Is Your Brand Excited About Social Media?

In the video below, Gary Vaynerchuk talks about his difficulty of justifying the merits of social media to a "conservative" company and asks, "What is the ROI of your mother?"

Social is already crazy-specific about insights and metrics as compared to traditional marketing but there are those who still remain doubtful about investing in it. Some even go as far as pointing out that it could all be a fad and that the same fate that happened to Friendster and MySpace may happen to Facebook, Twitter, etc.
But you see, the Pope wants to absolve people through Twitter, and the Dalai Lama loves hangouts on Google+, Facebook has a crazy milestone of 1 billion users and rising and it's all playing a big role in every aspect of our lives. Don't even get me started in talking about the influence of social media in the Arab Spring (see also HarryLeaks on Foreign Policy). But then these aren't things you can pitch to management or clients.
I've been reflecting on my digital marketing classes and they're making us choose among four specialist tracks: social media marketing, digital media planning, digital analytics, and eBusiness. As of the moment, as expressed by this post, I'm leaning towards the analytics one. I feel that it is the one that is carrying the most weight.