The buzzwords: Social Media, Web 2.0, Measuring, Engagement

Where as engagement is the top buzzword – does it matter? How are people being involved with websites? The level of visitors satisfaction will translate in terms of loyalty and spreading it by word of mouth/internet to other people andengagement is an approximation of success or the likelihood to succeed.

Different ways of website interaction are: view pages; return visitors; making a purchase, submitting a form; downloaded a file; viewed a video; duration on site; viewed specific pages; registered.

There is not one size which fits all. We have to look at different metrics to analyze the success of a website and these will depend on the objectives of the website.

Which interactions are important?

-Ones which gets the visitor to spend more.

Ways of doing this can be by making the website more inspiring; offering a newsletter; tips, offering downloadable tools.

-Providing an online experience which can generate revenue through sponsorhip/product placement.

The popularity of the site/show vs ROI for sponsorship. Important to find the right balance as too much product placement or fakeness will push viewers away.

How to measure engagement?

Curent discussions in the Web Analytics world talk about whether to use one metrics or multiple ones? Which ones do you look at? How to capture the data? How does on use the metrics as a basis for decisions?

What are the steps to follow?

-Define your business objectives.

-Define which actions on site can lead to achieving these objectives.

-Ensure these actions are tagged.

-Track performance of actions over time.

-Track correlation between product features/traffic sources and engagement.

This becomes more complicated with social media websites as they have more ways in which to interact.

At the end of the presentation, Peter finishes off by predicting that measurement of engagement is to become more important in justifying expenditure (ROI/accountability).