+1 for Social Business. IBM is in. Whole hog.

6000+ faithful Lotus attendees and 100s of Lotus Partners got fed IBM’s ebusiness equivalent play for the 21st century. Simply put, that they are betting their entire portfolio of collaboration solutions, both old and new on Social Business.

One fat caveat before I put my thoughts here. Connections Next, IBM’s enterprise social software offering that was the star of its presentation won’t be here until later this summer. But given the play it got at Lotusphere 2012 and IBMConnect, it’s too large a bet on IBM’s Collaboration portfolio to not consider seriously.

It’s not for everybody.  For many CEOs and others in leadership or influential positions, getting them to participate (if not lead) via the social Web may be an ongoing, uphill battle.

But I’m talking with more and more CEOs that truly want to give it a go, to engage with their customers and other key constituents more actively via social channels, to accelerate their own thought leadership and personal brands via more frequent writing.

For those CEOs – the ones who should be more active and have a propensity to do it – here are six tips to get them motivated and moving.

1. Make it easy to get started
Break down the start-up process into small, bite-sized steps. Sit down and walk them through the basics if necessary, or point them towards guides that take just a few minutes per step. Then give them a deadline to get it done. Especially if they want to get it done anyway, they might need it made easier plus a little accountability (deadlines) to make it happen.

This post is part of the Social ROI Blog Carnival at Think Customers: the 1to1 Media blog. Visit the blog carnival post at the link above to check out the full list of posts from numerous well-known social media thought leaders.

There are many ways to measure the success of social media at an organization. Some of these metrics are often focused only on tactical results (ex: number of followers or fans). Other metrics tie directly back to the bottom line (ex: value of sales coming directly from Twitter). On occasion, we see true ROI calculated from social media initiatives.

Most companies, however, view social media ROI in the same way they view the legendary pot of gold. They believe that it is there, and they keep looking for it even though it eludes them. Finding ROI in your social media initiatives doesn’t have to be imaginary. As we move into 2012, I fully believe this will be the year that executives begin asking the difficult questions to their social media teams, including what kind of returns they are getting on their social media investment. In order to answer this question, one must consider the true cost of managing a social media program.

If you think everyone is jumping into social advertising, think again.

A recent survey of UK marketers at ad:tech London found that 66% were currently running, or planning to use, social advertising. But that’s well below the 85% US marketers who said the same thing to the Pivot Conference and Brian Solis.

So why are UK marketers lagging behind?

According to Kath Pay, co-Founder of Plan to Engage, the issue is that marketers in the UK and Europe are approaching social with an ad hoc point of view. And without integrating a social media strategy with more familiar channels like email marketing, you can’t see the real value of social advertising.

I recently met up with Kath and asked her a few questions about these very issues impacting social media marketing in Europe. Enjoy!

What do you say? Is integration the issue holding many European marketers from fully embracing social advertising?