Evaluating Social Media: Step 4. Identify your audience

April 20, 2010 By

Organizations often take the easy way out and measure what’s easy to count, such as visitor numbers for their Web sites. But those numbers won’t tell you what those visitors did with the information or content they found. According to the authors of the guide, “you’re ultimately trying to move an audience; therefore, getting feedback from the right source is crucial for a good evaluation.”

The authors tell us to be specific when identifying the audience. Simply the “general public” or “young people” (a particular favorite among managers that jump in with social media efforts) is not acceptable. Narrow your audience to a well-defined group. But identifying your audience does not simply mean knowing, for example, the demographics of those who are most likely to visit a performance (white, 55-64, household income of…). It’s all about behaviors.

Marketing expert Doug Dome explained to me: “behavior and financial value of behavior are at the heart of integrated marketing communications.” The financial value of behavior is an important aspect for your commerce goals, but there is more value to behavior than purely money. And that other value is what we’re trying to evaluate here.

In our example, you will want to evaluate those online users who are most likely to influence others, those who will become your evangelists.

The authors of the book “Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies” created so-called Social Technographics, a classification of people according to how they use social technologies. Here are the different categories and its public’s behaviors:

Creators
Publish blogs, Web pages, stories, audio/music/video

Critics
Post ratings, reviews; comment on blogs/forums; contribute to/edit wikis

Collectors
RSS feeds, add tags to pages or photos, vote for web sites

Joiners
Maintain profile on social networking site; visit social networking sites

Spectators
Read blogs, watch video from others, listen to podcasts, read forums, ratings and reviews

Inactives

In social media, the creators and critics will be your audience. Those are the people that are most likely to create content that advances your mission, content that contributes to your goal and objectives. Their online behavior influences others. But keep in mind; you have to concentrate on the relationships, not the technologies. It’s about what they do, not necessarily about what they use.

In addition, the authors of the guide advise that your evaluation should include both the audience targeted for your activities as well as any other audience who may influence your goals and outcomes. How are the collectors, joiners and spectators contributing toward your goal?

It would, for example, be interesting to learn how they have made their purchasing decision. Were they influenced by the creators and critics, your target audience?

Tomorrow, we’ll look at step five: establishing your baseline.

(Source: Are We There Yet? A Communications Evaluation Guide)

Filed Under: Communications, Social Media Tagged With: , , , ,

Evaluating Social Media: Step 3. State your objectives

April 19, 2010 By

The communications environment is in constant flux, which means that many things might change on the way to your goal. A typical communications plan looks ahead 12-18 months, which is a much shorter time frame than the five or ten year goal.

However, a five or ten year goal informs your communications plan. The plan itself is more defined by your objectives. The authors of the guide see objectives as a series of benchmarks with a shorter time frame on the way to your goal, or as they write: “a few intermediate objectives that progressively lead to your goal.”

The objective should not focus on an output from your organization, such as establishing a Facebook presence or publish a video, but rather on an outcome from your audience (what does your audience do with your Facebook presence or that video?). In short, a consumer-focused objective: what result do you want to see from your audience?

That’s where the SMART objective comes in, an acronym for “specific, measurable, attainable, result-focused, and time-specific.” These elements are basically a requirement; you have to have an answer for all five when you frame your objective.

If we take our example of building a network of supporters, what would be an intermediate objective toward that goal? One example of a SMART objective could look like this: “By the end of year one, have established an online community of 25,000 active, engaging members.”

Establishing an engaged online community, certainly works as an intermediate step toward the goal of building a network of supporters.

But even this seemingly straightforward example has some issues: it does fulfill the attainable, result-focused, and time-specific requirements, but the specific and measurable requirements seem a little vague.

It seems specific, but what do we understand as “community”? I understand “community” not necessarily as a group in one fixed place, but rather a group of people that could be spread over several different online places, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

It seems measurable, as it includes a number. But “active” and “engaging” certainly need refined definitions. What exactly does active and engaging mean? It could possibly mean that a member has completed three pre-defined actions (download a podcast, watch a video, write a review, buy a ticket from the Web) within the given year.

Covering our marketing spectrum, with a sales or commerce inspired goal, a marketing focused objective could look like this: “By the end of year two, increase revenue from online referrals from Facebook and Twitter by $50,000.”

Tomorrow, we’ll look at step four: identifying your audience.

(Source: Are We There Yet? A Communications Evaluation Guide)

Filed Under: Communications, Social Media Tagged With: , , ,

Evaluating Social Media: Step 2. Define your goal

April 16, 2010 By

Even if you are evaluating tactical efforts, you will still need to define your goal. You ultimately are concerned about how well your message is disseminated, or you ultimately have a Facebook presence, for a strategic, overarching goal.

Furthermore, the tired “raising awareness of your organization” is not acceptable. The authors ask: “why do I want people to know about my organization?” Behavior change is the ultimate behavioral goal and as the authors write: “when people start behaving differently, you have reached your goal.”

The question is: what is the change your organization is trying to achieve over five to ten years?

The authors differentiate between policy goals and behavioral goals. Policy goals progress from awareness to building supporters and a constituency, and from creating public will to policy change. Putting that in classical music terms, we can see how a policy that will support classical music, passed by your state’s legislature, could be an example of a desired outcome. Or perhaps think about a policy regarding arts education and the role of your orchestra in that policy.

Behavioral goals progress from awareness to attitudes, from changing social norms to behavior change. Again putting that in classical music terms, we can see how a change in attitude or social norms toward classical music, and ultimately a change in behavior, could be an example of a desired outcome.

Depending on the stage of the road you are in and the state of the environment and your audience, you could aim for any of the goals above, from awareness (as long as you ask yourself why) to change.

Now I certainly like to think that your mission statement is a good guide to inform your goal. As I wrote before: you should start thinking about how social media can help your organization’s core mission of providing classical music to audiences in your community and around the world.

Whether your goal is a policy goal or behavioral goal, the key themes that become apparent from the guide seem to be building a network of supporters and advocates to drive policy or behavior change.

Perhaps in other words, not just creating ticket buyers (although that is certainly part of it), but rather evangelists that will advocate for classical music; people who will advance your mission of bringing classical music to communities and audiences the world over.

So let’s define our goal as: “To build a network of supporters (patron evangelists, partner organizations, and bloggers) who can work together to advocate for an increase in classical music participation.”

One important last note on defining a goal: your communications plan is only part of the effort toward this goal. There are also program initiatives and supporting activities. These, perhaps more so than your communications plan, drive your road toward the goal; they are the meat and bones of a classical music organization. They include artistic programming, fundraising, education programs, and much more. Although you would again work from an integrated perspective, this series is not here to evaluate those elements.

On Monday, we’ll look at step three: stating your objective.

(Source: Are We There Yet? A Communications Evaluation Guide)

Filed Under: Communications, Social Media Tagged With: , , ,

Evaluating Social Media: Step 1. Determine what you will evaluate

April 15, 2010 By

We have already determined that we’re evaluating social media efforts. But the question remains whether you are measuring a strategic initiative or a tactical effort.

A strategic initiative might include aiming for behavior change (e.g. new communities to participate in classical music; one-time ticket buyers to return); a repositioning effort (e.g. going from an organization that purely presents performances to an organization that stands in the middle of the community); or brand awareness (e.g. earning the reputation of an innovative arts organization; earning the reputation of an arts organization for the community).

A tactical effort might include evaluating how well your message is being disseminated; quality of communication with your audience (e.g. satisfaction of you social media engagement or quality of blog responses); a social media campaign; or simply one aspect such as your podcasts, videos or Facebook presence.

Our evaluation of social media efforts is therefore an evaluation of a tactical effort (social media). But throughout the subsequent blog posts, as you will soon read, we will be looking at how it is placed within a larger strategic context.

Let me now take just one minute to highlight an important point: the difference in evaluating a communications plan as opposed to evaluating a marketing plan. While I have indicated that I believe it is important to approach your communications plan from an integrated marketing communications perspective, in general terms, a communications plan is focused on policy or behavior change, whereas a marketing plan is focused on sales and commerce. Your social media campaign will likely touch on both and I will try to incorporate a brief comparison between the two concepts in the different steps. However, keep in mind that we’re working with a communications evaluation guide.

Your influence on policy or behavior change is a more abstract matter to measure than an increase in ticket sales or recording sales. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

Tomorrow, we’ll look at step two: defining your goal.

(Source: Are We There Yet? A Communications Evaluation Guide)

Filed Under: Communications, Social Media Tagged With: , ,

Take A Friend To the Orchestra: Flip the Funnel

April 15, 2010 By

This week, Drew McManus’ Take A Friend To the Orchestra 2010 kicked off on his Web site Adaptistration. I was invited to write a guest contribution this year and was immediately inspired by a book I was reading: Joseph Jaffe’s Flip the Funnel: How to Use Existing Customers to Gain New Ones.

So, head over to Adaptistration and read my contribution: Flip the Funnel: moving from today’s toward tomorrow’s customer experience. Don’t forget to leave a comment to let us know your thoughts!

TAFTO 2010: Marc van Bree

Filed Under: Communications Tagged With: , , ,

Evaluating social media for classical music organizations

April 14, 2010 By

I have been a fan of the communications evaluation guide Are We There Yet? by The Communications Network ever since I learned about it through Issuelab. Designed for philanthropic and nonprofit organizations, the report guides managers through evaluating their communications efforts. The authors warn that it is not a communications planning tool, but I believe a greater understanding of the proposed evaluation process will lead to a better, more focused communications plan.

So naturally for me—combining classical music and social media—the question was: how can orchestras or classical music organizations evaluate their social media efforts using this guide?

Over the next week, I will go through the guide, step by step, to see how it might apply to classical music organizations and their social media efforts. I will take a fairly broad, general approach and perhaps make certain assumptions and create certain hypothetical scenarios that could be typical for classical music or arts organizations around the country.

The steps, according to the guide, include (the steps will become links to each respective article as they are posted):

Step 1. Determine what you will evaluate
Step 2. Define your goal
Step 3. State your objectives
Step 4. Identify your audience
Step 5. Establish your baseline
Step 6. Pose your evaluation questions
Step 7. Draft your measurements
Step 8. Select your evaluation techniques
Step 9. Estimate your budget
Final Word

Although I will be looking at social media in particular, I believe it is important to see these efforts as part of an integrated marketing communications approach and as part of a larger strategy toward an overarching goal.

Even if I don’t go into those elements beyond social media, including offline advertising, promotions or public relations efforts or programmatic supports, keep in mind that the social media efforts should always be seen as part of an integrated approach toward achieving a mission statement-inspired goal. Your offline efforts should always complement your social media efforts, and vice versa.

I hope the walk through will be helpful and insightful. Perhaps you have suggestions or improvements along the way. If so, don’t hesitate to let me know. Likewise, leave a comment if you have an evaluation story to share or if you have any questions on your own evaluation efforts. I’m looking forward to hearing from you.

Happy evaluating! Tomorrow, we’ll get started with step one.

Filed Under: Communications, Featured Posts, Social Media Tagged With: , ,

A response to Symphony Magazine’s article on social media

April 1, 2010 By

The March/April issue of Symphony Magazine takes a look at social media and how orchestras around the country are using it. I was flattered to be contacted due to the Orchestras and Social Media Survey that was published around the article deadline.

The main point I was trying to get across was that orchestras are in a unique position to be adept at social media, but currently they are not quite using the tools strategically. I hope that it came across that way.

The article had a myriad of interesting examples and creative ideas. The New York Philharmonic’s photo contest; Baltimore Symphony’s weather updates via Twitter; blogger nights; and iPhone apps.

These are all great. And it shows that orchestras are dipping their feet in the social media pool with creativity and enthusiasm. But, and perhaps I’m reading too much between the lines, there were a couple of instances that demonstrated why orchestras don’t seem to be quite as ready yet.

The New York Philharmonic’s head of communications told the reporter that social media “is not just an advertising outlet. It’s also something we can use to talk about our educational activities or even fund-raising activities.”

It does seem to me that “something we can use to talk about…” demonstrates that many still see social media as a tool for broadcasting their messages. A case in point comes from the Baltimore Symphony, whose “public relations and marketing releases are now routinely sent to bloggers.”

I won’t argue against telling the stories that don’t get told in the mainstream media or against pitching bloggers, of course, but the language in which these examples were written displays an old world frame of mind. It’s not just the tools that have changed in a static world; it’s the environment that has changed as well, and the mindset and strategy must change accordingly.

Additionally, whenever there is a mention of any metrics in the article, it’s only metrics such as number of followers or fans, unique visitors or downloads. There is no mention of engagement from those fans, actual sales figures or, more importantly, conversion rates.

But there are also some good examples of strategic use in the article. The Indianapolis Symphony, for example, takes an integrated approach to its different social media efforts where “users have multiple venues to discuss certain topics or to embed comments and links in different places, forming a network of street-level promoters.” Now whether they really are creating these promoters and what the impact of such promoters is remains elusive.

In short, I’m happy to see this dipping in the social media pool occurring, but it seems orchestras are a bit behind the curve. Other organizations were dipping away two years ago and are now implementing social media more strategically and are measuring their results. Let’s make sure orchestras catch up.

Filed Under: Culture, Social Media Tagged With: , , ,

Dutch Perspective on Facebook

March 16, 2010 By

It’s not an exercise in vanity. It’s an exercise in learning. I started a Facebook Fan Page for this blog and I have roughly two objectives: to learn more about Facebook in terms of options, best practices and measuring, and to learn more about who is exactly reading this blog (and reading it enough to become a fan on Facebook). Beth Kanter’s Facebook Fan Page was the inspiration behind it all.

Beth wrote a post on Facebook metrics, benchmarks and experiments last month (which I guess was inspired by a link I posted on her fan page!), that really got me thinking about how organizations can use Facebook and got me interested in the idea of Facebook landing pages. My rough first attempt to create a landing page has a big issue: image heavy (looks good, but slow to load and worthless for SEO).

Beth also recommends that you build the page around a very focused objective and a selective strategy. So for me, that turned into “a place to discuss with colleagues how to use social media in the changing cultural environment.” Perhaps not as narrowly defined as Beth’s Facebook-only focus, but then again, classical music is probably narrow enough.

The Facebook Fan Page is an effort to complement my blog (and other social media endeavors), not to substitute it. That’s an interesting topic that arts management blogger Andrew Taylor touched on last week, based on research from the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Dutch Perspective on Facebook

On an only slightly related note. Another complement to my blog, as you can see by the shiny new banner ad, will be my guest contribution to Drew McManus’ annual Take A Friend To the Orchestra (TAFTO) project. I’m very excited about what I wrote. Stay tuned. I’m sure I’ll post it on my Facebook Fan Page as well.

Filed Under: Across the board, Social Media Tagged With: , ,

Staffing social media at the Vancouver Opera

February 24, 2010 By

The whole world is watching Vancouver right now. Let’s hope the world also takes some time to check out the Vancouver Opera, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

When I published the findings from my Orchestras and Social Media Survey, no orchestra had indicated they had dedicated personnel for social media. Just a short while later, I came across Ling Chan, social media manager at the Vancouver Opera. Naturally, I was intrigued to find someone in a dedicated social media position at a classical music organization.

Ling was gracious enough to answer a couple of questions during these hectic Olympic and Nixon in China Canadian premiere times. I wanted to learn more about what her job exactly entails.

You are social media manager for the Vancouver Opera. Could you briefly describe what your typical day looks like?

The first thing I do when I get in is check our Twitter, Facebook and Blogs to answer any questions or comments we may have received. This also gives me a chance to chat with our opera company peers, find out what’s happening in the industry, and pass along opera news and gossip to our online friends.

I meet with members of the marketing team throughout the day to strategize and communicate news and upcoming promotions and events. For example, we’re currently working on a guerilla marketing blitz around our Canadian premiere of Nixon in China. We’re also planning for the world premiere of our newly commissioned opera, Lillian Alling in October, 2010.

During the rest of the time, I brainstorm ideas for upcoming blog posts; gather information and images, do research and hopefully create fun, interesting and compelling stories.

Could you share some details of your job description? What was the organization looking for when they hired you?

As Social Media Manager, I manage and moderate all our social media tools including our blogs and our Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and Youtube accounts. I write content to increase brand awareness and site traffic, drive client engagement and ticket sales, while tracking and reporting data to measure the penetration and impact of our social media efforts. I also identify and develop new and innovative methods of engaging our community by staying current with social media tools and industry trends.

The position of Social Media Manager grew out of my previous position as the Assistant to Managing Director. During that time, VO realized and embraced the importance of engaging our audience online. As I was already active with social media personally and had a strong understanding of its tools, I happily volunteered to manage and build our presence online.

I juggled my Assistant responsibilities while working on social media, but with all the success and support we were having online, it soon became clear that a dedicated Social Media Manager was needed. Luckily, the management at VO is forward-thinking and innovative, and they realized what it took to become leaders in social media in the Vancouver arts scene and the opera world.

From the Vancouver Opera Web site, I gather that you report to the Director of Marketing. Does your function have a mostly marketing function and to what degree do you interact with other departments? And how does the decision-making process work in your position?

I play a key role in the marketing department by communicating and promoting the company’s brand. I report and work closely with the Director of Marketing and Community Programs to develop and implement long term social media strategies.

I interact with the Artistic, Development, Education and Lottery departments constantly, as it’s my job to communicate their current and upcoming activities to our online audience. We’re more than happy to “lift the curtain” and give them a peek at what makes Vancouver Opera tick.

Do you have a dedicated social media budget to work with?

We will have a dedicated social media budget after this fiscal year. Our social media expenses for the past year have included prizes and promotional materials (postcards, posters and signage) for our special events: Operabot screening, Facebook & Twitter Fan Night.

How do you monitor the social media presence of the Vancouver Opera?

I use Google Alerts. Twitter is another great way to find out who’s interested about us.

What kind of outcome does the organization expect (or, perhaps, what are the goals and objectives)?

Our goals for social media are to increase awareness and engagement, drive ticket sales, and earn wider media coverage.

How do you measure your success?

We measure blog traffic: pageviews, unique visitors, comments and links each month. On Twitter, increases in our number of followers are wonderful indicators of interest, but what’s more important are the re-tweets and @ responses. I also look out for other bloggers and media writing about us.

I measure all this against increases in ticket sales and subscription purchases, click-throughs to our main website, donations and attendance.

After reading this interview, check out Vancouver Opera’s blog, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook pages. And read this interesting blog post from John Biehler on his participation in Blogger Night @ The Opera. Connect with Ling Chan on Twitter.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: , ,

A quick note on marketing course: digital natives, creativity

February 23, 2010 By

I started my third course in the Integrated Marketing Certificate program today with Doug Dome’s “Managing Integrated Marketing Communications.” Coincidentally, I went on a field trip to Doug’s company Dome Communications somewhere in 2003 or 2004 when I was studying marketing communications at Columbia College. A lot has happened since, including Dome Communications being bought by Hill & Knowlton, but most importantly the manifestation of the shift in the media and marketing environment (which is why I went back to school in the first place).

Two things in this first class sparked my memory of previous blog posts. Doug talked about a change in the workforce where entry-level, right-out-of-college youngsters are valuable because of their lifestyle experience, i.e. digital natives. Yet for all this new value, they lack the strategic experience and the know-how of client relationships. This echoes perfectly what I wrote in September of last year:

As a senior manager, it is your duty to listen to those lower-level employees that might have more familiarity and experience with the tools and the environment and help them understand how it fits into your organization’s mission and strategy. As a lower-level employee, it is your responsibility to start thinking strategically and help your superior understand how to use the tools and how to adapt to the new environment. It is the responsibility of both parties to start trusting each other.

The second concept Doug mentioned was, and I’m paraphrasing, that creative nowadays means setting up a system in which creative can happen. He was talking about advertising and marketing creative, but I think we can apply this to creative as it applies to art in general.

This reminded me of the post in which I wrote about cultural change happening in a technological framework. Part of this cultural change is an opening up in creativity; a chance for everyone to showcase their creativity. Social media as a whole is perhaps a meta-example of such a system, a world perhaps, in which creativity happens. Think all kinds of user-generated content. Creativity today means allowing and setting the stage for people to be creative.

A great start to the class. Very interested in one of the required readings “Flip the Funnel: How to Use Existing Customers to Gain New Ones,” and what that means for arts organizations. Expect plenty of words on that.

Filed Under: Communications Tagged With:
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