“Basho set out, determined yet again to become a hyohakusha—“one who moves without direction.”
Measuring, Metrics & Automation | Asking the Right Questions
How do you measure social media? What are the effective metrics you focus on? And, how do you automate the whole damn process?
Questions I’m currently wrestling with. They act like a fibonacci spiral, floating outwards, replicating into other questions. I like this.
Whilst most look to social media to provide answers, I search it for better questions.
For example, the number of Twitter followers will tell you how many people clicked the follow button not who they are, if they share your tweets / values, how much traffic you get from them, if they even like you, if you’re adding value to peoples lives etc (need to look at the back-end web stats for this or deeper still with funky little tools like Twtrland and Tweetstats).
Measuring social is a design challenge: what is left out is as important to what you leave in.
My approach is by starting with the end in mind, by exploring ‘what does success look like?’.
This is a one of those questions which never fails to connect a few synapses, and in terms of my role it’s the following (lifted directly from my job description):
- CORE Education is recognised as key player in effective use of social media in business
- CORE’s profile and reputation for understanding of use of effective social media is increased, especially through increased publication and dissemination activity
- Social media activities throughout the organisation are embedded and sustainable throughout CORE
- Improved (wider/deeper) brand awareness enables CORE to reach into existing/emerging market segments (especially into corporate market)
So that’s the result but what now needs to be crafted and applied is a change based approach. A layer of social media monitoring tools / platforms / metrics and some kind of reviewing structure to track impact.
So this is where I am. Opening up this line of questioning and hoping you the reader will offer guidance. Some ideas. Steerage and influence on how you are measuring it for your organisation, what metrics prove success and, how is it repeated.
Also keen to hear from people like Radian6 and Brandwatch or any other companies offering the above (especially for non-profits)…
“If you focus on results, you will never change. If you focus on change, you will get results.”
Jack Dixon
Image credit link
Unlived
Inspired by “Do The Work” by Steven Pressfield.
The Optimism Of Uncertainty | Read This Because It’s Important For Your Soul
“We need hope. An optimist isn’t necessarily a blithe, slightly sappy whistler in the dark of our time. To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places-and there are so many-where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.”
Via blog.invisiblechildren.com
The Final Shuttle Launch (The Sagan Series)
Parkour Is Efficient Thinking
Title taken from the last lines of this awesome little adverfilm.
How To Make A Pencil
Levi’s Go Forth 2011
Words by Charles Bukowski and his poem, The Laughing Heart:
your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.
Working Yourself Out Of A Job (And Other Bold Public Statements)
In two years time I will no longer be the Social Media Manager for CORE Education.
It’s not due to a limited budget or a time-specific contract but making a public statement like the one above focusses intent. Creates an end. A cut off point. A window to get things done.
Of course there’s danger in this. The idea that in two years time my approach would have succeeded, all the tasks will be completed and the organisation will be social media superheros, one and all (especially in this fluid space), is a bold forecast.
The reason for this strategy can be summed up in one word: sustainability.
Some of you will be old enough to remember working in places which had ‘typing pools’. A group of (usually) women whose soul task all day was to type unending letters and transcribe recordings of meetings from others.
With the advent of cheaper technology/software, the distribution of these new tools plus the burgeoning rise of professional development in the workplace, meant typing became a skill which quickly dissolved into expectation and one which now isn’t even questioned.
Social media managers are typists. A function which will soon become obsolete as the understanding of tools/platforms, adoption of practises and their execution become commonplace.
Any approach has to have a sustainable core and a comprehension that the measure of success is not how awesome my job is but how awesome I make other peoples jobs (through their elevated appreciation and use of social media).
This is what matters.
And I have two years to do it.
How much time have you given yourself?
