Last Thursday, I joined around 50 social media industry people (and interested parties) for my first MeasurementCamp.
If you aren’t aware of it, MeasurementCamp
is a global open-source movement to encourage knowledge sharing and industry collaboration towards answering ‘how do we measure engagement in social media?’. It has hubs in the UK, USA (Bay Area) and Ireland.
It took place in the offices of We Are Social who kindly stepped in as the venue when participation numbers swelled beyond the original venue’s capacity. The agenda this time comprised a presentation followed by small group work.
After opening remarks by Will McInnes, Beth Granter of The Good Agency gave a presentation on the RSPCA’s ‘The Race to Protect Greyhounds’ 9 day campaign. It was an interesting illustration of what can be done with a targeted campaign about a specific topic in a very short time frame.
After the presentation, we split up into 4 groups. Each group was tasked with coming up with a social media scenario to discuss. It could be a new instruction looking for ideas, a recently completed project looking for ways it could have been done differently, or an entirely invented scenario.
In addition to getting general ideas about social media measurement at this MeasurementCamp, I had hoped to discuss my current project for ActivInstinct, which has been slow to gain momentum. So as my group gathered I volunteered my scenario, explaining some of the challenges and advantages around the project:
- ActivInstinct is interested in the potential of social media but not convinced about it.
- They don’t have a lot of resource currently to manage a social media effort.
- As an online sports retailer they sell a lot of “buzzy” brands but run the risk of being little more than one of many outlets who sell those brands.
- They recently became the naming sponsor of a professional triathlete development team, Team ActivInstinct.
- ActivInstinct’s CEO isn’t particularly interested in measuring “page views” or “eyeballs” – for him it is about sales revenue.
- In order to help convince ActivInstinct we have agreed a “Phase One” program in which we will try to achieve two things:
- Monitor and track the buzz created by messages ActivInstinct puts out.
- Attract new types of customers to ActivInstinct.
- We had also agreed that to achieve this we should utilise ActivInstinct’s involvement with Team ActivInstinct, since triathlon is Britain’s fastest growing participation sport.
The group agreed that my project would be a good one to address and so we kicked off the discussion. What followed was a constructive brainstorming session where ideas bounced around, developed and rolled into new ones.
Some of the highlights include:
- Using Facebook Connect to integrate social network aspects into the ActivInstinct website.
- Ask for SM ID’s at checkout in order to gather a growing list of SM savvy customers. This doesn’t guarantee that they heard about ActivInstinct via SM though.
- Create Facebook page (done that) and then establish a leaderboard or such where people can put up their best performances – friendly competition amongst fans.
- Spy on competitor forums/blogs/twitter/facebook – follow their followers, engage with their customers directly.
- Establish an Ambassador program – find active, influential people around certain sport or activities and invite them to contribute/engage.
- Target an upcoming “big” event and start talking about it over the days leading up to it, rather than waiting until after it has happened.
- Creating specific discount codes to disseminate through SM channels. This would allow us to track the response. One member pointed out that often these codes are highjacked by online discount aggregators, which would alter the accuracy of our tracking.
At the end of the group discussions each group presented what they had been doing , describing for the entire Camp the brief and how it was addressed. Since it was my project (and because I went to the men’s room just before the vote) I was elected to give the presentation. Always fun to wing it in front of a roomful of strangers. 
I came away from my first MeasurementCamp with a handful of good ideas for my project with ActivInstinct and, more importantly, a handful of quality contacts in the social media industry. I will definitely be going to the next one.
Tape Measure Image courtesy of AussieGall
