This document discusses the importance of planning and measurement for social media strategy. It recommends creating a strategy document with goals, timelines, and alignment with organizational objectives. Measurement is crucial to reduce uncertainty and evaluate decisions. Both quantitative and qualitative metrics should be considered to track engagement, clicks, inquiries, and how social media contributes to business goals. Continuous measurement and improvement helps optimize performance.

1. Planning and
Measurement
Lee Aase (@LeeAase)
Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media

2. Strategy Best Practices Review
Create a strategy document
that includes goals and timelines.
 Must be aligned with organization’s
general strategy while accounting for
digital particulars

3. Strategy Document: The Plan
Goals, Resources, Measurement:
 Goals: Tied to mission of organization or unit
 Resources: Human, technology, $$
 Measurement: To reduce uncertainty about
strategic decisions
 before and after
 all you need, but only what you need – for
measurement and planning in general

4. Measurement Resource
Douglas W. Hubbard, How to Measure Anything:
Finding the Value of “Intangibles” in Business
 Measurement only matters in the context of
making or evaluating decisions
 For every decision, you have a chance of being
wrong and a cost for being wrong
 Confidence intervals vs. point estimates
 A little measurement can deliver a big
reduction in uncertainty

5. Types of Measurement
Measurement methods that help planning:
 Calibrated estimates
 Rules of thumb, industry norms
 Samples – The Rule of 5:
93.75% chance that the median of a
population is between the smallest and
largest values in any random sample of five
from the population.

6. “Mathless” CIs

7. Developing Your Plan
Start with your job, your organization’s
mission or a key organizational strategy.
 What were you hired to do?
 Why does your organization exist?
 What has leadership identified as key to
future health/success?
 How can social/digital tools help you
achieve these goals?

8. Abbreviated Planning Model
The planning process can be less formal when:
 you have authority to act
 you’re not asking for extra resources
 the cost of being wrong is low
But thorough planning and measurement,
even when not strictly necessary, saves time
and effort if you need to make the case later.

11. Quick cost and benefit analysis:
 Cost of shooting and editing: <$200
 Cost of storage and distribution: $0
 Value:
 NG pts/yr x % self-service x minutes/pt x
$/hr/60 = Value of time saved
 Increase in patient satisfaction/WOM
 Savings compared with formal video
production
Value calculation is crucial to avoid the
mistake of not being aggressive enough.

12. Measuring the Social/Digital
Contribution
Good News and Bad News:
 More easily tracked than TV, radio, print, etc.
 Key: deciding which measures are meaningful
 Translating to bottom-line benefits and
meeting goal(s)

13. What can you measure?
 Online presence: followers, friends, fans,
connections
 Engagement: likes, favorites, comments
 Clicks: visits to blog or website
 How do these actions translate into:
 Appointment requests
 Enrollment in educational courses
 Inquiries about joining clinical trials
Sampling and estimates can help.

14. Measurement to Improve
Performance
Supporting better social media execution:
 Types of content that generate engagement
 Time(s) of day
 Custom short domain clicks
 Post length, number of hashtags
 Continuous learning to reduce uncertainty
about what works best

15. What Not to Measure
Two types of measures that are wasteful or
even harmful
 Don’t measure what won’t change your actions
 Don’t measure what is outside your “value”
chain

16. Questions?