Remember those kids in school who were just naturally popular ... the ones who commanded an audience no matter what they were doing?

Today in organizations ranging from Fortune 500 companies to nonprofits to government agencies, those popular, cool kids --- or rather their online equivalents (they are not always the same) --- find themselves in high demand.  The reason: organizations are desperate to fill positions such as "director of social media" or  "social media officer" or even "corporate social media rock star," and the perfect candidates seem to be born into it, not made. 

The explosion of social media analysts is happening at a rate so fast, even for the tech world, that organizations of any scale are having trouble keeping up. "Across the country, companies like Petco are going through a two-step process," writes Felix Gillette of Bloomberg BusinessWeek. "First, they scramble to hire social media officers. Second, they figure out what it is, exactly, that social media officers do." For government and nonprofit groups, the experience is similar, though more likely to involve existing employees who are drafted to be the "social media guy" or "gal" at the office, rather than a brand new hire.

Either way, it ain't easy. As BusinessWeek notes, it is hard for organizations who want to get in on the action to evaluate their candidates' potential and experience. The metrics simply aren't developed enough yet. Businesses may be fooled by interviewees who tout their high number of "fans" or "followers" as proof of their success and popularity; but by that standard, we should all be hiring the Jenna Jamesons of the world.

Instead, writes James Kobielus of Forrester Blogs, "engagement agents" must field problems much more complex than a decreasing number of retweets or a negative YouTube video. Key questions that face social media officers include: "Can you afford to respond to all issues immediately, or delay some less critical issues to later? Does it make sense to respond to all issues, or simply a prioritized subset of issues...? Should you outsource the social media listening/engagement functions...?" But these tougher questions aren't always asked, in part because many leaders who don't understand social media perceive it as a soft area not critical to an organization's mission or bottom line.

"Measuring awareness, sentiment, propensities, and influence based on the ongoing conversations" among consumers is another Goliath to the Davids of social media directors, says Kobielus. Among other things, social media officers are required to take a constant pulse of what's being said about their organization, when, and where. In the age of citizen journalism, press releases just don't cut it anymore. If a bad review goes viral, it could all but ruin a product that's not even released yet.

The BusinessWeek story cites the case of a new car, the 2010 Honda Accord Crosstour. Honda set up a Facebook fan page for it before its release, hoping to generate positive press. Instead, commenters ripped the car's design, alerting the news media to the fact that buyers weren't at all enthusiastic about the car. Who is to blame? The social media director's job to make sure that such negative feedback is quashed as quickly as possible.

Of course, the silver lining is this system works the other way around, too. Ford, tapping into the power of free schwag, lured in consumers by announcing that if its Ford Fiesta Facebook page reached 30,000 fans, it would give away a model of the car. Ford's media analysts recognized, correctly, that the cost of producing one model for free would be a mere fraction of the money they would gain back from newly attracted customers.

Somewhat similarly, Petco recently hired a director of social media and commerce, whose job, among other things, is to monitor software problems for irritated or disenchanted consumers. The strategy? "Amplify the affection, creatively disarm the reasonably disgruntled, and ignore the unhinged," says BusinessWeek. Since it's so easy for news -- good or bad -- to travel to millions via the Internet, it's hard to put a price on someone who does this job well.

These are some of the considerations that companies, government agencies and organizations should take into account before -- not after -- they hire a person or create a department to look at social media ROI.

Perhaps the biggest frustration on the part of the social media agents themselves is one well-known to anyone in a new field: credibility.

"Because most of the tools of the profession are free, the new class of social media managers can find themselves stuck with meager operational budgets," concludes BusinessWeek. But managers, CEOs, and VPs should remember that while the technology might be widely available and easy to find, the labor is not. As the field gets "older," groups of all kinds will be better able to gauge what makes a social media manager (or "rock star") competent. And a competent, driven, forward-thinking manager  -- well, that's an asset to any company, whether new- or old-school.