(#SMMStandards welcomes your comments on these proposed standards. Please leave your comments at the bottom of this post.)
Early in October the Conclave met to work on social media measurement standards. Now they need public comment on their transparency table for content sourcing. Here’s your chance to chime in.
CONTENT SOURCING
The Conclave published its first proposed interim standard in June at the European Measurement Summit hosted by AMEC in Dublin. The “Sources & Methods Transparency Table” (see below) is designed specifically to address the challenges clients face in knowing “what’s inside” social media measurement reports from various agencies, research providers and software vendors. The standardized table mirrors the “nutrition tables” used by many countries for easy comparison of calories, nutrition and ingredients in food products.
Specifically, the table captures critical information about social media content sources and methods to provide full transparency and easy comparison across analyses: What content and channels are included? How is the data collected? How deep is the analysis? Are multiple languages captured? Via native-language queries? How are key metrics calculated for reach, engagement, influence and opinion/advocacy? How is sentiment coded? How is irrelevant content (bots, spam blogs, etc.) filtered? What proprietary methods were used in the analysis? What search strings were used?
The Transparency Table has received mostly positive feedback since June and is being used by early adopter clients, agencies and research providers in their reports. The Conclave is now asking for final comments via www.smmstandards.org by October 31, after which the Conclave will make final modifications to publish a formal “approved industry standard” November 15.
Below are a table, and a completed sample so you can see how it might be used. You can also download the table as a powerpoint file here: Download Smmstandards_interim_trans_table
ABOUT THE CONCLAVE
The #SMMStandards Conclave was formed in 2011 to bring together various associations and perspectives working on social media measurement standards. The organizations include the Institute for Public Relations (IPR), International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communications (AMEC), Council of PR Firms (CPRF), Digital Analytics Association (DAA), Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), Chartered Institute of PR (CIPR), Federation Internationale des Bureaux d’Extraits de Presse (FIBEP), Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communications Management, Society for New Communications Research (SNCR) and the Media Ratings Council. Client participants include research and communication leaders from Dell, Ford Motor Company, General Motors, McDonald’s, Procter & Gamble, SAS, Southwest Airlines, Thomson Reuters, as well as many major communications agencies.
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“Engagement should be measured by the total number of interactions within and/or across channels; the percentage of your audience engaged by day/week/month; and the percentage of engagement for each item of content your organization publishes” I think it would be helpful to include some examples for how to figure the percentage of an audience engaged, and percentage of engagement for each item of content published. Not sure a non-geek would get this. Otherwise, definitions look good and I was glad to be a part of that special day.
It is important to consider the distinction between owned and earned when calculating interactions. If your brand has a celebrity spokesperson and they engage with your owned content to engage their followers/fans, etc. does that count as engagement? If your employees engage in external initiatives or participate in external conversations, does that count? Sometimes it is not possible to tell. It is similar to the traditional media distinction between original coverage and that generated from controlled vehicles.