How to Measure the Effectiveness of Your Content

Found this great article from the Content Marketing Institute. 

When putting your measurement program in place, start by deciding on how frequently you’ll collect your data. A good schedule to start with is measuring marketing effectiveness on a monthly basis. Then, you will want to create a spreadsheet that documents and tracks the following:

  1. Your marketing goals. If you have several, it may help to put them in order of priority. (By this point, you should have agreed on goals with your management team; but if you haven’t, now is the time to get on the same page.)
  2. The key performance indicators (KPIs) you’ll use to measure marketing effectiveness of your content.
  3. Your plan for gathering this performance information.
  4. Who will be responsible for collecting and reporting this data.

I can’t stress enough that everyone who is working on content marketing needs to know what the core KPIs are for measuring the marketing effectiveness of your content. Whether or not they are directly involved with your content analytics, it’s critical that content creators understand how their work impacts overarching company goals.

Here are some examples of KPIs you may want to track:

content-marketing-goals-tracker

Getting started

Measurement can be as simple or as complicated as you make it. Don’t measure simply for the sake of having some numbers to present to your upper management. If you aren’t certain what you should be measuring, ask yourself these two questions:

  • Do these metrics support my key goals?
  • Can I take action on these metrics (i.e., will they provide me insight into how I can improve my program)?

Unless you can answer “yes” to the questions above, you likely don’t need to be collecting the data — at least at first.

Some tips:

  • Make measurement a priority. Measurement processes are constantly evolving, and it definitely takes time to track, analyze, and report on performance. This essential cycle of measurement and optimization is key to being successful with content marketing on an ongoing basis.
  • Track conversions. While some vanity metrics (e.g., Twitter followers, website traffic) are easy to track, they are rarely that insightful independent of other data. Track your social growth, which allows you to look at trending and anecdotal information on where you are getting the most shares and social conversation. However, it’s more important to track conversions to email and topics of interest. This helps you adjust a content marketing plan accordingly so that you confidence that you are delivering on our readers interests and expectations — efforts which certainly help your own bottom line.
  • Collect actionable metrics. Only collect data you want to use and have the ability to take action on. .
  • Talk to and learn from industry peers. 
  • Be ready to adapt. What you track over time will likely shift, so evaluate your list of metrics quarterly, bi-annually, or annually to make sure you’re capturing the data that will best address your key questions. Review your metrics on a quarterly basis to make sure they continue to align with missions and goals as they evolve along with the industry.
  • Automate data collection. Think about how you can automate data collection with reports. You can automate dashboards within Google Analytics, Salesforce, and our marketing automation system. You can look at these dashboards each week, and then have a simple way each month to update the KPI document. However, if automated data collection isn’t an option, consider additional resources and team members you can tap into if you need help evaluating your content performance. Since many team members touch our marketing processes at various points, assigning oversight responsibilities for each KPI has improved ownership and accountability.
  • Take time for analysis. It’s not enough to just collect data and add it to a spreadsheet. The data needs to be analyzed so that you understand where the opportunities for improvement lie — and what the best path may be for achieving those improvements. For example, if data shows that our blog posts on content marketing strategy all have high numbers of Facebook shares, LinkedIn posts, and tweets, proper analysis of these data points can help show us the best ways to leverage these high-performing topics across our other content platforms.

I can’t stress enough how critical it is to measure the results of your content marketing activities so you can continually learn what your audience likes and use that information to continually improve. The result? Happier prospects, happier customers, and happier management.

What analytics tips and tools do you have that help you track and measure your content performance?

Rachel Oliver

Original: http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2014/07/simple-plan-measuring-marketing-effectiveness-of-content/

 

 

The Great Content Checklist: Evaluate Your Content

I came across this article advising content marketers on creating extraordinary material and that offers an excellent checklist for evaluating your writing. Here is an excerpt: 

If you want to produce great content, it’s time to leave ordinary in the dust.

Use this checklist to affirm your current best practices for producing great content and try out some new ideas you can use to increase your content marketing success right away.

Launching points for great content

Take time to size up your content and put it to the test. Be a tough critic and decide whether it’s really ready by answering questions like:

  • Is it informative?
  • How likely is it that someone will share it?
  • Is it well organized (i.e., will it be easy for readers to follow the logic and make their way though the conversation)?
  • Do you avoid industry jargon?
  • Does the content reflect your brand voice?
  • Is it well written (i.e., free of typos and in a format that will appeal to your audience)?
  • Do your visuals help the content pop?

In the midst of all of those questions, you should weigh whether the content is authoritative. Does it repeatedly convey that you know what you are talking about and are sharing insight that should be valued and trusted? Read More: http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2014/07/great-content-checklist-tips-tools-examples/ 

Can you add to this list? How do you evaluate your own content?

Rachel

Social Media Strategy Infographic

How do you execute Step 2, Social Media Listening? Use free tools like Google Alerts, Board Reader, Social Mention and Topsy to track the conversations that are going on surrounding your brand and industry. These tools will help you understand where discussions are taking place, what kind of issues need to be addressed within your industry which creates space for content creation and interaction. It will help you identify the platforms that should be focused on in your strategy and what business objectives should be accomplished through social media.

Comments?

The Social Resume: An Infographic on How Social Media Could Help You Land Your Next Job

As a Senior Communications Studies Undergrad at York University, talk of the job-hunt has precluded many pre-class discussions. A trend that my fellow colleagues and I have noticed is that an increasing number of employers, within the Communications field, are judging the value of potential employees on the extensiveness and the content of their social media presence. This might include a personal blog, Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites. Here is an Infographic that I came across presenting statistical data about the prominence of social media analysis by employers who are looking to hire. It also provides useful tips to make sure that your “Social Resume” is not just appropriate, but optimal for your success in the job-hunt.

Do you find that a good “Social Resume”  is necessary qualification for a job?

http://mashable.com/2013/01/23/social-media-your-next-job-infographic/

2012’s Most Amazing Social Media Stats…How will this impact 2013?

I came across this fantastic set of statistics including the top hashtags used this year, the amount of people on Facebook who do not use privacy settings, the amount of websites that have integrated with Facebook this year, and that 210, 000 years of music have been played on Facebook this year. What are your thoughts on these numbers? How will these technological trends impact our experience of social media into 2013? 

 

 

 

Fake Photos of Sandy on the 74th Anniversary of the War of the Worlds Broadcast

Sevety four years ago to this day, Orson Welles narrated the “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast as a Halloween special for the Mercury Theater on Air. The program consisted of two realistic news stories documenting the invasion of New York City by hostile Martians. This radio show caused widespread panic because some people actually believed that the broadcast was real because of the fact that it took place on the radio, a trusted news source.

It seems that since then we have not learned very much. During the initial stages of Hurricane Sandy, fake photos of the approaching storm circulated through Twitter and Facebook giving those starved for images an outlet. In my search for coverage, I myself participated in the sharing of one of these photos believing that it was real. However, it turned out that these apocalyptic looking photos were fake.

This morning Forbes commented on the production and circulation these photos.

“As the water level began to rise on the East coast, social media sites were flooded with fake photos and misinformation. When disaster strikes, make sure to bring your sandbags of skepticism to Twitter to avoid getting duped. “

For more see: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/10/30/hurricane-sandy-and-the-flood-of-social-media-misinformation/?utm_campaign=forbestwittersf&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

What can we learn from this in terms of Social Media Trends?

People tend to believe the things that they encounter through social media because, much like the radio in the time of Welles, it has become a valued news source with a its personal, untainted quality.  This has perhaps been enhanced by the practice of media companies to look to the public to provide news content and coverage of events.  But perhaps, we should take the content we encounter on social media with a grain of salt because anyone can post anything they like and it is up to the interpreter to decide its validity and how it will be used in the creation of meaning around events. Make sure to check reputable sites next time in addition to checking Twitter or Facebook.

Top Ten Uses for Twitter During #Sandy

  1. Communicating to family and friends and social media friends or no one in particular to #staysafe
  2. Warnings and tips for the public from media and commercial companies.
  3. Tweeting @ media companies directly to find out information about the storm.
  4. Sharing jokes and making light of the situation (One person tweeted that his friend was having a great time jet skiing on the coast of NY).
  5. Speculation on how #Sandy will impact the coming election.
  6. Sharing live video feed of New York, an important facet of this storm coverage.
  7. Speculation on how hurricanes are name altogether (One person tweeted “Sandy sounds like someone my mom would have tea with”)
  8. Updates on the progression of the storm
  9. Sharing news articles and videos of the damage
  10. Sharing photos (which may or may not be real)

How did you use social media during this storm?

Growing Up with Social Media…My Purpose

Growing up in the emerging in the age of the Internet, I have always been inspired to explore the social possibilities of the online world. I feel privileged to have participated in the initiation of social media technologies such as Hi5, and MySpace and can trace my Facebook use back to September 27, 2006, two years after Zuckerberg released it to the public. This means that I literally grew up with Facebook as I can trace my social, vocational and educational usage of it from my final year of high school to my final year of university. Social Media websites such as Facebook and Twitter have, like many other technologies of the past, altered the way that meaning is constructed and interpreted through the merging of convergent platforms, public, and personal communication technology. I am currently in my final year (*Phew*) of the Communications Studies Undergraduate Program at York University and have also have come to understand Social Media from a Public Relations perspective and for the way presents new opportunities for businesses as well as consumers to voice their concerns. My purpose is therefore to document this social media technology trend as it continues to evolve and shape the communications infrastructure of the world and the history of communications that McLuhan would have marveled at.