Performance of Enterprise Social Networks
One issue that keeps coming up in corporate social network is “it looks really nice, but how do we measure the ROI?“. Following a recent discussion around the measurement of the performance of enterprise social networks, I do have to clarify some points. My main message is that deploying an enterprise social network improves the performance of the company. As a consequence, the most important measurement is not the one of the tool in itself but the measurement of its actions / impacts on the performance of the company.
Indeed, the deployment of a social network in itself is an intermediate step in the process that aims to improve the efficiency of the organization. This is neither the beginning nor the end. It is important above all to understand what the purpose of the initiative is (including what kind of efficiency is sought) before deploying the social network. Is the social network aiming at: increasing innovation (number of patents, products,…), improving cross “silos” cooperation, reducing the time to market, improving collaboration on transversal strategic topic, community management, project portfolio management,… A (large) part of the measure of the performance will be determined by these objectives. If each community can have a specific objective, I am not confident in a social network project running to many objectives at the same time. I prefer identifying one or two main objectives in a first time before enlarging to others.
I have no magic formula but I have identified 3 clusters of indicators that have to coexist permanently:
- The first cluster consists of fairly “vital” basic indicators of the platform: number of connections per day, profiles updated, posts, search, geographic dispersion, number of communities … all these indicators are used to identify whether the system is “life” and if necessary adjust the particular change management.
- The second consists of “dynamic” indicators that give depth to the network. It means entering in the world of collaboration: the number of comments, evaluation, “ like ”and” tweet ”on existing posts, the number of blog and community assets. It should combine these criteria with more qualitative elements. It is then important to interview (with objective criteria) community facilitators (or manager) to understand how their community live through (with the support of) the tool, their satisfaction about it, what it has changed, …
- The third cluster of indicators is the “business impact” which is intimately related to the objectives outlined at the launch of the initiative (see first part of the answer). These indicators are both quantitative and qualitative. It’s time for “nice stories ”. We have to build (and tell) stories showing how the (1) replication of good practice, (2) the collective response to a strategic issue or (3) the co-construction of a solution was not yet existing benefit the company. It is important to structure these stories and to bring quantitative data.
In my opinion, a social network is deployed with an appropriate communication campaign but also with a real effort on change management including an explanation of these indicators of performance.
