The key to any project is metrics — without ways to measure progress toward the goals you set, how do you know whether what you are doing is working? Before you start just looking at data, you have to identify what you want to know.
No matter what other goals you have, you will probably want to ask these questions:
- What forms of social media are helping increase page views, time spent and the number of unique visitors to my website?
- Which social media tools are most effective for my topic and audience?
- What types of messages have been most effective in increasing conversation, participation and connections between users and my site?
- Are my social media efforts supporting a sense of shared community, discourse and discovery?
Taken from Social Media: Strategies and Tools for News, a self-directed course by Susan Mernit at Poynter NewsU.
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