Is There a Must-Use Metric to Measure Web Engagement?

By Barb Mosher (@barbmosher) Apr 21, 2011

How do you know your web engagement strategies are working if you aren't measuring them. You don't. But how exactly do you measure something like engagement anyway?

Engagement is Confusing

I have a marketing background, so I'm not really a stranger to the concept that you need to measure your marketing activities to ensure they are producing the required outcomes you intended. And I know that every marketing tactic has an associated measurement practice(s).

But with this whole "you need to engage with your customers" mantra comes a new set of challenges for marketers. How do you do that? How do you measure what you do to see if it's working? What are your end goals anyway, especially when it comes to your engagement practices?

I've also had the opportunity to see a number of products and platforms that support Web Engagement Management (WEM) and they always include some form of analytics/monitoring tools. Great. Looks good, seems to give me good information. I guess.

But I'm still stuck with the same questions, how do I engage, how do I measure what I do and what exactly am I trying to achieve by engaging with my customers? There are no rules, no real best practices, every company is different, every customer base is different. Is there anything common to help me wrap my head around this?

In other words, is there a "best approach to engagement"

and

is there a must-use metric to measure web engagement?

Truthfully — and sadly — the answer really is no. But here are some ideas/advice to give you some perspective.

Pick a Metric, Any Metric

Apparently there are a number of different stances on engagement metrics.

Metrics Are Not KPIs

In a conversation with Matt Goddard, CEO is r2integrated, a digital marketing agency, I got one. Goddard told me that people think that engagement metrics are KPIs or something that lead you to hit your KPIs, but that's a pretty challenging view — "Statistical data doesn't help you understand a user's intentions."

Goddard believes that Engagement metrics drive particular KPIs. A couple of examples:

Your KPI is cost reduction in a community (because that community is now self-sufficient). A specific KPI is the number of questions answered correctly. The engagement metrics you might use? # individuals answering questions, are they the same people all the time, is there consistency in what they are saying, are the answering delivered timely?
Your KPI is digestion of a particular piece of content that leads to a conversion (referral traffic). How do you do that? Put content into those areas in the community where there is the highest level of communication, the most diverse people talking. In other words, put it in context of the conversation.

Goddard does not believe that sentiment can be measured (and most will agree that we aren't there yet). And people don't always write like they talk or think. Most people don't want to be on the fringe (so measuring bad sentiment is a waste of time) — neutral sentiment is usually the highest.

Can the tools slice up the data small enough to really grasp sentiment? Goddard doesn't think so. He thinks it may not be about the measurement at all. If core social networking theory says that 10% of a given population will talk at all, then how can you really judge true sentiment? There just aren't enough people talking.