Page 333 - Social Media Marketing

Measure the Social Graph 311

In the process of building a community or support forum or similar program the need ■ ╇ M easure the S ocial G raph
for measurement obviously arises. Aside from basic measures such as page views, bounce
rate, and the other standard web analytics that are often reported within social com-
munities—these are after all still web applications, at some level—there is a richer set of
measurable quantities that get directly at the behaviors of most interest.

Participation, influence, and the spread (growth) of the social graph can all be
observed and measured. Importantly, by tracking the types of social activities that
are direct indicators of social behaviors, a community, for example, can be “tuned”
according to the preferences of its members and thereby become more useful, more
likely to be embraced and shared, and more likely to survive and thrive as a result.

Participation

Measuring member participation is a great starting point for understanding how
likely a social network is to grow. Participation is a direct indication of how useful
the community or forum is considered by its members to be. Measuring participation
is straightforward: Because there are obvious external indicators such as “number of
members” or the degree to which profiles are complete (unlike “bounce rate” or “time
spent on a page,” which require analytics tools and conjecture as to meaning), the
social behaviors can be monitored easily. Big Note: This also means that members of
the social network can see them. If the measures “aren’t good,” then this will be visible
to everyone.

Table€11.1 presents a set of metrics that can be used as indicators of partici-
pation. These are measures of individual rather than group (shared) behaviors. For
eÂ