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

Podcasts
Strengths: convenience of subscription, bypasses spam, personal appeal
Measurables: # subscriptions, downloads
Quantitative
Goal: Audience knowledge and awareness

News feeds (RSS)

News feeds (RSS)
Strengths: opt-in, bypasses spam, focused content
Measurables: # subscribers
Quantitative
Goal: audience knowledge and awareness

Networking sites

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

Bookmarking and tagging
Strengths: Linking, networking, new resources
Measurables: # shared links, fans, subscriptions
Quantitative and qualitative

Flickr

Flickr
Strengths: hot site, comments, votes, linking, groups
Measurables: # views, favorites, comments
Qualitative and quantitative
Goals: knowledge & awareness

New media press releases

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

Technorati
Strengths: almost immediate blog tracking, “buzz,” top searches, top tags
Qualitative and quantitative
Weakness: limited to blogs

Google alerts

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

Google Trends

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

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

Flickr
Strengths: networking, comments, communities
Measurables: # views, favorites
Weaknesses: More recreational than scientific, but some qualitative and quantitative information

Feedburner

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
Talk with your communications team about your overall communication strategy.
Weigh the benefits and costs (mostly person-hours) of implementing some or all of the new media we have discussed today.
Take advantage of existing baseline data

Contact us
Paul Baker Wisconsin Center for Education Research [email_address]
Dan Karleen Peterson’s [email_address]

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