Social media evaluation is the process of assessing the effectiveness of social media in achieving specific goals or objectives. Social media evaluations help organizations understand how their social media presence is performing and identify opportunities to improve. Evaluation is an ongoing process that involves the following:
- Data collection
- Analysis
- Goal setting
- Reporting
This collection provides resources to help you understand the evaluation process and leverage data to inform your practices.
Before you evaluate, you need to understand The Three A's of Social Media Evaluation. Analytics, analysis and assessment are three distinct phases of the social media evaluation process, often mistakenly used and discussed interchangeably. Knowing the difference, what to do for each phase and who should conduct each phase creates a more cohesive and thorough evaluation of your social media and overall communication strategy.
Data collection is critical to an effective and thorough evaluation. Fortunately, most social media platforms have free analytic tools. These tools allow you to track performance. Factors of performance include tracking reactions, page views, reach and more. Social Media Evaluation That Makes Sense explains the importance of evaluating performance factors, and how to use and understand analytics to inform your social media and content strategy.
After data collection, conduct an audit. An audit will help you identify impostor accounts, outdated profiles, policy violations and new opportunities to grow and engage your audience. Refer to the step-by-step guide in How to Perform a Social Media Audit to learn how to track and analyze social media accounts related to your unit. Then, use the template in Social Media Audit to track and determine the effectiveness of your social media channels.
After you complete a social media audit, develop a meaningful report. A report should include more than just data. It should also tell a story, highlighting successes and failures to aid leadership in decision-making. Move Your Analytics to Actionable Decisions will teach you how a strong report gives leadership a clear picture of what did or didn't go well, and how to optimize future efforts to meet the mission goals. When crafting your report, the content should address key performance indicators, discuss the social media evaluation findings and recommend manageable next steps. As you develop KPIs, embed specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound, or SMART, objectives. Check out Be SMART When Picking Key Performance Indicators to learn how SMART objectives can help you analyze the effectiveness and impact of your actions to achieve your goals.
Regular performance reports allow public affairs and command support to integrate into the operational workflow/battle rhythm modeled at many organizations or workplaces. A Social Media Performance Report will help you write a simple, to-the-point, meaningful report to inform leadership and influence future decision-making. Following a performance report, maintain a post-assessment tracker. Social Media Post Assessment Tracker demonstrates how to capture quantitative and qualitative data to evaluate social media posts related to your KPIs.