One of the biggest reasons that some companies still avoid social media is because they think it’s too hard to measure the return on investment.

Facebook is set to announce a plan to tackle this issue head-on, through a partnership with Nielsen. According to The Wall Street Journal, the companies will be unveiling a product called Brand Lift on Tuesday. Brand Lift will “measure the impact of … ads on Facebook through polls that Facebook will show its users who have seen the ads. Facebook will then compare the users' responses to those of other people who didn't see the ads and package the data for advertisers.”

That sounds like a solid way to tangibly measure whether or not ads on the site perform, which could represent a big step forward in Facebook’s ability to attract advertisers and get them to spend more on advertising to the social network’s 300 million users. On caveat, however, is that you will have to be a Nielsen customer in order to use Brand Lift.

While we haven’t yet seen a demo of the platform, expect more details to be revealed tomorrow.