When working in public relations and particularly on social media applications, being able to measure how well your content is working is one of the most important things for developing your content and proving your return on investment. The book "Measure what Matters" by Katie Paine, goes through seven steps to help create a measurement system for your social media platforms.
The first step is to define your goals and objectives. If you do not know what you are trying to get out of your use of social media then you are not going to be able to measure any progress. By defining your goals you will be able to tell what is working and what is not working based on whether you are making progress toward your goals or not. In terms of marketing Paine points out there are typically three categories goals lie in such as sales, message or positioning, and public safety or education.
The second step is to define your audience, environment, and the role you play in influencing them. An environment consists of multiple audiences, although you may be targeting one group of people your message will reach multiple different audiences. Knowing your message will reach more than your target audience it is important to understand who might be viewing your content and to know how the relationship with the audience not being targeted can affect your organization.
The third step is to define your investment. This means you need to know what your outreach will cost and what you are investing into your program. The investment is more than just money, investments include the time spent by employees working on the program instead of doing their other work. Taking someones time away from other work to head the social media will mean they are splitting their work into more pieces so less time will be spent on other projects as well. It is important to figure out if the investment is worth the potential costs.
The fourth step is to determine your benchmarks. Benchmarks are used to compare your results, the benchmarks allow you to tell if your program is successful and heading toward your goals and objectives, or if you need to rethink your strategy. Paine points out the best comparisons are to your competition and peers over time as opposed to yourself or industry averages. The reason for this is the world of social media is always changing so what works one day may not work the next, benchmarks will help keep you on track. Past performance is also a benchmark that can be used, if you are improving on your numbers it is a good sign.
The fifth step is to define your key performance indicators. This is where you decide what success means for you in a specific sense. Not all of your objectives will use the same type of measurement, such as money and time, so they will use different performance indicators. In this stage it is important to understand the difference between visibility and awareness. Visibility is simply the volume of coverage your content gets and where it is placed, awareness is how many people have knowledge of the message.
The sixth step is to pick the right measurement tool and collect data. It is important the measurement tool you are using will measure the data you need to evaluate the progress of your program. Having lots of graphs, charts, and numbers does no good if the data being measured is not pertinent to your objective. Accurate, affordable, and timely data collection are important factors to consider during this step.
The final step is to use the data you have acquired, analyze it, and create an actionable conclusion. A measurement program is an iterative process and due to the changing environment of social media must be done over and over again. The best way to come to actionable conclusions is to relate your conclusion to the objectives you created in step one. Changes do not happen overnight, and once a change is made the effects of the change may not be seen for over a year so do not expect changes to affect your data immediately.
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