measuring the effectiveness of interactive media

Measuring the Effectiveness of Interactive Media

Introductions

• Paul Baker, senior communicator, Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison

• www.wcer.wisc.edu

• EducationPR blogwww.pbaker.wordpress.com

Introductions

• Dan Karleen, director of new media products at Peterson’shttp://www.petersons.com/

• Syndication for Higher Education bloghttp://syndicateblog.petersons.com/wordpress/

Overview

I. Overview of new media channels/ tools: examples, strengths, measurables, outcomes

II. Communication planning: setting goals in terms of key audiences, influence level desired, time ranges, best new media tools

III. Measurement tools: their uses, strengths, weaknesses

IV. Evaluating outputs, outtakes, outcomes

V. Discussion & Next Steps

I. Overview of new media

• We are seeing rapid changes in communication:Video, blogs, podcasts, news feeds (RSS), social networking and bookmarking, New Media press releases

• Students have grown up in the world of interactive media.

• Higher education institutions are adopting interactive media strategically to remain competitive.

Blogs

Blogs

• Strengths: transparency, immediacy, 2-way communication

• Measurables: # posts, comments, links, visits.

• Qualitative and quantitative (audience knowledge & behavior, attitudes & values)

• Goal: audience engagement

Podcasts

Podcasts

• Strengths: convenience of subscription, bypasses spam, personal appeal

• Measurables: # subscriptions, downloads• Quantitative • Goal: Audience knowledge and awareness

News feeds (RSS)

News feeds (RSS)

• Strengths: opt-in, bypasses spam, focused content

• Measurables: # subscribers• Quantitative• Goal: audience knowledge and awareness

Networking sites

Networking sites

• Strengths: internal email and messaging, images, videos, & sound, linking

• Measurables: # friends, profile views, comments

• Quantitative and qualitative (comments)

Wikis

Wikis

• Strengths: collaboration tool, internal messaging, linkable

• Measurables: More search/Google presence

• Goal: more audience knowledge and awareness

Bookmarking and tagging

Bookmarking and tagging

• Strengths: Linking, networking, new resources

• Measurables: # shared links, fans, subscriptions

• Quantitative and qualitative

Flickr

Flickr

Flickr

• Strengths: hot site, comments, votes, linking, groups

• Measurables: # views, favorites, comments

• Qualitative and quantitative• Goals: knowledge & awareness

New media press releases

New media press releases

• Strengths: links to RSS feed, del.icio.us, photos, video, audio, Technorati, Digg, customizable,

• Measurables: quantitative• Goals: public awareness and knowledge,

media calls, links

Q&A Break

II. Communication Planning as the Cornerstone

Principles

• Your online efforts should integrate into your broader effort communication. You should not think in terms of two separate and independent campaigns.

• Consider your institutional or departmental goals, and the strengths and weaknesses of current communication strategies.

Principles

• Set realistic goals for new media tools. Consider the audience(s) of interest to your institution or academic unit; the degree to which you wish to influence audience awareness or behavior; and in what time frame.

• Consider the strengths and weaknesses of each of the above new media comm channels.

Principles

• You may already have access to more baseline data than you might have thought, from campus marketing surveys, focus groups, interviews, media monitoring, etc.

• If your unit has no baseline data, talk with your campus marketing staff, survey professionals, news office, admissions office, alumni relations, development staff, government relations office.

Examples of measurable outcomes:

• “Boost the percentage of applications from national merit finalists by 15 points in the next year”

• “Increase the perception of our campus as ‘the high quality brand’ in our state by 15 percent over the next year.”

• “Reduce the percentage of students arrested for underage drinking by 20 percent over the next two years.”

Principles

• What decisions do we want to be able to make as a result of our evaluations?

• What kinds of indicators do we need?

Indicators

• Common indicators of reach: percent of target audience enrolled, percent of target audience aware of service, participation rate.

• Common indicators of reputation: number of favorable reviews or awards; number of community partnerships.

Example: Admissions

• Audience: Prospective students and their parents

• Measurables: More applications from high performing students

• Data source: long-term admissions stats• Comm channels: blogs, videos, web site,

email

Example: Public relations

• Audience: The news media, legislators, parents, other key audiences

• Measurables: Favorable perception, willingness to collaborate

• Data sources: surveys, focus groups, opinion polls, clipping library

• Comm channels: RSS, videoblogs, podcasts, YouTube,

Example: Government relations

• Audience: state legislators• Measurables: Amount of change in

awareness or visibility of an issue, key stakeholder groups engaged in an issue, legislation passed.

• Data sources: liaisons, lobbyists, legislative research bureaus, news clips

• Comm channels: web site, RSS, email

Q&A Break

III. Measurement tools for new media

• Overview, strengths, and weaknesses of each tool

Technorati

Technorati

• Strengths: almost immediate blog tracking, “buzz,” top searches, top tags

• Qualitative and quantitative• Weakness: limited to blogs

Google alerts

Google alerts

• Strengths: keyword and phrase tracking, very customizable, includes news media and discussion groups as well as blogs

• Quantitative and qualitative

Google Trends

Google Trends

• Strengths: Analyzes a portion of Google web searches to compute how many searches have been done for the terms you enter, relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time.

• Weaknesses: limited to Google News• Measurables: spikes in media coverage

Blog stats

Blog stats

Blog stats

Blog stats

• Strengths: # visits, post views and favorites, referrers, out-clicks

• Measurables: topics of most interest to your readers, both in views and in comments

• Goals: engage readers in dialog, boost search rankings

Flickr

Flickr

• Strengths: networking, comments, communities

• Measurables: # views, favorites• Weaknesses: More recreational than

scientific, but some qualitative and quantitative information

Feedburner

Feedburner

• Strengths: lots of kinds of stats• Weaknesses: just one of many measures

of RSS feed reach• Quantitative, not qualitative

Evaluating outcomes

Your communication evaluation should:• Clearly identify the evaluation criteria. • Map communication flaws as well as

appropriate practices.• Provide innovative responses for the

organization to improve its communication. • These criteria are generic but their

application to your organization will be unique.

Qualitative and quantitative outcomes

• Paul began blogging and podcasting to reach new audiences, increase awareness of WCER research, increase WCER’s web presence

• Cross promotes each comm channel• Podcast has subscribers and has received

favorable reviews

Qualitative and quantitative outcomes

• Blog has subscribers, inbound links, comments

• Wikipedia entries appear in Google searches

• WCER web site ranked higher in Google ranks

Outcomes

• More email newsletter subscription requests per month

• New professional contacts with education media and business

• Conference speaking engagements; WCER presence at more K-12 events

Drawback

• Caveat: this all takes time away from other responsibilities

• Maintaining a blog can take up to 20% of one’s time

Ball State U. student blogs

• Goal: to better portray campus life to prospective students and their parents

• Ball State asked 12 students to blog in fall 2005.

• Promoted the blogs with postcards mailed to high school seniors. A few months later the student blogs received more than 11,000 visits per day and resulted in press clips.

• To evaluate blogs’ effectiveness, staff interviewed prospects and parents during campus tours and summer orientation.

• “We have not tried to quantify our ROI but can say confidently that the value we have received has far outweighed our cost," says Ball State’s web content coordinator.

Q&A Break

Next steps

• Talk with your communications team about your overall communication strategy.

• Weigh the benefits and costs (mostly person-hours) of implementing some or all of the new media we have discussed today.

• Take advantage of existing baseline data

Contact us

• Paul BakerWisconsin Center for Education Researchpbaker@wisc.edu

• Dan KarleenPeterson’sDan.Karleen@petersons.com