How do you measure the success of what you do in social media?

Is it by the number of people who follow you?

RSS counts?

Number of clicks on your blog?

Number of Retweets?

Offline conversations spurred?

For me, I measure success by interaction.  Which explains why I end so many blog posts with a question.  And why I pose so many (seemingly random) Twitter and Facebook questions, also.  Because I want to spark discussion.  Encourage you to think and interact.  Cause you to laugh.  Help you look at life differently.

I measuring success by looking at social engagement, not simply the number of followers that I amass.  Because I could have thousands and thousands of people reading my blog, but if nobody interacts, I would consider my work unsuccessful.

Would you rather have 10,000 followers, with very little interaction…or 100 followers that think, dream, discuss, disagree, and take the conversation further?