Social Network Measurement Strategy

Introduction

The scope of a comprehensive social strategy is beyond what we can provide you through this site. However, we can provide you with a good starting point and a range of resources you can use to build a strategy.

1. Define your goals, objectives and organization's implementation strategy

Many writers have authored fine books about social networking strategies and outreach. Check out Groundswell. Not only is it swell, it's a good primer for your outreach. Ultimately, we believe that the best strategy is one of your own devising; a strategy that suits your context and need, while considering, but not counting on, the successes of others.

Begin by asking four basic, but important, questions:

1. What is important to you or your organization?
2. What does online engagement look like in relation to what's important for your organization?
3. What are concrete goals and objectives that you can use to measure engagement in your goals?
4. How will you use metrics to inform iterative improvements?

Additionally, identify:

1. Who will lead the outreach effort? Will it be a single person, or a collaborative of individuals?
2. What outside supports will be helpful? Will you need a writer, or a graphic artist, to assist?
3. How frequently will reports be provided to leadership? What is your short, medium and long-term goal?

2. Next, develop outreach methods

Once you have determined the personal or organizational goals you have for your outreach, you can begin to identify and develop a presence on services you'd like to roll your strategy through.

This is important because a Facebook outreach strategy will differ from a good blogging outreach strategy, which might differ from how you would best use Twitter. A different individual (a socialite) might be best on Twitter, while a good, thoughtful writer might be best with Facebook, or blog outreach. Google searches identify dozens of entries about best practices with each media, should you like to learn more about how to best utilize each service.

3. Identify what engagement means to you

Once you have identified a service or services you would like to utilize, define some metrics. Think deeply - the metrics should give you assurance that as they grow, you are meeting your concrete goals, and more broadly, reaching toward what is important to you or your organization.

For instance, your goal may be to recruit more supporters. Are supporters simply Twitter "Followers", or are they individuals who have done something more, like retweeting? Is it important to know how many people have viewed your YouTube channel videos, or is it better to measure how many subscribers you're gaining for your content? Engagement means something different to each individual and organization, and important metrics may even change over time.

4. Implement, measure, iterate, repeat.

The launch of your strategy is the very beginning of the road. Once you have started to spread news about your organization, product or service, you will need to monitor your outreach. Are you gaining more subscribers? Are more people tweeting, or retweeting? If not, try something else for several weeks. What works best for you?

As you pursue your strategy, please feel free to join the discussion online, and learn about what others are doing.