The problem with the research discussed here, which posits that social media doesn’t drive sales, even though companies using social sites (i.e. participating on the Internet’s many social intranets) say that activity DOES drive revenue, is that they’re asking the wrong question: “What proportion of social media users TURN TO social media when making purchasing decisions?”

A lil book called Gonzo Marketing explained how the internets sort of work way back some years ago. People don’t ‘turn to’ social media. People participate and aggregate within social spaces. We don’t use social media like the new yellow pages. We don’t look up gas grills on facebook or twitter like we’re looking at the walmart flyer or even auctions on ebay.

The point is: There’s no turning.

There’s only you’re here or you’re absent. There’s only you’re talking or your silent. You’re listening or you’re tuned out.

There’s no turning. There’s only I believe her because I know her. There’s only look at what she and Dave took to the park last week for the kids to play with and ROTFL – I gotta have that.

There’s no turning. There’s only I have cried with you, laughed with you, gone down in flames with you because I believe in you.

There’s no turning. There’s only we share the same obsessions about the same places and I have the jpegs to prove it meet me on flickr.

There’s no turning. There’s I can’t believe we started blogging when your kid was 11 and she’s out of college now and has your car.

Tweeting is not turning.

Blogging is not turning.

Facebook is not turning.

They are relationships.

Doc Searls said it best first in the days of yore about blogging: “You don’t make money from blogging, you make money because of blogging.” Relationships develop, a web of connections, a foundation of trust — all of those things become seamless, inherent, endemic.

It is, as JP Rangaswami calls it, “The Because Effect.”

When something that was originally scarce starts becoming abundant, something strange happens. You find that you start making money because of that thing rather than with that thing. That’s the Because Effect.

So you see, there is no turning.

But there is being here.

Or not.