audience, or conducting some sort of survey, I don't see a way. That's the thing about word-of-mouth: It runs fast as hell, but not in one direction – so good luck trying to figure out where it came from or where it's going.

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