Metrics and Measuring Success in Online Communities

Connie Bensen, Techrigy

Step 1: Identify Business Objectives
Step 2: Decide on Priorities
Step 3: Choose What to Measure & Tools
Quantitative
Qualitative
Step 4: Benchmark
Step 5: Identifying Trends & Reporting

Generate more word of mouth
Increase customer loyalty
Bring outside ideas into organization
Increase product/brand awareness
Improve new product success ratios
Improve public relations effectiveness
Reduce customer acquisition costs
Reduce customer support costs
Reduce market research costs
Reduce product development costs

Prioritize the Business Objectives in order of importance
What keeps your boss up at night?
What are the competitive threats?
This identifies goals to measure

Generate more word of mouth <1
Increase customer loyalty <4
Bring outside ideas into organization <5
Increase product/brand awareness <2
Improve new product success ratios
Improve public relations effectiveness <3
Reduce customer acquisition costs
Reduce customer support costs
Reduce market research costs
Reduce product development costs

What percentage of increase is wanted?
Estimate at first
Use to set goals
Translate into for business needs
Examples:
Marketing – increased product awareness & WOM (ROI is the # of additional sales)
PR – improved brand sentiment (ROI = additional customer loyalty)
Product research (ROI = the difference in time it used to take)
Decreased support calls by X% (ROI = the cost savings)

Activity on site
Number of visitors & repeat visitors
Number of registered users versus active
Frequency of posting & number of comments
Types of searches
Number & type of content created
Number of relationships created
Usage of features
Number of subscriptions via email & rss
Increase in SEO rank

Web Analytics
Google Analytics, StatCounter, getclicky
Proprietary to community
Social Media Monitoring
Free tools such as Google Alerts, SearchTwitter.com,
Tweetbeep
Professional tools such as Techrigy, Radian6, TruCast
Social Search Tools – Delver, WhosTalkin?, Samepoint, Socialmention, Serph, OneRiot
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Survey tool used to measure sentiment about the brand
http://www.netpromoter.com/calculate/nps.php

Gather testimonials
Marketing use
Product development & use cases
Identify brand advocates
Appreciation for customer service
Document link to source for follow-up

Quantitative
Use to calculate progress (% increase)
Choose 1 measurement per business objective
What are other departments measuring?
Collaborate if others are already gathering info

Ongoing
Note & report customer requests needing immediate assistance
Identify topics requiring FAQ’s or blog posts
Monthly
Marketing /Public Relations
Feedback on connection of messaging
Identify sites for potential partnerships
Report on time periods of high traffic
Feedback on brand sentiment
Executive/Management
Overview of brand sentiment & competitive analysis
Offer insight/suggestions on future trends & key industry topics

Outline the following & provide recommendations based on them:
Ongoing definition of objectives (established from goals of the position)
Interaction - Trends in members, topics, discovery of new communities
Qualitative Quotes - helpful for feedback & marketing
Recommendations - Based on interactions with the customers
Benchmark based on previous report
Web analytics (unless someone else is tracking them)
Social Web analytics

Building a B2B Community
Connie Bensen at Techrigy
Building a B2C Community
Kellie Parker, Sega America

Connie Bensen Chief Community Officer, Techrigy NewComm Forum - April 27, 2009

Value & ROI of Community

Sources of Conversations

Web Traffic Google Analytics vs Social Web Techrigy SM2

Our Communities After 6 mo’s: Freemiums increased by 5.8 times Customers increased by 4.33 times

Return on Community Building
Brand Awareness
Word of Mouth
Public Relations & Marketing via
Social Media
Shorter sales process
Shorter dev’t cycle
Upselling

Get Started Today!
Use the five steps to establish the metrics
Identify Business Objectives
Prioritize
Choose What to Measure & your Tools
Benchmark now
Identify Trends & Report on Them

Contact info:
Connie Bensen
Chief Community Officer, Techrigy
[email_address]
@cbensen

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Metrics and Measuring Success in Online Communities

by Connie Bensen on May 09, 2009

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Metrics and Measuring Success in Online Communities — Presentation Transcript