Jeremiah Owyang at Forrester has an interesting primer on how to pitch social media projects to clients and execs. He outlines a hierarchy of approaches ranging from pitches that focus on technology (weakest) to business value (strongest).

"Instead of focusing on terms like "Web 2.0″ or "Ajax" focus on terms like customers, trust, community, and connections."

I couldn't agree more. Just speaking from my own experience, the folks who are now doing social media at (or for) SAP all pitched the business value. And with that business value clearly stated, we also know how to measure the effort.