Analytics for community managers -- some starter questions

[John David Smith]

At last month's session, Kerry said, "Tag you're it" so it fell to me to think up some questions / topics under the umbrella of "analytics for community managers."  Here's my shot at it -- a conversation between us as community managers and a few guests who are in the analytics business.

 

·         Do analytic tools have to be tied to just one technology or platform?  What about mixing data from the web, with data from mobile apps, from face-to-face, from the rest of the universe …?  Can we do it?  Would we want to?

·         What are the scale boundaries for current analytic tools?  When is a community too big to make sense of?  When is it too small?  Like aren’t WE (online_communi...@googlegroups.com) too small?

·         What are the differences between analytics for public spaces like the Twiterverse compared to custom-made community spaces like Ben Fowler was talking about last month?  (www.conduitnw.org)

·         How do different uses work together (e.g., making decisions on direction, “keeping an eye on things,” or justifying the existence of an online community manager)

·         What’s the cost of analytics tools in terms of time to scale up, actual dollars, etc.?

·         What are the trade-offs between “easy to use out of the box” tools and “full bore, heavy-duty you can-do-anything-with-it” tools?

 

I’m sending this along well before our next meeting on March 12 so people can add to this list or replace my off-the-cuff try.

 

John

* John David Smith ~ Voice: 503.963.8229 ~ Skype & Twitter: smithjd

* Portland, Oregon, USA http://www.learningAlliances.net

* Peer pressure trumps math.

 

 

[Jason]

The next meeting is on 12 March? That's during SXSW...can we have the
PDX comm mgr meeting down in Austin? :)

On Feb 27, 9:27 pm, "John David Smith"

<john.sm...@learningalliances.net> wrote:
> At last month's session, Kerry said, "Tag you're it" so it fell to me to
> think up some questions / topics under the umbrella of "analytics for
> community managers."  Here's my shot at it -- a conversation between us as
> community managers and a few guests who are in the analytics business.
>

> .         Do analytic tools have to be tied to just one technology or

> platform?  What about mixing data from the web, with data from mobile apps,

> from face-to-face, from the rest of the universe .?  Can we do it?  Would we
> want to?
>
> .         What are the scale boundaries for current analytic tools?  When is

> a community too big to make sense of?  When is it too small?  Like aren't WE
> (online_communi...@googlegroups.com) too small?
>

> .         What are the differences between analytics for public spaces like

> the Twiterverse compared to custom-made community spaces like Ben Fowler was
> talking about last month?  (www.conduitnw.org)
>

> .         How do different uses work together (e.g., making decisions on

> direction, "keeping an eye on things," or justifying the existence of an
> online community manager)
>

> .         What's the cost of analytics tools in terms of time to scale up,
> actual dollars, etc.?
>
> .         What are the trade-offs between "easy to use out of the box" tools

> and "full bore, heavy-duty you can-do-anything-with-it" tools?
>
> I'm sending this along well before our next meeting on March 12 so people
> can add to this list or replace my off-the-cuff try.
>
> John
>

> * John David Smith ~ Voice:503.963.8229~ Skype & Twitter: smithjd
>
> * Portland, Oregon, USAhttp://www.learningAlliances.net

[Ben Fowler]

I spoke with Dennis Yu of Blitz Local. At our last meeting I mentioned he would be a great resource, at least in terms of Facebook analytics and dashboards. Unfortunately he said he would be travelling on March 12, but that he would likely be available to do a web meeting. I don't recall where the 3/12 meeting was slated for. If you can get internet and a monitor, it might work just fine. 

I won't be able to attend on 3/12 (on vacation until 3/13). Let me know if you think you a web meeting set up will work and I'll firm up the meeting with him. 

Best,
Ben

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[Dawn Foster]

I've done quite a bit of work on analytics and community metrics over
the years. Much of what I have applies for more to developer and
technical communities, but I think some of it would apply to other
types of communities, too. I don't have time today to summarize, so
I'll just dump a few links on you :)

Here are a few things I've done or written about (some are a bit dated):
MeeGo Community Metrics: wiki.meego.com/Metrics
http://fastwonderblog.com/2011/07/30/crunching-the-numbers-open-source-community-metrics-at-oscon/
http://fastwonderblog.com/2011/06/22/open-source-community-metrics/
http://fastwonderblog.com/2010/06/29/community-manager-tip-have-great-metrics/
http://fastwonderblog.com/2009/06/09/online-community-metrics/
http://gigaom.com/collaboration/automate-your-way-to-productivity/
http://fastwonderblog.com/2008/09/08/monitoring-dashboards-why-every-company-should-have-on/
http://fastwonderblog.com/yahoo-pipes-and-rss-hacks/
http://gigaom.com/collaboration/5-simple-ways-to-get-more-out-of-google-analytics/
http://gigaom.com/collaboration/3-more-google-analytics-tips/

Dawn

[John David Smith]

Thanks, Dawn.

A nice batch of URLs. I tagged them with community-analytics
(http://delicious.com/smithjd/community-analytics) but for some reason they
aren't showing up aggregated here:
http://delicious.com/tag/community-analytics (Delicious was down / hosed for
a long time today)

But what do these two have to do with community analytics?

http://gigaom.com/collaboration/automate-your-way-to-productivity/
http://fastwonderblog.com/yahoo-pipes-and-rss-hacks/

The connection that I could see was that by making things easier we're more
tempted to look regularly. Is that what you meant?

John
* John David Smith ~ Voice: 503.963.8229 ~ Skype & Twitter: smithjd
* Portland, Oregon, USA http://www.learningAlliances.net

* Peer pressure trumps math.

[Dawn Foster]

Hi John,

Both of those URLs are more about doing custom automation to gather
community analytics and metrics on a recurring basis ... thus spending
less time gathering data leaving more time for the analysis :)

Dawn

[Jade Frank]

Am bummed I missed this months meeting, but hoping to make it to next week.

To add to the convo on community analytics & engagement, I wanted to share something I've been working on.

My community of grassroots women leaders is built on Drupal CMS and beyond Google Analytics, we have created something I call the "Community Leadership Model" which is a bit of a gamification approach to engagement and metrics. We've just recently launched the first phase, which incorporates volunteer roles like welcome committee to ensure each new member of the community is warmly welcomed and invited to participate in any current campaigns or initiatives. We've also built an algorithm which calculates content contribution by member. We don't publicize the exact algorithm, but it includes a variety of points for posting blogs, comments, and friend requests and when a member reaches a certain level, they are awarded with a "Vocal Contributor" badge and sent an email thanking them for being an outspoken leader.

This tool allows us to accomplish various goals including: 

1. Automatically acknowledge contributors and encourage them to stay vocal. 

2. Automatically reach out to past contributors who have fallen off with a friendly "we miss you" message.

3. Track the engagement levels of all community members by week, by month, by year and measure the effectiveness of engagement initiatives.

4. Set goals for raising the # of "vocal contributors"

5. Add permissions for the most trusted contributors, ex) unlimited # of private messages (we have to cap at 5/day max to curb soliciting)

For phase 2, we're going to add roles that vocal contributors can "apply" for, like curating topic hubs or access to brand toolkits for on-the-ground organizing. 

You can see the outward facing description here: http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire/about/badges

Let me know if you have any Drupal-specific back-end questions, and I can loop in our Tech Architect who built it.

On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 3:42 PM, John David Smith <john....@learningalliances.net> wrote:

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[The Idea Goddess (Ann Marcus)]

Excellent topic...and very timely for me on some new projects.

If it helps I could set up a WebEx through work for the presentation.

Let me know,
Ann

[Kerry Finsand]

Jason,

That would be fun.  I wish that I was going to SXSW this year.

Cheers

Kerry

On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 6:28 PM, Jason <jason....@gmail.com> wrote:

[Kerry Finsand]

Thanks everyone and sorry for the belated response.  I think the analytics discussion will be very beneficial to everyone involved.  Since several people are going to be out of town and some of the analytics folks are going to be at SXSW I propose we move Mondays meeting to later in the month.  That way we can line up the speakers.  Thoughts on a new date?  Also I think it is time to open up our group to the public.  I came up with some ideas on how to keep the group low key, but have some structure.  I'm going to put together a strategy for the group this weekend and send it to everyone on Monday.   We will all benefit by having a larger number of people involved in the group.

Cheers

Kerry 

[Kerry Finsand]

Here is my proposal for how we can grow this group.  Look it over and give me your thoughts.  I can explain it in greater detail at our next meeting.

Cheers

Kerry 

[Kerry Finsand]

Here is the document that did not attach last time.  And yes tomorrow's meeting is cancelled.  Look at this deck and give your two cents.  We all are busy so this idea might be to aggressive.  I want to keep the group low key, but add some structure to it so we can grow it.

Cheers

Kerry