According to the AdAge article “What’s your Brand’s Social Score?,” Razorfish is soon to introduce a social influence marketing (SIM) score to reflect the total share of consumer conversations and the degree to which consumers like or dislike the brand.

Related tools have been around for a while (see HubSpot’s wildly popular grader.com family), and they’re tempting because they seem to quantify something that can be overwhelming. But social media’s value is really in listening and conversations on an individual level. It’s most important to have a listening and engagement strategy that prepares you to listen to customers and let them know you’re listening by taking action on customer feedback. Customer support is a better paradigm for social media than PR. Each mention through social media outlets is an opportunity—and an obligation—to help a customer and learn from them. Over time, what you learn from those interactions will help you get better at the things that should move a score like a SIM in the right direction.

So think of this “social score” as another tool in your social media toolbox to help meet your objectives for engaging with customers and marketing effectively. You’ll need a complete listening and engagement strategy to know what to do with your score once you’ve got it.