Measure what Matters – Scrap What Doesn’t

Metrics, amiright?It’s easy to get caught up in figuring out what the right things to measure are. What does success look like? Are we measuring the right things? Where do I pull the information that I need? How often do I report on it? Who needs to see it? How do I know it’s making an impact? These are all questions we have asked ourselves at one time or another when trying to determine the right metrics to report on for our online communities. It’s a given that you have to report out on the health of your community, but is number of registered users the right metric to report on and are metrics such as those helpful in communicating your community’s true health and value?If you’re not sure where to start, look at the bigger picture.Think about your community’s larger missionThis is pretty important because it reminds you of the purpose of your community, which then helps you figure out what metrics will show whether your community is meeting its goals. There are a lot of resources out there that tell you what you should be measuring and how. So much so that it can make your head spin. But it’s not a one size fits all scenario. Your metrics must reflect what’s not only important to your community, but what’s important to your organization.Remember, your leadership made a commitment to investing in online community because you were able to demonstrate that it would solve for some pain point the association is facing. Your metrics should not only reflect the overall health and vibrancy of the online community, but what you said the online community would do for the overall success of the organization. That tie-in shouldn’t be elusive.Think about who you’re reporting these metrics toAre you reporting metrics that are for your eyes only? I’m going to venture to say that this likely isn’t the case; however, it very well may not go beyond your immediate manager. That said, I believe that it’s essential to determine who is going to see what. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t continue to measure, but it does determine what you put emphasis on.Say, for instance, that you have a dashboard that has all of your vanity metrics (number of connections, number of content items produced, number of registered users) that help give you an idea of how your community is growing. If your SVP comes to you and asks how the community is performing, are these really the numbers you want to show? Probably not. Because what they’re really asking is how the community is helping to move the organization forward. So, showing the number of new connections isn’t going to tell them much of anything.If the expectation is that someone higher than your boss sees these numbers, make sure you’re capturing metrics that show business impact. Not sure what that looks like? Leader Networks has an amazing resource that helps you figure out how to demonstrate business value through your metrics. It’s a valuable reference that I go back to often. You can find it here.Check what you’re measuring, and check it oftenI don’t know about you, but in the few years that I’ve been in the online community space I’ve seen my program strategy take different forms. At its core, the reason the community exists remains the same. However, as the strategy of the organization changes, our strategy around how we will support it has also changed. Which changes what we measure, to some degree, so it’s important that you check to make sure your metrics still make sense. Even if things don’t change that much, it’s still a more than good idea to check-in and make sure that what your measuring matters.Imagine that you’ve been measuring the same set of metrics over the course of 5 years. I can bet you that, at some point, a couple of the things you’re reporting out on have lost their value to some degree. At some point the number of content items produced within your community stops telling you anything more than how many content items are produced. Think about what more you can get out of your community’s metrics and make updates as it makes sense. If what you’re measuring continues to provide you good information about the community’s health and performance, great. Keep doing what you’re doing, but at least you took the time to check in.Don’t be afraid to start overAdmitting you’re going down a rabbit hole isn’t always easy. If you’re measuring things that, from day one, haven’t given you any substantial information about the direction your community is going on, how well it’s performing, or whether it’s providing value then start over. Talk to your leadership and be candid with them. Explain that, yes, you understand why they wanted to see these numbers but it’s not telling them what they want to know (and base it on data). Come to the table with suggestions on what might work better and go from there.A word of caution here: there are times when your metrics will be tied into other measures that feed into your association’s balanced scorecard or Board metrics. These are near impossible to change until your Board weighs in on the next year’s objectives. In such case, I would start making the case for changing your metrics well in advance so that you can begin to think about how you can position your community for better reporting going into the next year.Tackling online community metrics can be frustrating and, at times, feel like you’re on a wild goose chase to measure what matters. But it doesn’t have to be. If you’re clear about your community objectives, the direction of your association, and how it all fits, finding the right metrics that will show sustained value and growth over time won’t be such a chore.How often do you check what you measure? How difficult is it to pivot what you’re measuring isn’t showing value? We’d love to hear your comments!