Comments on: Measuring digital engagement

By: Mismar

Mismar — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 01:42:21 +0000

“Measurement should be against the objectives of the whole communications exercise. I think anything else is a distraction…”

i totally agree with that. i also liked that. maybe you would like to have a look.

http://www.slideshare.net/scottmburns/measuring-mission-value-of-digital-communications-in-the-public-sector-and-9-rules-of-engagement

By: cyberdoyle

cyberdoyle — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 06:46:10 +0000

All very interesting and it is obvious that government is working very hard to get things right. Kudos.
The problem still remains that a third of the country won’t be able to access these sites except on dial up. Despite the assurances of ofcom and BT there are many who can’t get a decent broadband connection. http://www.finalthirdfirst.org
Just sayin.
chris

By: The Conservatives’ nudge to marketers / we are social

The Conservatives’ nudge to marketers / we are social — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:33:31 +0000

[...] more robust measurement and evaluation tools and methodologies – something we’ve seen the COI thinking about recently. However, it’s unclear how rigorously this proposal might be implemented – achieving [...]

By: Adam Bailin

Adam Bailin — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:40:24 +0000

P.S. Measurementcamp looks interesting, I might have to go to the next one.

By: Adam Bailin

Adam Bailin — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:39:19 +0000

Thanks for the comments guys. I agree there is a need for further qual and quant measures in addition to the ones suggested. I guess what I was trying to do was to isolate those specifically characterised by the social nature of channel, those arising out of peer-to-peer realtionships. All of the additional measures you suggest make sense.

The risk of creating a set of standard metrics is that they become the focus and could lead to other important measures being overlooked. Conversely, the risk of not having a core set is that it’s harder to compare with other campaigns/engagements and therefore judge success. I agree that the most important thing is delivery of objectives but how do the comparable bits rate and did they contribute to the overall success?

Perhaps it is a futile exercise but it’s an interesting debate all the same!

By: Neil Franklin

Neil Franklin — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 14:36:08 +0000

Measurement should be against the objectives of the whole communications exercise. I think anything else is a distraction…

Steph’s right when he raises the need for qual and quant metrics to fully understand the depth of engagement. I saw one presentation at Forrester’s London conference last month which really crystallised this approach. The trick is to home in on the communications objective, and then tease out what “influence” “reach” or “quality of interaction” mean as a measurable target through each channel chosen in the digital layer of the project.

The most easily measurable parts of an exercise could well be the most distracting and unuseful in the long-term. It’s the same reason we keep being asked for “hits” rather than anything more meaningful.

By: Steph Gray

Steph Gray — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 22:55:30 +0000

As measures, that’s a reasonable starting point. But there’s a real danger in picking a handful of measurable elements and defining – perhaps inadvertently – that that’s what counts in a publicly-funded digital engagement project in the eyes of agencies and auditors.

What about:
- how much use the policy team clients found the project to be
- what role digital played in relation to other channels
- what the outcome was in terms of the take up of the call to action
- how the participants felt about the process, and what they did next (did they stay involved? join the group but never re-visit?) etc
- what the return on investment was in terms of effort/cost to useful outcomes?

Will McInnes is doing interesting things on these questions at Measurementcamp, I understand: http://measurementcamp.wikidot.com/

We’ve also struggled rather to come up with an evaluation model we think works, but the ingredients for me would have to be:

- quantitative assessments of effort/cost input
- qualitative assessments of success in delivering the project
- quantitative measures of reach
- quantitative and qualitative assessments of engagement
- qualitative assessments of the value to the policy/comms clients
- an element of follow-up/review to see what the longer term impact was, including in unintended areas such as greater engagement by policy officials

By: Sergio Maldonado

Sergio Maldonado — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 11:11:53 +0000

Hi,

We have also done extensive research and come up with a set of eGov measurement KPIs over here: http://www.imue.org

Some Spanish ministries and local governments are already implementing the IMUE scorecard.

Only problem, it is all in Spanish thus far But happy to translate if you give us some time!

Regards,

By: Adam Bailin

Adam Bailin — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 10:51:12 +0000

Robin, thanks for the links. I’ll will definitely check those out. I did look at a different Forrester report on Social Media Metrics but these look interesting too.

Actually, Joolz was one of the colleagues I referred to!

Happy to chat any time.

By: Robin Grant, We Are Social

Robin Grant, We Are Social — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 23:17:23 +0000

Hi Adam

We’ve done a lot of thinking in this area (and already shared some of it with your colleague Joolz as part of the PR evaluation consultation). It’s also worth looking at Forrester’s work in this area:
http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,42124,00.html
http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,44421,00.html

I’d be happy to come in and chat about this if you felt it useful…