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Very useful thinking about social media ROI. In my experience with business analytics, the "last mile" tends to be the toughest--getting the stakeholders to use metrics to make actual decisions. 

Social software helped TEVA Pharmaceuticals shrink its manufacturing cycle time by 40% between January and April -- when the company's Oracle ERP apps couldn't keep up with unpredictable market conditions.

Interesting research from McKinsey suggests that companies using social media or "collaborative Web 2.0 technologies" are achievingt higher profits. Read more: http://wallblog.co.uk/2011/01/10/companies-using-social-media-are-making-more-money-says-mckinsey/#ixzz1Aq7IXm5E

Businesses who focus on numbers can easily end up privileging short-term profits over long-term sustainability, employee productivity over engagement, and exploitation rather than innovation. These actions can end undermine the organizational strategy, and even the overall mission. Rather than serving as the ends-what the business is all about-the numbers (and qualitative metrics as well) need to be used as a means to measure of how well the organization is achieving both its short-term and long-term strategic goals, and ultimately how well the mission is being accomplished.

Admittedly, it can be difficult to quantify a specific profit or revenue impact from some types of experience enhancers-more robust "voice of the customer" programs, more polished customer statements, better trained front-line personnel, streamlined customer touchpoints, a more user-friendly website, etc. The financials surrounding such initiatives are much less precise than those of hard-dollar initiatives, like the renegotiation of real estate leases or the consolidation of corporate functions. Of course, that doesn't mean customer experience investments have any less of a compelling return than these other endeavors. It just takes a little more work to quantify it. And, frankly, in some cases, it requires a leap of faith.

ChompOn has released some interesting findings (pdf) related to social media sharing and its value to e-commerce. Specifically, the firm sought out to answer the question: "What is the value of a social action in online commerce?"  What they came up with is that a Facebook Share was worth $14, a Facebook "like" was worth $8, a tweet was worth $5, and a Twitter follow was worth $2.