This document outlines best practices for evaluating the effectiveness of government digital communications from Health Canada. It recommends establishing SMART objectives and key performance indicators to evaluate social media campaigns. Metrics like fan base, engagement, reach, and clicks should be tracked on a weekly basis to assess success and inform new content. Non-quantitative metrics like earned media coverage can also help tell the story of a campaign's impact. Case studies demonstrate how to effectively communicate metrics and analytics to showcase results.

1. Evaluating the Effectiveness of Government
Digital Communications
Best Practices from Health Canada
Date: May 15th, 2014

2. Helping Canadians Maintain & Improve their Health
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Marketing and Communications in the Health Portfolio

4. Social Media Lens…
All Health Portfolio campaigns use social media

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Plan to Evaluate
• Establish SMART objectives
• Determine key performance indicators based on your objectives
 i.e.: Fan base, reach of message, engagement
• Establish a baseline
 use industry average if it is a new platform
 use performance of current platforms if they exist

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Evaluation Strategy - Best Practices
• Set annual goals and breakdown into quarterly goals
• Begin with simple goals such as:
 expand the reach of messages from traditional channels
 grow the audience base
 increase engagement (% of comments, likes, shares)
 earn media coverage (cross platforms; social media to traditional media)
• Weekly assessment of success – what worked, what didn’t work
 apply what was learned to develop new creative/communications

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Measuring the right metrics
Choose metrics that support your objectives.
• Fan base (number of fans, followers, subscribers)
 shows the dedicated audience
 can show if you are reaching your target audience (age, gender, location etc.)
• Engagement (likes, comments, shares, re-tweets, pins, views etc.)
 shows interest in the information and helps expand the reach
 comments can highlight two-way conversation
• Reach
 shows how many people see the content
• Clicks
 shows interest in the content, desire for more information

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Lessons Learned
• Focus on 3 or 4 metrics that demonstrate the value of the platforms
 (i.e.: reach may be a better metric than Fan base in social media).
• Be aware of what each metric can show and how it could be perceived.
 YouTube views and Subscribers: Subscribers show dedicated audience, Views
show use.
 How does this link to objectives?
• Analytics is as important as metrics. Tell the story.

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Telling the story: Case study
Total Engagement: 3,879
(comments+likes+shares)
Clicks to web: 4,686
Simple metrics (likes, comments, shares) show engagement:

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Telling the story: Case study
Total Engagement: 3,879
(comments+likes+shares)
Clicks to web: 4,686
Reach: 422,427 ENG
Adding additional metrics tells a more compelling story:

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Telling the story: Case Study
Postmedia -National coverage &
Front page of the Ottawa Citizen
Social to traditional media. Adding earned media.
CTV’s “The Social”

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Telling the story: Case Study
Fan growth: Shows conversions and completes the story.

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Questions or Comments?
Karine Goneau-Lessard
A/Director, Marketing and Creative Services,
Health Canada
Karine.Goneau-Lessard@hc-sc.gc.ca
Lori Fraser
A/Chief of Marketing,
Health Canada
Lori.Fraser@hc-sc.gc.ca