Engagement Metrics
Engagement metrics will tell you how successful your community is by helping you understand how many people create, respond, and interact with content.
THERE ARE TWO KEYS TO MEASURING ENGAGEMENT:
KEY #1: MEASURE ON A REGULAR BASIS
You’ll need to measure engagement on a regular basis in order to see how your community is doing over time. While you can measure engagement on a monthly basis, we recommend measuring quarterly. This is because a user’s engagement may vary a lot month-to-month, but much less if you look at it on a quarterly basis.
KEY #2: MEASURE THE RIGHT THINGS
You won’t be able to gain insights unless you measure the right metrics. What do we mean by the “right” metrics? It’s the metrics that map to your goals – if one of your goals is to provide a resource hub, see how often those resources are being downloaded. Either way, these measurements will help you evaluate whether the community’s actually being used and relied on.
Business Metrics
Again, your organization’s goals should drive the business goals you’d like the community to achieve. For example, if one of your organization’s “jobs” is to increase retention, you’ll need to figure out a way in advance how you’re planning to calculate that.
The same principles apply here: measure on a regular basis, and measure the right things.
Review these ideas for business metrics you might use, by use case:
Satisfaction and Advocacy:
- Average Net Promoter Score of those who engage in the community vs. those who don’t
Retention:
- Retention rate of those who engage in the community vs. those who don’t
- Average lifetime value of those who engage in the community vs. those who don’t
Select Your Platform: Finding the Best Fit for You
Before you can build your online community, you’ll have to decide which platform will be the right fit.
But before you start making a list of potential solutions, you should know what you need the platform to do. This is where the work you did to determine the goals comes in handy.
Once you have well-defined organizational requirements, you’ll be in a good position to jump into research. Based on your organization’s needs, research the different features and functions included in each potential platform to make sure it has everything you want.
For platform ideas, try reviewing industry sites like
G2
and asking your network for community platform recommendations.
Once you have your needs outlined, adapt our vendor checklist based on these needs.