Social Media Measurement Archives

3 reasons people struggle to measure the value of Employee Advocacy in social media

People tend to struggle with measuring the value of Employee Advocacy in social media for three reasons:

• First, there is the data. Tons of it. So much data that we call it big data. Social data aggregators and monitoring tools give us filters to remove much of the data that is irrelevant to a particular need, but even those tools often produce far more information than a person can digest.

• Second, there are the tools. Even after all the acquisitions that occurred during 2011–2012, there are still hundreds of social media measurement tools on the market. None of them will address all of any organization’s needs. In fact, many companies hire consultants to help choose the right bundle of measurement products, usually from multiple vendors.

• Third, people don’t know what to measure. Social media are still very new to most people. In addition, the media and our ability to measure them are still rapidly evolving. And many people simply measure whatever metrics the social networks publicly display, such as Fans or Followers.

So how to begin measuring the effectiveness of your brand and employee advocacy program?

You need a framework

At the most basic level, social media are all about relationships. Unfortunately, most measurement tools or approaches focus on interactions or transactions. Some tools focus on conversations, but that is still not the same as relationships. For example, Facebook “Likes” are not relationships. Brands that define their goals based on a targeted number of Likes are not focusing on relationships because that kind of goal focuses on one specific interaction or transaction. Such goals do not guide an organization to nurture valuable and lasting relationships with customers.

In general, the most successful employee advocacy programs provide fact-based, quantified performance feedback that encourages desired behaviors. The only way to do that is to establish a consistent measurement framework with clear metrics that everyone understands.

I see lot’s of attempts to pull together glitzy reports with loads of data but little insight or quantifiable attribution on how employees are actually contributing to business outcomes and demonstrating that their efforts are helping the brand gain share of wallet or increase it’s favorable position in the marketplace. If you’re stuck with this challenge, I recommend you begin by establishing a clear and consistent Measurement framework, with supporting key performance indicators (KPI’s) aligned to business or program goals.

Here’s a basic construct we’ve been evolving over years. It can be applied to B2B and B2C industries. You’ll need to evaluate performance in 3 key areas:

• Program readiness: Continually appraise and assess the degree to which your internal capabilities are prepared to pursue and achieve the goals you set for your program or your team.

• Employee performance: Measure the performance of your employees* in social media. For all of those groups, measuring their performance is not the same as measuring their activity. Therefore, your measurement efforts should focus on outcomes that your employees achieve with their target audiences, not the amount of work each employee does or how much content they produce.

• Business outcomes: All of this effort should be guided by your business priorities: the outcomes that matter for your organization. Maybe you want to find new customers. Maybe you want to hire the best people. Maybe you want to increase satisfaction among your existing customers. As you design your Employee Advocacy program, be sure to specify the business outcomes you seek to support and then define a plan to measure the extent to which you actually help achieve those outcomes.

Define a plan for measurement that includes the specific brand goals the program is intended to support, the tactics you will use, and the metrics you will track to evaluate success. Before you set out to measure and report performance on any one of these, you’ll need to set specific goal attainment targets from an established benchmark data, such as:

• Increase community engagement by your internal experts by 5 percent monthly from current baseline xNumber.

• Increase the online share of voice created by external influencers by 17 percent, versus your current baseline xNumber, by the end of the fiscal quarter.

• Increase employee connectivity to influencers and their extended network by 10 percent, from the current baseline xNumber, within the next 6 months.

The framework should ultimately allow you to measure and quantify to outcomes any effort (program, campaign or tactic) delivers. For example, financial impact but can be measured in terms of cost savings, quality improvement or increased revenue attainment.

See more details on these concepts and frameworks in The Most Powerful Brand on Earth – Chapter 5: You’ll measure new things in new ways

Also, I found these related posts on measurement by Ted Shelton and Augie Ray to be insightful.

*The term “employees” can include employees, partners, and affiliates.

Work your core: Proven principals to drive Employee Advocacy results

This post provides a whole new meaning of “working your core”. These concepts will help you strengthen the results which your employees can drive by creating advocacy for your brand.

The target zone: Start small, be specific, choose wisely
Just like in a core body workout, seeing incremental results for the time and effort you put in, inspires you to keep with it. The same is true for building a employee* advocacy program for your brand. Start small, by choosing the best suited employees and partners, who will help you achieve and demonstrate incremental results more quickly. Be specific and choose wisely by applying the 1% rule (“90–9–1”) to your program recruiting. Focus on recruiting the best suited 1% of employees who have demonstrated they understand the value of building their reputation & are keen on increasing their visibility, committed to providing value to their network and sustain that commitment over time. Provided you’re conducting social listening, these select few are likely to naturally emerge in the social listening research as prominent and trusted experts in a topic that’s relevant to your business development goals. Use this intelligence wisely. Once you’ve prioritized this 1%, then set your sights on expanding to the 9%.

Consider establishing criteria which program participants must meet, here are a few examples I’ve found to be a winning recipe:

• A solid social footprint. Individuals that have worked to established a solid social footprint on their own and are focussed on participating actively in key social venues which are most relevant to the topic and/or network of interest.
• Accessible. Individuals who’ve proven to be natural collaborators and are comfortable with making themselves available to their network. They focus on responding & engaging in ways that provide value to their connections.
• Actions speak louder than words. Those that sustain engagement over time, are committed to sharing their expertise and helping others by demonstrating community leadership skills, drive superior results. They know well that it takes time, a commitment to consistency and engagement isn’t a hit-or-miss, occasional activity. They don’t just say they “get it”, they act on it. Engagement is a critical skill and is prioritized as an approach to the way they work.

Improve Reach: Focus on quality over quantity
At every stage of the customer experience, customers can talk about your brand within social media. As a result, you must nurture relationships in social media throughout the customer experience. Your employee advocates must be able to reach key target publics at each stage, get them engaged with your content, and motivate them to advocate on your behalf.

This is not easy to accomplish. It requires a focus, not just building a network for sheer volume, but rather building a quality network which shares common interest and benefits from the information your employees share. When your employee advocates nurture ongoing relationships with your audience in this way, they establish relationships with what we call a “social core”. The social core are simply people whom you reach, and have opted in to engage with you, and who would most likely advocate on your behalf.

Ultimately, the social core becomes an asset of the brand. An asset that you should mobilize your employees to nurture and build over time. In addition, you should continually evaluate and measure the health and strength of your social core so that you can continually improve the degree to which you are making it stronger.

See more details on these concepts and frameworks in The Most Powerful Brand on Earth – Chapter 5: You’ll measure new things in new ways

Effective Social Business Management

Social is not just another way to push content, it gives you the ability to connect human beings with one another and ignite conversations around topics of interest relevant to your social business initiative.

At IBM, the Social Business Manager collaborates closely with the Marketing Segment Manager to provide oversight for all aspects of a social business program including social listening research, planning, engagement and measurement.

Four requirements of an effective Social Business Manager include:

Information Gathering
Evaluating the data
Social Strategy & Content Plan
Measurement

“On a day-to-day basis, I mostly use HootSuite to monitor a few different social streams and what’s being said. I can retweet the content, or send it to one of our SMEs to share. I also like Sysmos. I use it on a weekly basis to track some of our numbers.” Kate Motzer, IBM Social Business Manager

Information gathering

Utilize social intelligence to understand the marketplace. There are a variety of ways to gather social intelligence. For the most reliable results, you’ll want to combine in-depth research with real-time listening. As a complex Social Media eco-system continues to emerge, any social media lead will rely on various tools to manage their social media programs.

“I’m using social dashboards to get information, or certain keywords or hashtags for conversations that are going around, and trying to be involved in that conversation, it also helps us identify communities and specific people who are influencers…” Cleveland Bonner, IBM Social Business Manager

Evaluating the data

Understand your audience; what is important to them and who is important to their conversation. Building your constituency — a group of people who would identify themselves as a group based on shared interests, beliefs, or behaviors — is a critical part of the success of any social business program. The more specific you are about your constituency, the easier it will be to create a digital plan that they will value and engage in.

“Are we driving conversations outside of the echo-chamber? Also, are people engaging with your blogs? Are they responding to your Tweets? Are they having conversations on Facebook or SlideShare?” Colleen Burns, IBM Social Business Manager

Social Strategy & Content Plan

Create a Social Strategy & Content Plan informed by your evaluation. Make connections between thought leaders. Determine who should be involved in this conversation, who can help the marketplace understand your company’s position and who can help your company leaders better understand the marketplace. Decide on the content type and content format that you should share and distribute in your social strategy.

Measuring Success (Metrics):

Monitoring and improving upon Reach, Engagement, Amplification & Conversion.

“I think what’s important is having a very clear and well-defined strategy and objectives, figuring out which groups you’re going to enable and how you’re going to enable them, and then making sure to provide them one spot that has all of the information they need in a manner that’s not overwhelming.” Kate Motzer, IBM Social Business Manager

An effective Social Business Manager understands and cares about the needs of their client and the community that their client serves. They learn the business culture as well as the political, economic and social context that influences their client’s industry. The Social Business Manager uses this intelligence to help the client achieve their business goals by identifying, connecting and communicating with influential decision makers. The goal is to create value for the client.

Do you have a dedicated team to drive effective social business management? Are you wondering what roles are required? Check out my book, The Most Powerful Brand on Earth, which includes a full chapter dedicated to the roles required to build a successful social team.