Top metrics for social media
Like many, you may be confused as to what you should measure on the social media platforms you are using for your communications.
Well, Katie Delahaye Paine, aka The Measurement Queen, has offered her valuable advice on the top five social media metrics you should be measuring:
- Net increase in share of desirable conversation
- Top five performing pieces of content, measured by conversion
- Percentage increase in conversions
- Net growth in high quality engagement
- Cost-effectiveness comparison
I really like the focus on engagement; read more here (pdf) where Katie explains each metric for you.
Number 1 value of communications – connecting it to organisational objectives?
The USC Annenberg Center for Public Relations has released key findings from its second annual Global Communications Report (GCR17), a survey of more than 800 public relations, communications and marketing executives from around the world.
In the survey, they asked executives how they felt public relations (communications) could increase its value in an organisation – and the top response was “demonstrate how PR programs achieve measurable business objectives” as seen in the graph below, two points I’d make:
- Linking communication/PR programs to business organisation objectives is a long standing “bugbear” that academics and practitioners have been grappling with and is recognised as such in principle 3 of the Barcelona Principles for PR/Communication evaluation. The best work in this area I’ve seen to date is from Jim MacNamara with his ‘“toe bone to the head bone’ logic model to connect public relations and corporate communication to organisation outcomes” (pdf).
- My own “bugbear”- I finding irritating that the second value of PR/communications is “Deliver creative solutions” – but what if these creative solutions don’t work? Ah ha… people are often wowed and impressed by creative ads, texts and ideas – but they are only useful if they achieve your communication goals – and how to know that? Well measurement! I love the example of the Got Milk? campaign in the US that was lauded as creative and won many advertising awards – but it failed – it did not increase milk consumption as it did not address the key issues why people were drinking less milk, read more here.
Notes to the graph: the three bars represent: Marketing=marketing staff working in organisations; Agency=communication/PR staff working in PR agencies; In-House=communication/PR staff of organisations.
Face-to-face 34 times more effective than email
For those interested in camp
aigning and its effectiveness, here is a very interesting article that found that face-to-face contact is 34 more time successful than email contact. This has interesting implications for campaigning and advocacy today, that increasingly relies on online communication to persuade people and organisations to take action.
The authors comment:
“People tend to overestimate the power of their persuasiveness via text-based communication, and underestimate the power of their persuasiveness via face-to-face communication.”
Advocacy Evaluation Event: 14 June 2017, Washington DC
An evening reception for the launch of Annette Gardner and Claire Brindis’s book: Advocacy and Policy Change Evaluation: Theory and Practice that I mentioned last week.
With a great panel for the event:
ANNETTE L. GARDNER is Assistant Professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco.
CLAIRE D. BRINDIS is Professor of Pediatrics and Health Policy and Director of the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies at the University of California, San Francisco.
DAVID DEVLIN-FOLTZ directs the Aspen Planning and Evaluation Program at the Aspen Institute and serves as the Aspen Institute’s Vice President, Impact Assessment.
JULIA COFFMAN founded the Center for Evaluation Innovation. She has more than 20 years of experience as an evaluator, and now specializes in the evaluation of advocacy, public policy, and systems change efforts.
SUE HOECHSTETTER is the Senior Advisor for Foundation Advocacy and Evaluation at Alliance for Justice and helps amplify citizen’s voices in the policy process.
New book: Advocacy and Policy Change Evaluation: Theory and Practice
Another great new book – this is the first ever book that looks in-depth at concepts, design, tools and methods to conduct advocacy and policy change evaluation – with plenty of practical examples and case studies. I also happy to report that I provided input for one of the case studies which is on an evaluation I carried out on Oxfam’s GROW campaign.
Learn more about the book>>
New book: Monitoring and Evaluation Training: A Systematic Approach
An under-appreciated area has been what is a systematic approach to monitoring and evaluation (M&E) training for programs and projects. Now this gap has been filled with a new book from Scott Chaplowe and J. Bradley Cousins:
Monitoring and Evaluation Training: A Systematic Approach
“Bridging theoretical concepts with practical, how-to knowledge, authors Scott Chaplowe and J. Bradley Cousins draw upon the scholarly literature, applied resources, and over 50 years of combined experience to provide expert guidance for M&E training that can be tailored to different training needs and contexts, from training for professionals or non-professionals, to organization staff, community members, and other groups with a desire to learn and sustain sound M&E practices.”
Advanced M and E Training in the UK
Intrac in the UK is offering an advanced monitoring and evaluation face to face training several times this year – May, September and November 2017.
The course is over five days and covers the following areas:
- Clarifying M&E terminology and the uses of M&E
- Introducing a structure for addressing practical issues and challenges in M&E
- The components of an effective M&E system
- Indicators and how to identify them
- Overview of planning tools to help understand the logic of an intervention and provide a foundation for good M&E
- Strengths, weaknesses and applications of quantitative and qualitative data collection methods and tools
- Introducing more complex tools and methodologies for collecting outcomes and impact data including e.g. RCTs, contribution analysis, outcome mapping, process tracing, most significant
change etc. - Issues to consider when designing and managing an effective evaluation process, and how to close the learning loop and ensure results are used for improvement
- Steps in analysing quantitative and qualitative data, and what makes good quality evidence
- Incorporating learning into M&E – strategies for encouraging results of M&E to be valued and used
