NewCommForum: How to Measure CGM with Katie Paine
Always good to see a fellow NH CEO at a conference (especially one in the media intelligence field), so I'm looking forward to this presentation on measuring consumer generated media from Katie Paine. She's an acknowledged expert in the measurement field and usually has provocative things to say.
Katie wants the term "measurement" to disappear. She prefers to think of it as "data-driven decision-making."
She opened with size doesn't matter (eyeballs/page views in other words) and ROI doesn't mean what you think it does. She emphasized that hitting the right eyeballs is more important than hitting a lot of them.
Her advice? Match the measurement tool to your objective and understand that it will all change tomorrow. Be prepared to deal with that.
Figure out what your goals are and measure Output, Outtake, and Outcome metrics.
- Output = what you do
- Outtake = what your audience hears, takes away
- Outcome = results (conversions, sales, etc.)
"You become what you measure." If you track the wrong things, your outcomes will be wrong.
You need to define goals, audience, and the benefits you want to achieve from social media. Then set the criteria for success.
She advises using the right tracking tool based on what your company needs. For instance, if you don't get much social media coverage, you should stick with the free tools. If you have more coverage, it may be worth using another service (she specifically mentioned CyberAlert, eWatch, and my own CustomScoop -- thanks Katie!).
She thinks automated content analysis is OK, but it isn't perfect. She advocates a hybrid solution based on technology and human analysis combined.
Don't collect data if you're not going to use it.
She also talked about the challenge of tracking comments on blogs. Then she did a demo of her DIY Dashboard product and took questions from the audience.
UPDATE: Joseph Thornley has an excellent summary of this panel as well.
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