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Month: November 2015

Quinnipiac Assignment 11 – ICM 527 – Continuing Program EvaluationQuinnipiac, impression management online, virtual groups, persuasive industry, locative media, what is information, role of social media, ICM top 5, strategic planning, defining publics, strategic planning to nonprofits, strategic plan implementation, Center for Science in the Public Interest, Wal-mart, project management styles, future, journalism, reflections, NESN SEO, onward to Quinnipiac, A Day in My Life in Social Media, Viral Videos, Qualitative and Quantitative Analytics in my Life, social media monitoring tools, Media Convergence, Basic Web Analytics, A Crash Course in SEO, Semantic Search, Monopoly, Algorithmic Surfacing, Ambient Awareness, Polarization, Television, Participation, Physician Boundaries, Ethical Dilemmas, Charlie Hebdo, Premium Service, Spiderman, Brian Williams, Dark Patterns, Content Moderation, Big Data, Net Neutrality, Privacy and Big Data, Forgotten, Most Important Role of a Community Manager, Influencer Impact and Networks, Harrison Parrott, Content Marketing for Community Managers, Authentic Brand Voice in Social Media, Best Practices in Using Social Media for Customer Service, Highly Regulated Industries, Sabra Hummus, SWOT and PEST Analyses, Message Strategies, Communication Tactics, Program Evaluation, Continuing Program Evaluation, Strategic Campaign Plan Formatting, RPIE, Biblical Texts, Disruption, Facebook network, Qualitative and Quantitative Analytics, NESN Key Indicators, Writing Ethics, Spiderman, Wireframing, Sabra Hummus, Lonely Writer, Final Project ICM 522, reinvention, Regulation, Position Statements, Formative Research, Creative Obfuscation, Copyleft, Recommender Systems, social listening, POST method, regulation, Ad Astra Community, Persuasive Industry, What is Information, Biblical Texts, Strategic Planning to Nonprofits, Message Strategies, Strategic Plan Implementation. Strategic Campaign Plan Formatting, Center for Science, RPIE, Compare Project Management Styles, Content Marketing for Community Managers, SWOT and PEST Analyses, Ethical Dilemmas, Spiderman, Authentic Brand Voice in Social Media, Social Media for Customer Service, Brian Williams, Wal-Mart, Dark Patterns, Content Moderation, Big Data, Net Neutrality, Privacy and Big Data, Forgotten, How Highly Regulated Industries Can Best Use Social Media, Sabra Hummus, Communication Tactics, Program Evaluation, Continuing Program Evaluation, Wireframing and Paper Prototyping,

Quinnipiac Assignment 11 – ICM 527 – Continuing Program Evaluation

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on November 12, 2015

A Look at Quinnipiac Assignment 11 – ICM 527 – Continuing Program Evaluation

This week, we continued studying the evaluation of public relations campaigns as a continuing program evaluation.

Ethical Issues Regarding Evaluation

As is true for any presentation of numbers, there are ways to spin findings which can lead a reader to believe one thing or another. You can use numbers to make a case. And some numbers, if suppressed or deemphasized or just plain omitted, could alter organizational decision-making. This only gets into telling the truth with numbers.

All bets are off if a strategic planner or any sort of analyst out and out alters the figures they have to present,. Or if they didn’t get accurate or truthful numbers to begin with.

Cans Get You Cooking

But even if the analyst is completely honest about results and figures, there are still issues with emphasis and language. For the Cans Get You Cooking campaign, the initial purpose had to have been to increase the sale of canned goods. Instead, they labeled the campaign as a success for leading to an increase in awareness of canned foods.

Awareness is a perfectly legitimate (and objective) goal for a campaign. But they seem to have swept the goal of increased sales under the rug. This was in favor of the one, demonstrable, favorable outcome – a boost in awareness.

On page 125, Place notes

“The role of ethics in public relations evaluation was described by participants as inherently associated with truth and fairness. For some professionals, this meant conveying evaluation data accurately and truthfully to organizational leadership or clients. For other professionals, this meant measuring whether the most accurate story or brand image reached an organization’s publics.”

Upshot

Professionals, fortunately, realize that others can misinterpret their words, even if they are reporting accurately on the numbers. If a campaign increases, say, signups for a class by five over an initial figure of five, then how do they report that?

Is it a report of a new five signups, or does the professional state that signups have doubled? Both are mathematically correct, but there is an exciting spin to the latter which may be making it look more significant than it truly is.

The Real Warriors and Okay 2 Talk Campaigns

A review of both campaigns revealed good attention to detail. Both campaigns seemed to be rather carefully planned.

The Real Warriors Campaign was designed to encourage active armed services personnel and veterans of recent American military campaigns (since 9/11) to seek psychological counseling and other help for post-traumatic stress disorder, e. g. ‘invisible wounds’. Primary research included focus groups and key informant interviews. All of the campaign’s goals were awareness-based.

The goal was to decrease stigma felt by veterans seeking mental health assistance.

Measurements

The measurement of the effectiveness of the campaign included the distribution of campaign materials, website visitors, and social media interactions, plus news stories. This is good for an awareness campaign, but where are the actions? Where are the increased numbers of veterans seeking help?

A far more germane measurement would be to show an increase in personnel hours for armed forces mental health professionals.

Or perhaps there could be a measurement of the hiring of more counselors, or agreements with more civilian counselors. Without naming names or otherwise violating privacy, the number of patients in treatment is easy to tally. So can the number of appointments made, even if some of the appointments were never kept. Another objective measurement of success would be a decrease in suicides and fewer calls by veterans to suicide prevention hotlines. The campaign shows none of that.

OK 2 Talk

As for the OK 2 Talk Campaign, that campaign’s goals were to create awareness and also to launch a safe social media space. Tumblr was their chosen platform as it allowed for anonymity. It seems to have also been chosen for a demographic match although that is not spelled out.

Metrics

The measurement of the effectiveness of that campaign was a lot more closely aligned with its initial goals than the Real Warriors report showed. For example, the OK 2 Talk report gave objective figures regarding engagement on OK2Talk.org. The page views are not necessarily indicative of much. It is the content submissions which seem to better reflect engagement.

On the Tumblr blog, they encourage visitors to anonymously post about how they are feeling. The blog makes it clear that they will not post everyone’s writing.

However, there are several well-written or illustrated posts showcasing various viewpoints. OK 2 Talk intelligently shows all kinds of posts. This is even those where the writers clearly need help or are just reblogging messages put together by creative professionals.

The Continuing Program Evaluation Campaign

The campaign report shows the number of content submissions and the number of clickthroughs to a ‘get help’ screen. There is also a statement regarding ‘thousands’ of comments but no specifics. They could have shown this more clearly. But that does not truly matter.

Showing the number of clickthroughs to the ‘get help’ screen was an objective and direct measurement of how the campaign is going. It answers the question, ‘did it work, or was it just a colorful and fancy waste of time?’ with ‘yes, it did’, and far more effectively than the distribution of materials ever could.

Smith Says…

As Smith notes on page 335

“Guesses aren’t good enough; Hard work and cost aren’t measures of effectiveness; Creativity isn’t, either; Dissemination doesn’t equal communication; Knowledge doesn’t always lead to acceptance; and Behavior is the ultimate measure.”

In particular, Real Warriors should have remembered that dissemination does not equal communication. After all, the distributed campaign materials could have gone right into the trash. Yes, the campaign’s stated goal was awareness. But the campaign can only really measure it with some form of observable action. Without some demonstrated actions, Real Warriors seems more like a lot of paper redistribution.

The two campaigns have similar goals, and both have the valiant ideal of helping the mentally ill. But it’s only OK 2 Talk which is showing objective and relevant results.

Relating it all back to the ILSC

For the Institute for Life Sciences Collaboration, deciding what to measure, and to make sure it is being accurately measured, are important steps to take. It is pretty easy to count website visitors using Google Analytics or the like. But a better measurement is actual engagement like blog comments, Facebook comments and shares, and LinkedIn comments. This will tie directly to awareness objectives.

For objectives on adding high schools to the Small World Initiative, good measurements include the number of times that educators click through to a ‘get information’ page. The ILSC should add one to a revamped website. They can also expect such inquiries in the comments and messaging sections of a possible future ILSC Facebook group.

A similar vehicle for obtaining such inquiries could be a possible future LinkedIn group for the ILSC, and its topics.

Measurements of the campaign reaching donors could be a look at the number of visits to a donations page. It would also be the percentages of site visitors who went all the way through the online donations funnel. Knowing where they stop (if a visit does not lead to a donation) would be extremely helpful information to have.

More About the Continuing Program Evaluation

For the website, Google Analytics should be used to tie back to visitor acquisition. If Facebook turns out to be the most popular place for visitors to come from, then the ILSC should concentrate there. A surprisingly small amount of money (e. g. $20.00 or so) can boost a post and reach even more people.

This measurement is useful for all types of objectives, as it helps to define where to best concentrate the ILSC’s social media time. There is little use in devoting substantial time to LinkedIn if the publics don’t come to the website and don’t donate any funds.

Awareness needs to be related to action, for it is action that will get the SWI out of its funding gap and help keep the ILSC going for years to come.

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Quinnipiac Assignment 10 – ICM 527 – Program EvaluationQuinnipiac, impression management online, virtual groups, persuasive industry, locative media, what is information, role of social media, ICM top 5, strategic planning, defining publics, strategic planning to nonprofits, strategic plan implementation, Center for Science in the Public Interest, Wal-mart, project management styles, future, journalism, reflections, NESN SEO, onward to Quinnipiac, A Day in My Life in Social Media, Viral Videos, Qualitative and Quantitative Analytics in my Life, social media monitoring tools, Media Convergence, Basic Web Analytics, A Crash Course in SEO, Semantic Search, Monopoly, Algorithmic Surfacing, Ambient Awareness, Polarization, Television, Participation, Physician Boundaries, Ethical Dilemmas, Charlie Hebdo, Premium Service, Spiderman, Brian Williams, Dark Patterns, Content Moderation, Big Data, Net Neutrality, Privacy and Big Data, Forgotten, Most Important Role of a Community Manager, Influencer Impact and Networks, Harrison Parrott, Content Marketing for Community Managers, Authentic Brand Voice in Social Media, Best Practices in Using Social Media for Customer Service, Highly Regulated Industries, Sabra Hummus, SWOT and PEST Analyses, Message Strategies, Communication Tactics, Program Evaluation, Continuing Program Evaluation, Strategic Campaign Plan Formatting, RPIE, Biblical Texts, Disruption, Facebook network, Qualitative and Quantitative Analytics, NESN Key Indicators, Writing Ethics, Spiderman, Wireframing, Sabra Hummus, Lonely Writer, Final Project ICM 522, reinvention, Regulation, Position Statements, Formative Research, Creative Obfuscation, Copyleft, Recommender Systems, social listening, POST method, regulation, Ad Astra Community, Persuasive Industry, What is Information, Biblical Texts, Strategic Planning to Nonprofits, Message Strategies, Strategic Plan Implementation. Strategic Campaign Plan Formatting, Center for Science, RPIE, Compare Project Management Styles, Content Marketing for Community Managers, SWOT and PEST Analyses, Ethical Dilemmas, Spiderman, Authentic Brand Voice in Social Media, Social Media for Customer Service, Brian Williams, Wal-Mart, Dark Patterns, Content Moderation, Big Data, Net Neutrality, Privacy and Big Data, Forgotten, How Highly Regulated Industries Can Best Use Social Media, Sabra Hummus, Communication Tactics, Program Evaluation, Continuing Program Evaluation, Wireframing and Paper Prototyping,

Quinnipiac Assignment 10 – ICM 527 – Program Evaluation

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on November 5, 2015

Quinnipiac Assignment 10 – ICM 527 – Program Evaluation

Let’s do a program evaluation. This week’s readings were about evaluating a strategic plan and program.

Key Concepts

As Smith said, on (Page 331), “Program evaluation is the systematic measurement of the outcomes of a project, program or campaign based on the extent to which stated objectives are achieved.”

With a plan in place and measurable, clear objectives included in it, the next question is whether anything is working. This comes from figuring out how to measure results and what’s ‘good’ or at least adequate.

In Module 8, we studied Cans Get You Cooking, where the idea was to increase awareness of cans’ use in cooking via cooking shows and blogs. However, another objective was increased sales (after all, why bother with such a campaign if sales don’t increase?), and in that respect the plan was unsuccessful. According to Companies and Markets, the purchase of canned goods declines because of improvements in the economy.

When consumers have more discretionary income to spend on foodstuffs, they purchase fewer canned goods – no matter how well-crafted a campaign is. There was increased awareness, yes, and under that criterion, the campaign worked. But under the criterion of increased sales, it did not.

The Case of the Traveling Goalposts

It seemed a little as if the goalposts were moved in that campaign, that increased sales became a less attainable goal. Awareness was a far more readily attainable goal, and so they presented awareness as the premise behind the campaign.

These moved goalposts are the difference between what Smith refers to as awareness and action objectives, on pages 332 – 335, with the third type of objective, acceptance, straddling a line between both of the others. For the Cans Get You Cooking campaign, it seems as if the attainment of the awareness objective was the only cause for celebration.

Smith makes a compelling case on page 334, that creativity, effort, and cost don’t count as measures of effectiveness. All of those facets of a campaign are on the side of the organization. But measures of awareness, acceptance, and action are all effects felt (and acted upon) by publics. By definition, creativity, etc. should not have anything to do with the effectiveness of a campaign.

The Eight-Step AMEC Social Media Measurement Process

Jeffrey (Page 4) outlines, “The Eight-Step Social Media Measurement Process

  1. Identify organizational and departmental goals.
  2. Research stakeholders for each and prioritize.
  3. Set specific objectives for each prioritized stakeholder group.
  4. Set social media Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) against each stakeholder objective.
  5. Choose tools and benchmark (using the AMEC Matrix).
    • Public Relations Activity
    • Intermediary Effects
    • Target Audience Effects
  6. Analyze the results and compare to costs.
  7. Present to management.
  8. Measure continuously and improve performance.”
Quinnipiac Assignment 10 - ICM 527 - Program Evaluation
Avinash Kaushik, author of Web Analytics 2.0

What’s it Like?

This process compares favorably to methodologies learned in ICM 524 – Social Media Analytics. In that class, we read Web Analytics 2.0 by Avinash Kaushik. On pages 29 – 32, Kaushik outlined his Step 3 – Identifying Your Web Analytics Soul Mate (How to Run an Effective Tool Pilot) (average time: 2 years) Evaluate the following –

  • Usability
  • Functionality
  • Technical
  • Response
  • Total cost of ownership

Also –

  • Get enough time
  • Be fair
  • Ask about data sampling
  • Segment like crazy
  • Ask about search analytics
  • Test site content grouping
  • Bring on the interns (or the VPs!)
  • Test support quality
  • Reconcile the numbers (they won’t add up, but it’s fun!)
  • Check the daily/normal stuff
  • Sweat the TCO (total cost of ownership)

What Kaushik said, and what Jeffrey said, are similar. Because measurement is an objective activity. This is why objectives need to be clear and measurable. Five percent is measurable; better exposure (in general) is not.

For both authors, the idea is to have specific objectives and then act on them, whether those objectives are to launch a strategic campaign or select a web analytics vendor. Then, once they choose the vendor, get the yardstick in place, and use it.

Kaushik further reminds us that, while our intention may be to select a vendor and essentially ‘marry’ it, we still need to be evaluating the evaluator. If it’s not performing up to our reasonable specifications, then it’s time for vendor divorce court.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

On page 7 of Jeffrey, it says, “Shel Holtz, principal of Holtz Communication + Technology (www.holtz.com) defined a KPI as a ‘quantifiable measurement, agreed to beforehand, that reflect the critical success factors of one’s effort.’”

This puts KPIs on a par with what we have been calling objectives. Wanting to ‘get better’ is one thing. But it’s vague and subject to weaseling.

Wanting to improve recognition of the Institute for Life Sciences Collaboration  (ILSC) and its missions by 5% as is measured by surveys taken during the second quarter of 2016 is a measurable key performance indicator. Therefore, anyone who can read numbers will be able to determine whether the KPI has been met.

Program Evaluation Re: Applicability to the ILSC

Beyond just recognition measurements, there are any numbers of KPIs to measured. These include the number of schools served by the Small World Initiative by a certain date, or increasing donations by a particular amount, subject to a clear deadline.

The ILSC

Currently, the ILSC website in particular seems to be just something people threw together. But it’s without any sense of how to deal with technological and design changes, or scalability. Keeping measurements out of the mix means the ILSC website can be started and then forgotten about. And it seems a lot like that’s exactly what happened.

However, a website cannot be a flash in the pan, as that can cause the publics to feel the organization behind it is also fly by night. Particularly when asking for money, an organization needs to give forth the impression of trustworthiness and solidity.

Adding Key Performance Indicators and measurements means there needs to be a sea change in how the ILSC views the website. It isn’t just something you throw together in an afternoon, for some temp hired for a few weeks to handle and then never see again. Instead, it needs to be an integral part of the organization.

Program Evaluation: Takeaways

While the organization’s work is (generally) offline, there still needs to be room for the website in the minds of the organization’s board members. One facet of their thinking has to include how to best use the website and social media, to better communication the ILSC’s mission and goals, and to communicate with its publics.

The website has got to have a place in those conversations, and it currently does not. That has to change.

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