Increasingly, marketing executives are being asked to show how social media strategies drive sales leads. There is ongoing debate as to whether social media has the potential to serve as a lead-gen tool. On the one hand, some experts don’t think social media channels are scalable enough to drive sales: how much bang can you get for your buck, and can you invest the necessary amount of time to make the channels worthwhile? These points need to be taken into consideration when determining how, and to what extent, companies want to leverage social media channels to share information and receive feedback.   On the other hand, as more and more companies track success of their social media strategies, the indication is that business goals – including lead gen – can be supported. According to a recent BtoB article, a Business.com study did find that “purely” social media channels such as microblogs function strongly as lead gen channels, even to the point of helping build databases of prospects. Entrepreneur also covered this debate recently, citing Charlene Li, co-author of Groundswell, who points to evidence of national brands using social media to drive sales. For example, Southwest posted Twitter specials resulting in $3 M in sales. The potential shouldn’t be ignored, and best practices are cropping up everywhere to help track success of social media programs. This list of 20 metrics is a great place to start, and this list of metrics focuses specifically on lead gen.    Bottom line: an integrated communications campaign helps increase mindshare, site traffic, and can also have a hand in generating trackable sales leads. And while there still may be many questions about social media lead gen, we may as well have some fun trying to find the answers.