Evaluating Social Media
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Evaluating Social Media: Step 5. Establish your baseline
In order to evaluate your results, you have to know your starting point. You will have to compare your baseline data with the new data you are going to gather as you progress toward your goal. You need exactly the kind of baseline data that will be able to show you whether your communications are…
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Evaluating Social Media: Step 4. Identify your audience
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…
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Evaluating Social Media: Step 3. State your objectives
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…
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Evaluating Social Media: Step 2. Define your goal
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…
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Evaluating Social Media: Step 1. Determine what you will evaluate
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…
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