At the centre of the framework – developed in partnership with Tullo Marshall Warren (TMW) – is advice about setting key performance indicators (KPIs) that can be used to score the performance of their activities on Facebook, on Twitter and in blogs and forums.

Users are advised to “establish intentions and objectives in to order define which KPIs are most pertinent” before moving on to set those KPIs. The IAB also advises that the framework be used as a benchmark by advertisers to compare their own other social media activity with that of competitors.

The IAB said that there needs to be a “degree of standardisation” in social media measurement, which it hopes the framework will address.

Richard Pentin, member of the IAB Social Media Council and group planning director at TMW, said: “The days of whimsical experimentation have long gone. Nowadays, marketers have to justify every budget line with robust KPIs, solid business cases or definitive ROI analysis. If we genuinely want social media to be taken seriously it’s imperative we start making it much more accountable, and the IAB social media measurement framework is designed to do exactly that.”

Tony Effik (pictured), chair of the IAB social media council, added: “Whilst as an industry we have not yet found that golden metric that can prove social media ROI across the board, we’re taking massive steps in bringing greater clarity, structure and standardisation to social media measurement.”

The framework can be found online here. Over in the US, Altimeter Group and Web Analytics Demystified published their own social media measurement framework earlier this year.