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The fact that visitors rushed to read Joe Rotella's story, "Internet ROI: What Plus What Equals What? Running Your Firm" says a lot about the interest in the Internet and about the difficulty of figuring out what businesses are getting for the money they spend on Web sites and social media efforts. But variable as the results that Rotella admits his formula finds are, it's a better than most other discussions about electronic ROI.

Whether you agree with Rotella or not - and his formula was too detailed for one story - the fact is that return on electronic investment needs to be measured. If you are not getting a return on it, why are you doing it? But even though a measuring a firm's Internet presence is tricky, it's still marketing. (By the way, Rotella uses the term Internet presence to encompass Web sites, email and social media.)

And as easy or difficult as measuring marketing is, firms are either measuring marketing or not in traditional media so it’s as easy as or as difficult as that.  Some avenues are new, particularly social media sites. However, for a firm that's never done direct mail that would likely prove just as daunting an investment. With social media, it gets down to try it and see if it works. If it doesn't work, don't do it. Isn’t that the same with everything else?

The first place to start: Set up measurements. Few strike me as more relevant or simpler to do than "How did you hear about us?” And whatever the experts say, each business has measurements of success in its chosen field. I think answers to the question about the source of contacts should be charted. Find out what is normal for each social media site. Compare these results to traditional marketing. How many real leads are there? How many leads are converted to sales or new clients?

Then there's the peer factor that accountants are fond of. What are firms that are similar to yours doing about their Internet presence. What are they doing you are not and how is it working? Or may, you have better ideas and results than they do.

Accounting and tax preparers spend their professional lives measuring things. This is just something else to measure and that's what you're best at.

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