Understanding Engagement

Philly.com has a very detailed process for measuring engagement, outlined in this article from the Nieman Journalism Lab.  They study a significant amount of data, run it through a complicated equation and end up with an engagement number.  Anyone with the resources to do that, would do it.  But who's got the time to do that?  In the same article a St. Petersburg Times executive says they couldn't sustain the reporting and tracking required to produce this sort of data.

If St. Pete can't do it, how much less so your average public radio station or small publication?

Smaller organizations can only deal with low cost, manageable amounts of data.  That data and the time spent looking at it needs to produce clear results that show what changes will improve the work.

Low cost tools that deliver actionable data.  What are the steps that will get you there?

1. Define what you consider to be a successful measure of engagement (or anything else).
2. Focus on an easily measurable, clearly meaningful statistic.
3. Change behavior and see if the needle moves they way you want it to.

Posts on engagement:

• Getting beyond just pageviews: Philly.com’s seven-part equation for measuring online engagement (Neiman)
• Twitter Social Good Campaigns: Moving Up The Ladder of Engagement (Beth Kanter)
• Top 5 Social Media Tips for C-Suite Execs (Mashable)
• 21 Rules for Social Media Engagement (Mashable)
• Measuring Engagement is just another term for Measuring Relationships (K D Paine)