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Presentation for:

Measuring Social Media Impact:A closer look at the Knight Foundation’s

Community Information Challenge

RWJF Social Media Measurement Meeting

Princeton, NJ

April 25, 2013

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Are communities becoming…

More informed?

More engaged?

Two Questions Guided the Evaluation of the Community Information Challenge

“I didn’t know how easy it could be to care for the

environment.”

“I am going to see if my neighborhood can

start a recycling program.”

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We Utilized the Following Practices in Measuring Grantees’ Social Media Activities

• Understand the goals of social media activity

• Identify the metrics of success

• Track changes with “offline” data

IMPACT Evaluation Guide

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Understand the Goals of Social Media Activity

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We Needed a Framework to Understand the Impact of a Diverse Set of Information Projects

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Our Social Media Measurement Focused on Project-Level Outcomes

Reaching target audience

Engaging target audience

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We Began Identifying the Metrics of Success

Increasing Reach Increasing Engagement

• More (new) people visiting the website over time

• More people subscribing to get information updates

• More people attending project-specific trainings, events, or meetings

• More (new) people commenting and contributing information online

• People taking action online

• People sharing information with their networks

• People participating in trainings, events, or meetings

Selected

We needed to look at changes that would take place online and offline

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Then We Mapped Outcomes to Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Increasing Reach

• More (new) people visiting the website over time

• More people subscribing to get information updates

• More people attending project-specific trainings, events, or meetings

Lesson Learned: Solicit the help of social media experts to identify the most relevant social media metrics

Increasing Engagement

• More (new) people commenting and contributing information online

• People taking action online, e.g., submitting contest entries

• People sharing information with their networks

% of visits by new visitors over time

# of Fans, Followers, registered users

# of attendees

# comments, content uploads

Donations, sign-ups, “conversions”

Retweets, forwards, hosting events

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Entering Data in a Spreadsheet Provided Us with Information That We Could Use for Benchmarking

Time trends

Google Analytics

Facebook Insights

Twitter and Tweetreach

YouTube

“Custom” metrics

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We Plotted Grantee Data to Better Understand Project Reach

Source: Anonym zed data from KCIC Year-End Evaluation Report (2010)

-2% -1% 0% 1% 2% 3% 4% 5% 6% 7%-3%

-2%

-1%

0%

1%

2%

3%

4%

5%

Average Monthly Growth in Visits

Ave

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on

thly

Gro

wth

in P

erc

en

tag

e o

f V

isits

fro

m N

ew

Vis

itors

Projects in this quadrant have shown the greatest growth in reach through their website

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So What about Impact?

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Track Changes with “Offline” Data

Does filling out an online petition or sharing photos through a nonprofit Flickr account provide information about participation in “real world” activities?

OnlineEngagement

OfflineEngagement

We needed to examine the intersection of online and

offline behaviors

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Some Evidence of Real-World Engagement Could Be Found Online

GrowWNY, Buffalo NY

Source photo by Kate Mini Hillman on GrowWNY Flickr photostream (http://www.flickr.com/photos/growwny/6035588130/in/photostream.

What actions are people taking?

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We Collected Data Using More “Traditional” Evaluation Methods to Fully Understand Impact

Additional Data WereCollected Using…

Grantee Surveys

Interviews

Qualitative (Content) Analysis

Audience or Post-Event Surveys

Registered User Surveys

How is social media being used? By whom?

How are attitudes changing?

Are people acting differently?

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If online “action” is leading to end-game impact?

If we are reaching the already converted?

What “good” looks like?

Many Questions Still Remain

How Do We Know…