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The Community Roundtable

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Your Community’s Impact: How To Measure It

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By: Morgan Wood, Head of Community at Hivebrite.

Note: This guest post is sponsored content from Hivebrite. Learn more here. 

Building trust and growing your community requires communicating your impact, but measuring impact isn’t always straightforward. Your choice of success metrics should not only hold you accountable but also tell your community’s story. 

Here, we’ll explain how to identify your community’s success and demonstrate its impact quantitatively and qualitatively.

Measuring Quantitative Impact  

Quantifying your impact involves many considerations, including:

  • The health of your community
  • The quality of member sentiment
  • The engagement of your audience in events

Let’s take a closer look at how you can measure each one!


Understanding Your Community’s Overall Health

The first step to understanding the impact of your community is to take a holistic view of its overall health. You can do this by looking at various metrics such as activity, reach, and overall growth—to do this we recommend you use the following metrics:

Traffic MetricsActivity Metrics
# of unique visitors per time frame# of page views per timeframe# logins per timeframe# registrations per timeframe% conversion of members # of Monthly Active Users (MAU)# posts created per timeframe# of moderator actions performed per timeframe

Diving Deep Into Member Sentiment  

In order to dive deeper into engagement, it is necessary to have a good understanding of your community’s overall health. Often, this means looking at things like how often members log in, what kind of content they interact with, and how long they spend in the community. 

However, engagement has been watered down (especially with the community boom) so we want to dig deeper by looking at sentiment metrics. The better you understand your members’ feelings, opinions, and attitudes toward your community, the better you can shape their community experience.

Targeted Feeling Metrics
Belonging# New Members # New registrations 
Importance% feedback implemented from members % of engaged members vs. members registered
Security # unique comments from members# unique discussion posts from members
Happiness # of converted advocates or championsYour overall Community Health ScoreYour Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Event Metrics
# of registrations vs. # of attendees% Engagement of Attendees# Website Visits% Returning Attendees# Post event engagement (i.e: on-demand content views)

Discover how creating a sub-community around your flagship events can boost reach and impact.

Measuring Qualitative Impact  

Traditionally, organizations have focused on quantitative data, but not everything can be reduced to a number. There is just as much value in qualitative data as quantitative data. Qualitative impact allows you to elevate, champion, understand, and tell the stories of your members.

Gathering Member Stories

Ask for member stories! These are simple but powerful narratives that highlight how your community has made a positive difference in someone’s life. Stories like these are invaluable when it comes to showing the impact of your work.

Ottobock is a med-tech company continually specialized in prosthetics and orthotics. Its community, Movao, connects amputees using its products.

The team running the community has created a stories page where community members share inspiring stories about their life:

Conducting Surveys and Polls

Asking your community members directly is another great way to measure the impact of your community. You can do this through surveys, polls, one-on-one interviews, or focus groups. This method is especially useful if you want to get feedback on specific initiatives or programs.

Correlating Your Data

Correlating data is critical. Correlation can tell if two variables have a linear relationship, and the strength of that relationship.

If someone doesn’t attend any of your community’s events in the coming year, how likely are they to renew their membership? If you compare this to someone who attends an event, you might be able to predict how likely they are to resubscribe the next year. You can use this information to focus on initiatives that have the greatest impact when two variables are correlated. 

Invest time in understanding and measuring your community’s impact across your organization by working with other departments. If, for example, your community strives to improve products, you must work closely with the Product and Customer Success Teams to determine how many ideas are implemented, how they affect customer satisfaction, and how they influence new customers.

Final Thoughts

Measuring impact is often imagined to be far more complicated than in practice. The best place to start is with your members and what impact you want to make for them. Remember, the most important thing is to keep your community’s goals top of mind and apply a rigorous methodology when evaluating your chosen metrics.

About Hivebrite

Hivebrite is an all-in-one community management platform. It empowers organizations of all sizes and sectors to launch, manage, and grow fully branded private communities.

Using Community Dashboards to Tell a Story

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A thoughtful narrative combined with powerful metrics can help you tell your community story in a way that connects with stakeholders and executives, unlocking additional resources and providing you with needed advocates in your corner.

But, how do you decide what story to tell? Many community platforms now come with built-in analytics and reporting capabilities, but if you aren’t speaking the same language as your leadership team, even these easy to capture measurements might fall flat.

Georgina Donahue, Director of Community at Pragmatic Institute, used metrics-based storytelling to build community dashboards that clicked with their leadership team.

Read Georgina’s story

About Pragmatic Institute

Founded as Pragmatic Marketing in 1993, Pragmatic Institute has a strong track record of providing real-world insights, actionable best practices and proven tools to product managers and product marketing managers around the world.  

In late 2018, recognizing the power of data and the increasing need for a real understanding of data science and AI among business and product professionals, Pragmatic Marketing purchased The Data Incubator (TDI), a leading data science training organization. The two companies rebranded, and became Pragmatic Institute in 2019.

Then in 2020, Pragmatic Institute grew once again, this time acquiring the masterminds behind the leading design courses at Cooper Professional Education. Pragmatic’s goal is to create a bridge between product, design and data that will help the organizations they work with identify the right opportunities and create the most innovative solutions for their markets.

Together, Pragmatic’s design, data and product practices create a powerful professional education platform to enhance the knowledge and skills of key contributors and teams.

Read more Community Case Studies

Interested in more online community management case studies? Learn how top community programs at organizations like Aetna, Blue Prism, Heifer International, The World Bank Group, and more use community-led programs to increase engagement, boost customer loyalty, improve the employee experience, encourage innovation, and more.

Throwback Thursday – Community Metrics 101

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By Shannon Abram, The Community Roundtable

One of the most daunting aspects of community management for many community managers is how to tackle metrics and measurement. There are so many things to measure, track and report on. And then – what’s the best way to share this data. Weekly? Monthly? With your whole team? Executive reports? It can become overwhelming quickly.

Reporting_Socm2016

Our research has shown that communities need to be aspirational in their metrics instead of settling for what is easily available. Measuring behaviors and outcomes rather than just activity correlates with overall community maturity. That’s a challenge for a couple of reasons – those metrics can be harder to define and they can be harder to track in many platforms. Dive into this week’s #tbt post for a primer on community metrics 101: what metrics you should track, how to think about community value and more!

This week’s #throwbackthursday focuses on Community Metrics 101 – a look at the importance of metrics and measurement in any community.

  • What community metrics are most important to track? – One of the most daunting tasks for many community managers is dealing with community metrics. A member recently approached us with the following question: “I’m getting started with tracking metrics for my community and looking for guidance – where do I begin? What metrics are most important to track?”
  • If you run a community, don’t think like a website on metrics – As we continue to slice and dice the data from more than 200 communities for the State of Community Management 2015, we know that one of the most viewed pieces of the report will be the engagement profiles – the percentage of members who are lurking, contributing, creating and collaborating in the community. It’s a natural thing, especially for new communities, to want to look at engagement and growth metrics early as a way to show to people the success of the community.
  • The Basics of  Metrics and Measuring – If you get a group of community managers together and merely mention the word “metrics”, the first question that comes up is “What do I measure?”… and that is a fantastic question. With a huge variety of forum platforms, an even bigger pool of possible community objectives, and a never-ending list of user types – it might feel really impossible to come up with the perfect community dashboard.

  • For TheCR Network Eyes Only: Community Pitch Deck – Are you a member of TheCR Network? Check out this Roundtable Report: Unlocking the Executive Perspective on Success & Measurement: Business Goals, Community, & Metrics

Want even more #throwbackthursday action? Check out all our throwback posts!

Advisory_Banner_July2016_5

Best-in-class communities know their value

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By Ted McEnroe, Director of Research and Training

“Is it worth it?”

It’s a common question when making any investment – time, money, energy or brain power – in anything, whether it’s a movie, a meal at a new restaurant, a new exercise program, or anything else. We like to know whether what we are doing has value.

Often in communities, though, we shy away from defining the value of a community. This can be for a number of reasons. We can feel that defining value is too difficult, too hard to measure, or too limiting. That’s understandable – because the value of community can be multifaceted, and we don’t want to create a value definition that leaves out any valuable elements.

But deferring that process can slow the development of your community. In the State of Community Management 2016 survey we asked whether communities could define the value of community for members and for the organization, and whether they could define the shared value for members and the organization together. Then we asked whether the community could measure its value.

Three things emerged:

  • About 40 percent of communities could not define the value of the community for members or for the organization, and 60 percent couldn’t define the shared value of the community.
  • Communities that could define shared value scored more highly overall than their peers.
  • And Best-in-Class communities, our Top 20% overall scorers, were more than twice as likely as their peers not only to be able to define value, but to measure it as well.

Best-in-class communities

Being able to measure value is more than just a marketing need. It’s part of the strategic feedback loop that can improve communities. Defining value shouldn’t be seen as a box. It’s a tool that lets you target your resources for greatest benefit. Being able to measure that value – even imprecisely – gives you information you need to make changes and demonstrate progress.

As a community manager, you’re a driver of the community. Measuring the value of your community not only helps you make sure you’re headed in the right direction, it helps ensure your community members and your organization are on board for the ride.

 

We can’t wait to hear what you think – tag your thoughts with #SOCM2016 to join the conversation!

Are you a member of TheCR Network? Download the research inside the Network here.

What community metrics are most important to track?

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By Shannon Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.

One of the most daunting tasks for many community managers is dealing with community metrics. A member recently approached us with the following question: “I’m getting started with tracking metrics for my community and looking for guidance – where do I begin? What metrics are most important to track?”

Like so many community issues there is no one-size fits all solution (probably not the response you wanted to hear!) We can tell you that through the State of Community Management 2014 report we found that 85% of best-in-class communities can measure the value of their community, so clearly measurement worthy goal. We’ve put together three best practices for getting a metrics and measurement program off the ground:

1. Ensure you have a clear and measurable strategy.

​Almost 80% of best-in-class communities have a measurable community strategy. Why? That – more than anything else – will give you clear guidance on what to track by articulating the business goals and behavior change you hope to see.

2. Identify a consistent reporting timeframe.

​About 60% of survey respondents prepare reports monthly. Reporting more often is likely a waste of time because behavior change takes time, but reporting monthly is often enough to get the feedback everyone needs to make adjustments to tactics.

3. Determine reporting audiences.

Think about who will be viewing your progress and goals. What story are you trying to tell them? Choose metrics that support the goals of your community and can be easily understood.

We also recommend both preparing monthly reports to track activity and sharing results with stakeholders and aligning your reporting with your community’s objectives to best engage your community stakeholders.

Do you consistently report on community metrics to your team? How did you decide what to report on, and how do you present this data in a meaningful way to your stakeholders?

Want more insights like these? Download the free State of Community Management 2014 report, and keep an eye out for the State of Community Management 2015, due out this spring!

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Want to access a global network of community professionals? Learn how membership in TheCR Network can provide 24/7 365 networking, training, professional development, and education.

The Value Of Social Business – Infographic

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As we continue the conversation on the value of community management I think it’s helpful to take a step back and think about social business as whole. This weeks infographic, originally published on MindJet is a great look at how companies think about social as a business tool.

Not surprisingly, the highest reported uses are for marketing and customer service. A whopping 77%  of respondents are not actively measuring the ROI of their social business programs – more support for the idea that measurement and metrics are huge topics in the social media and community world for 2014.

Social Business Infographic

 

Is tracking ROI high on your priority list for 2014? What metrics do you have in place to accurately assess the impact of your community or social initiatives?

 

 

Advisory:
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The Community Roundtable offers customized advisory workshops that are ideal for companies looking to start their journey, build out their community program or grow a community program that is not yet at its full potential. Sessions can be conducted in person or virtually and are designed to meet your needs.

Learn more.

Measure, But Measure Wisely

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MeasureTwiceTwo things recently got me thinking about using measurement and metrics.  The first was a post by Bertrand Duperrin who pointed out that just because we don’t want to or don’t measure something doesn’t mean that it can’t or shouldn’t be measured and that every business goal, hard and soft, has an appropriate way to measure. It’s fundamentally good management to measure.  The second instance was a community manager who recoiled a bit when faced with a situation where the company expected conversion tracking that aligned with the social media efforts. The examples brought back my years of working with Fortune 500 companies on operational benchmarking… and knowing that even companies that spend significant resources tracking and measuring often need a reminder about how to most effectively use metrics.

There is a lot of lack of understanding regarding effective uses of measurement out there – both on the part of individual contributors and on the part of management.  Individuals often fear being judged or rewarded/reprimanded based on metrics. Management often uses metrics as a weapon. In both cases it indicates a poor perception and misuse of measurement, particularly if what is being measured is somewhat experimental as is the case with social and community initiatives.  However, on the other end of things – no measurement is simply bad management.  The question is – where is the middle ground and what is an effective approach.

From my experience, metrics are essential to understanding if where you are spending your time is working well or not. Is this blogging really worth my time or is my time better used elsewhere, maybe tweeting or cultivating my Facebook presence?  Everyone should want to know the answer to that kind of question. Measuring is one (note I said one) useful indicator to help answer that question. Whether we do this formally or informally, most of us pay some kind of attention to the number of hits our blog is getting or the number of Twitter RTs, etc.  By formalizing this tracking, you are less likely to deceive yourself.  Rich personal experiences tend to color our perception because they are more memorable than the numbers – and that can really alter how successful we think we’ve been if we don’t marry that experience with the hard numbers. What I mean by this is that a blog post may have received a ton of positive feedback from one person who carried on back and forth with you in comments for hours… leaving a deep impression with you that the blog post was excellent… but when looking at the numbers, you realize that maybe only 20 people read the post. Add some content analysis to the metrics and you find out that your enthusiastic reader was your great aunt’s best friend and had no affiliation with the goal of your blog. What you’ve got after some analysis is that your blog post didn’t work very well given your goals (unless you were targeting your great-aunt’s best friend).  I exaggerate a bit here to make my point but in that case metrics are really helpful so you can determine that maybe the topic of the post or the place where you promoted it did not work for your needs. So you adjust and maybe next time you get 50 views and one comment from someone that is more closely aligned with your goals. Bingo – measuring just worked really well for you. The result of the measurement is not to dock your pay, criticize you, or indicate that you should stop blogging.  It was to learn something about how you did something to improve it the next time.  Not so hard to understand or appreciate.

Now say management comes swooping in and says “We’d like to see 1,000 views and 10 comments for each blog post six months from now”. You look at your numbers and cower a bit… knowing your last post got 20 hits.  Holy cow, right?!?  Here is where good management makes all the difference. Bad management would come in and say “You need to get to 1,000 pageviews in six months or you’re out.”  Way to strike fear into the hearts of your employees – good on ya.  Better management would say “Well, let’s track week over week and see where you are after a few months and evaluate whether we want you to continue blogging.” You still feel pressure but you are not staring down the face of unemployment… which is useful. Great management would say “Let’s track for a few weeks then let’s talk about how you are approaching your blogging and distribution – if we are not seeing the lift that will get us to 1,000 views a post within six months, lets brainstorm about ways we can get your posts out to more people through some of our other communication channels and tweak the focus of the content a bit.” Wow – you don’t feel left to blow in the wind at all there… and you may even feel supported. Nice. And management is more likely to get what they need too.

Measurement and metrics tracking is not a decision-making tool. It is a performance indicator. The numbers neither know what you are trying to achieve nor are they the only factor in understanding performance. Do not use them that way – it is simply poor management to rely on numbers to make your decisions. Use them to assess and evaluate. Combine them with content analysis, the business outcomes you are looking for, and some contextual judgment to make decisions about how and what to change if the numbers are not where you want them to be.  A website getting 0 hits may indicate a lot or nothing. If it’s preceded by days of getting 100,000 hits you really may want to make sure your data center is up.  If it’s Christmas Day… maybe your website just isn’t all that interesting to people who are at home celebrating with family and that is OK because you know network reliability content (for example) is not relevant in that context.  So, please measure but measure wisely and remember the old adage – measure twice, cut once… still great advice.