How to Read & Leverage Online Community Analytics
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The document outlines a framework for measuring community success, emphasizing the need to establish clear objectives and identify relevant metrics. It advises on data collection, analysis, and the importance of understanding the interrelation between different metrics to gauge community health. The process includes discovering data, capturing it in a dashboard, analyzing trends, and drawing conclusions to inform strategy and improve member engagement.
How to Read & Leverage Online Community Analytics
- 1. COMMUNITY METRICS: GETTING ACQUAINTED MAY 2015 READ ON @SociousSoftware @kbapple
- 2. DO YOU KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING IN YOUR COMMUNITY?
- 3. What are my objectives? How do I measure success? How will I know if what I am doing is working? DO YOU KNOW THE ANSWERS? How do I show ROI? How do I grow participation? What do members want from the community?
- 4. Step One: Discover Your Data
- 5. WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS? S U C C E S S The Organization The Community Member
- 6. WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS? Talk to Staff About: Talk to Members About: • Their departmental goals • The challenges they are facing • How they think the online community can help them to achieve those goals • Their thoughts on what the top priorities for the online community should be • What they enjoy about their online community experience • What they find challenging about their online community experience • Their current behavioral traits in using the online community • Resources and/or programming that could enhance their user experience
- 7. WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS? S U C C E S S The Organization The Community Member Find and connect with like-minded peers around common interests Get quick answers to challenges I am facing from trusted sources Easily access valuable resources that will help me stay “in the know” or provide important development opportunities Reduce overhead support costs by making it easier for members to find the answers they are looking for Find a way to get better user- generated ideation and experience feedback Have access to greater member segmentation to create more targeted communications
- 8. TYPES OF COMMUNITY METRICS TRAFFIC ACTIVITY MEMBERS ROI Page Views Visits or Logins Unique Visitors Page Views/Visit Referral Traffic by Source Total Posts Total Blog Posts Blog Entries Blog Comments Total Forum Posts Forum Questions Forum Answers Wiki Posts Wiki Edits File Uploads File Downloads Event Creation Event Registration Answers/Question Cumulative Members Net New Members Deleted Members Blog Authors New Blog Authors Active Members Contributing New Members Volunteers Acquisition Rate Attrition Rate Subscriptions Time to First Response Staff Compensation Renewal Rate Attrition Rate Upsells Online Store Sales Sponsorship/Ad Sales Event Sales Membership Sales Marketing Costs Which data points apply to your online community and the goals you are trying to reach?
- 9. WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS?
- 10. WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS? EXAMPLES: - Increase total active members by 10% YOY - Average 50 posts/month in each forum by end of year - Conceptualize a new community member volunteer program to promote community-sourced ideation; implement by 1H; recruit 50 active volunteers by EOY
- 11. Step Two: Capture Your Data
- 12. WHERE IS DATA FOUND? - Platform level reporting - Third party integrations: Google Analytics, Adobe Marketing Cloud, etc. - Database queries
- 13. CREATE A DASHBOARD Tips: 1. Start from the beginning 2. Group similar data points together 3. Be granular – look at data points by module and/or sub- community 4. Track data trends over time, in consistent intervals
- 14. CREATE A DASHBOARD 5. Get visual – graph data to review trend lines more clearly 6. Keep a Notes section in your metrics dashboard dating events or activities that might impact community activity 7. Make a habit of updating your dashboard on the first business day after end of month/end of week, etc.
- 16. Community data is most valuable when you understand how different types of metrics interrelate.
- 17. HOW TO ANALYZE COMMUNITY DATA KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS: - Illustrate how basic online community data points interrelate and impact one another - Provide clear indications of community health - Assigns value to metrics
- 18. HOW TO ANALYZE COMMUNITY DATA 0 50,000 100,000 150,000 200,000 250,000 300,000 350,000 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Active Members (Avg) Total Posts Net New Members Contributing New Members Graph data to look for patterns between metrics, such as trend lines running parallel to one another. This illustrates a direct correlation of one behavior impacting another.
- 19. HOW TO ANALYZE COMMUNITY DATA Regularly review KPIs for specific areas of the community, versus the community as a whole. For example, measuring KPIs at the forum level will uncover different behavior patterns than if measured independently for blogs or files, making strategy development more targeted. 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 Activity Subscriptions
- 20. Metrics can be affected by: An increase, decrease or replacement in online community staff Seasonality (i.e., national holidays, summer break, etc…) Changes to the community management calendars and roadmaps Platform updates Special events, such as conferences New member surges or deletions THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND
- 21. Step Four: Find Conclusions
- 22. DISCOVERIES What did you identify as your community’s strengths? What did you identify as your community’s weaknesses? How can we leverage this knowledge to pursue both short term and long term goals?
- 23. Online Community Health Check Time Development Area 1 Identify 50 XYZ members to be influencers in online community decisions Reach out to a random sample of active members, offering the opportunity to impact the community experience MeasureProcessTactic(s) September 30, 2015 20 active volunteers recruited by end of Q3 Development Area 2 Opportunity 1 HOW CAN I MOVE FORWARD?
- 24. ALIGNING WITH QUANITATIVE GOALS Set monthly goals that align to your both your long term and short term objectives. This will make stretch goals more palatable and keep staff motivated.