A measuring stick for success | Digital Letterpress: Part 17
Regardless of our positions in life, whether we are running a company or simply in charge of keeping the house clean, we love to measure success. And how do we go about measuring success? How do we even go about defining what success actually is? If you ask ten people to define it, you might get ten different answers. That’s the beauty and complexity of success in general. One might strive for organizational success in a very concrete, numbers type of way, measuring by profit margins or returns. On the other hand, one might simply care about more abstract ways of measurement, such as the organization’s perception, brand, emotional impact. Benjamin Zander, a musician, conductor, and public speaker defines his personal success by the number of shining eyes surrounding him. He believes the shining eyes let him know if he’s unlocked possibility in another person.
So what will be your definition of success?
Organizations may focus on two categories when gauging the effectiveness of their business, and in much the same way, public relation specialists can use these two categories to measure the effectiveness of their messages or campaigns. Results in PR can be tangible or intangible, and both areas can help tremendously when aiming to gauge success.
Personally, as a media coordinator, I must use both tangible and intangible information to make sure I’m on track as I promote the brand of my employer. Working for a Writing Center, we strive to keep a positive perception among both the students and faculty. We want to encourage students to continue to use our services, and a bad reputation can easily destroy the trust we desire to build. So at the same time that we want to grow our tangible numbers, we must focus on maintaining our intangible image.
My use of tangible information centers around analytics. As I upload pictures or statuses to Facebook, I constantly monitor the reach and engagement created by the content to see what sorts of things our audiences does or does not want to see. The feedback provided by Facebook allows me to keep a record of views, likes, shares, comments, etc. These types of physical numbers are invaluable. As a communication specialist tasked with reaching and connecting with our students, I need to know exactly what types of content interests and impacts them. To further establish our positive, helpful, and relevant image, I must take advantage of that feedback. With the seemingly-infinite nature of social media, my messages, if not connecting with their intended audiences, can easily get swept away and forgotten.
We also focus on tangible numbers when gauging our tutoring success. We not only offer one-on-one tutoring sessions, but we run many activities that allow students to participate, learn, connect, and even share their own creativity. In order to ensure the most efficient use of our time, I help monitor the attendance for all these activities, such as Book Clubs, Game Days, and the like. Like on Facebook, we also analyze what types of content we cover in these weekly activities and which of it truly connects with the students. This semester, we found a spike in our attendance when we highlighted student-created content. We invited students to run Book Club sessions and give their own presentations on story analysis, song lyric analysis, and a study of music writers’ lives. We even gave a student the opportunity to show his short film. As we found the reaction and success from these events, we tried to find more ways to incorporate them and continue to give our student audience what they wanted.
The other side to analytics is finding out what doesn’t work. Not everything we try in the Writing Center catches fire with students. As we create video content for our YouTube channel, we monitor the view count to calculate the “cost” in time it takes to create the content and the overall usefulness of it. If our animated videos do not receive enough attention but our iPad-filmed videos do, we know we need to lean toward more filmed content. We may not entirely do away with our animation, but it should no longer be the main time investment for our team. We want to be effective and efficient, and that comes with looking at the tangible numbers. As the numbers rise, so does the success in our minds.
Not all success can be quantified, however. As the Media Coordinator, I understand that and try to remind myself everyday that the numbers do not tell the entire story. Creating content and measuring its effectiveness is fun to me, but I also look at so many other abstract aspects when looking to define my success in the Writing Center. Since my job is connecting with students, my audience, I often look to them to see if my messages are successful. Am I impacting them? Am I drawing them back to our Writing Center? Am I leaving them with something they can take away? Am I unlocking success within them? I can’t necessarily look at numbers to answer these questions, and therefore, must rely on intangible information. This often comes in words, comments, dialogue with those students. I like to discuss what the Center does right and what we can do better. They will let me know. Even when they don’t come out and say it, their body language speaks volumes.
As Amy Cuddy focuses on in her Ted Talk, body language shows a lot about our mindset, our confidence, and ourselves. I often study the “analytics” of the body language of our students. If it changes over the course of a semester from withdrawn and nervous to bold and proud, I know we’ve been doing something right. This past semester, we worked with one particular student who barely said two words the first time she entered our space. By the end of the semester, however, she would boldly walk in and strike up conversations with our tutors, making eye contact, asking questions, etc. In my mind, she and students like her are our success. If we can impact them like that, we don’t need numbers and statistics to let us know we are doing well.
In much the same way, Public Relations specialists can use these two categories to judge the success of their own campaigns. Running the numbers gives an easy-to-read measure of a messages reach and connection. How many shares does it have? Likes? Engagement through comments? Looking at these things gives insight to what types of content are consumed well by audiences. On the other hand, sometimes, a PR specialist just needs to look at the non-quantifiable connection he or she makes with the audience itself. How is it impacting them? How is it changing them? How is it connecting? Are you seeing the shining eyes?
However you define success, don’t simply rely on it coming to you. Measure yourself. Make sure you’re on the right track. And run for it.
