Last week I was on a panel talk at USC's Annenberg School of Communication to discuss "Measuring New Media" at the Beyond Broadcast 2009 conference. My slides are available online.
I am starting to get used to being the guy that calls the emperor out on his new clothes. I made the provocative statement at one point that social media is useless if it doesn't lead to donations or some other big ask. I know this goes against current herd-think, but "engagement" and even "visits" are not some kind of currency, easily converted into US Dollars. You should be measuring your efforts in how they translate into dollars or some other big ask (like B2B leads).
The question I like to ask organizations when we set out talking about measurement is "If you were going to clear your homepage to ask your visitors to do just one thing, what would that one thing be?"
The question and the way it's answered is telling. If it's something that you need a knowledge of web technology to understand (visits, hits, pageviews, even conversion rate) then it's the wrong answer. It should be one thing that would be universally understood across the organization, such as "new corporate donor leads" or "donations".
Whenever someone says, "We have a lot of priorities" I know that in fact, they don't have any. And when they say "it changes regularly", then I know they are not being led well at the top of the organization. Nobody can have a healthy workplace where the measures of success shift in unpredictable ways on a quarterly basis.
Ask yourself the question, "What's the one thing I would clear my homepage to accomplish?".
Of course, if you'd like help measuring how effectively your website accomplishes it, please give me a call. I can help you put in place a metrics program that will make your job easier, by focusing your senior management on the right things.
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