measuring the effectiveness of interactive media

Measuring the Effectiveness of Interactive Media

Introductions

Paul Baker, senior communicator, Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison

www.wcer.wisc.edu

EducationPR blog www.pbaker.wordpress.com

Introductions

Dan Karleen, director of new media products at Peterson’s http://www.petersons.com/

Syndication for Higher Education blog http://syndicateblog.petersons.com/wordpress/

Overview

I. Overview of new media channels/ tools: examples, strengths, measurables, outcomes

II. Communication planning: setting goals in terms of key audiences, influence level desired, time ranges, best new media tools

III. Measurement tools: their uses, strengths, weaknesses

IV. Evaluating outputs, outtakes, outcomes

V. Discussion & Next Steps

I. Overview of new media

We are seeing rapid changes in communication: Video, blogs, podcasts, news feeds (RSS), social networking and bookmarking, New Media press releases

Students have grown up in the world of interactive media.

Higher education institutions are adopting interactive media strategically to remain competitive.

Blogs

Strengths: transparency, immediacy, 2-way communication

Measurables: # posts, comments, links, visits.

Qualitative and quantitative (audience knowledge & behavior, attitudes & values)

Goal: audience engagement

Podcasts

Strengths: convenience of subscription, bypasses spam, personal appeal

Measurables: # subscriptions, downloads

Quantitative

Goal: Audience knowledge and awareness

News feeds (RSS)

Strengths: opt-in, bypasses spam, focused content

Measurables: # subscribers

Quantitative

Goal: audience knowledge and awareness

Networking sites

Strengths: internal email and messaging, images, videos, & sound, linking

Measurables: # friends, profile views, comments

Quantitative and qualitative (comments)

Wikis

Strengths: collaboration tool, internal messaging, linkable

Measurables: More search/Google presence

Goal: more audience knowledge and awareness

Bookmarking and tagging

Strengths: Linking, networking, new resources

Measurables: # shared links, fans, subscriptions

Quantitative and qualitative

Flickr

Strengths: hot site, comments, votes, linking, groups

Measurables: # views, favorites, comments

Qualitative and quantitative

Goals: knowledge & awareness

New media press releases

Strengths: links to RSS feed, del.icio.us, photos, video, audio, Technorati, Digg, customizable,

Measurables: quantitative

Goals: public awareness and knowledge, media calls, links

Q&A Break

II. Communication Planning as the Cornerstone

Principles

Your online efforts should integrate into your broader effort communication. You should not think in terms of two separate and independent campaigns.

Consider your institutional or departmental goals, and the strengths and weaknesses of current communication strategies.

Principles

Set realistic goals for new media tools. Consider the audience(s) of interest to your institution or academic unit; the degree to which you wish to influence audience awareness or behavior; and in what time frame.

Consider the strengths and weaknesses of each of the above new media comm channels.

Principles

You may already have access to more baseline data than you might have thought, from campus marketing surveys, focus groups, interviews, media monitoring, etc.

If your unit has no baseline data, talk with your campus marketing staff, survey professionals, news office, admissions office, alumni relations, development staff, government relations office.

Examples of measurable outcomes:

“Boost the percentage of applications from national merit finalists by 15 points in the next year”

“Increase the perception of our campus as ‘the high quality brand’ in our state by 15 percent over the next year.”

“Reduce the percentage of students arrested for underage drinking by 20 percent over the next two years.”

Principles

What decisions do we want to be able to make as a result of our evaluations?

What kinds of indicators do we need?

Indicators

Common indicators of reach: percent of target audience enrolled, percent of target audience aware of service, participation rate.

Common indicators of reputation: number of favorable reviews or awards; number of community partnerships.

Example: Admissions

Audience: Prospective students and their parents

Measurables: More applications from high performing students

Data source: long-term admissions stats

Comm channels: blogs, videos, web site, email

Example: Public relations

Audience: The news media, legislators, parents, other key audiences

Measurables: Favorable perception, willingness to collaborate

Data sources: surveys, focus groups, opinion polls, clipping library

Comm channels: RSS, videoblogs, podcasts, YouTube,

Example: Government relations

Audience: state legislators

Measurables: Amount of change in awareness or visibility of an issue, key stakeholder groups engaged in an issue, legislation passed.

Data sources: liaisons, lobbyists, legislative research bureaus, news clips

Comm channels: web site, RSS, email

Q&A Break

III. Measurement tools for new media

Overview, strengths, and weaknesses of each tool

Technorati

Strengths: almost immediate blog tracking, “buzz,” top searches, top tags

Qualitative and quantitative

Weakness: limited to blogs

Google alerts

Strengths: keyword and phrase tracking, very customizable, includes news media and discussion groups as well as blogs

Quantitative and qualitative

Google Trends

Strengths: Analyzes a portion of Google web searches to compute how many searches have been done for the terms you enter, relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time.

Weaknesses: limited to Google News

Measurables: spikes in media coverage

Blog stats

Strengths: # visits, post views and favorites, referrers, out-clicks

Measurables: topics of most interest to your readers, both in views and in comments

Goals: engage readers in dialog, boost search rankings

Flickr

Strengths: networking, comments, communities

Measurables: # views, favorites

Weaknesses: More recreational than scientific, but some qualitative and quantitative information

Feedburner

Strengths: lots of kinds of stats

Weaknesses: just one of many measures of RSS feed reach

Quantitative, not qualitative

Evaluating outcomes

Your communication evaluation should:

Clearly identify the evaluation criteria.

Map communication flaws as well as appropriate practices.

Provide innovative responses for the organization to improve its communication.

These criteria are generic but their application to your organization will be unique.

Qualitative and quantitative outcomes

Paul began blogging and podcasting to reach new audiences, increase awareness of WCER research, increase WCER’s web presence

Cross promotes each comm channel

Podcast has subscribers and has received favorable reviews

Qualitative and quantitative outcomes

Blog has subscribers, inbound links, comments

Wikipedia entries appear in Google searches

WCER web site ranked higher in Google ranks

Outcomes

More email newsletter subscription requests per month

New professional contacts with education media and business

Conference speaking engagements; WCER presence at more K-12 events

Drawback

Caveat: this all takes time away from other responsibilities

Maintaining a blog can take up to 20% of one’s time

Ball State U. student blogs

Goal: to better portray campus life to prospective students and their parents

Ball State asked 12 students to blog in fall 2005.

Promoted the blogs with postcards mailed to high school seniors. A few months later the student blogs received more than 11,000 visits per day and resulted in press clips.

To evaluate blogs’ effectiveness, staff interviewed prospects and parents during campus tours and summer orientation.

“We have not tried to quantify our ROI but can say confidently that the value we have received has far outweighed our cost," says Ball State’s web content coordinator.

Q&A Break

Next steps