Measuring Metrics

A couple of months ago, I read a New York Times article on how despite efforts to be more accessible and broaden their audiences, the Brooklyn Museum of Art’s attendance has gone down. One of the many ways this cultural institution has attempted to make itself more accessible is by having an active presence on Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms.

With over 1.8 billion people on the Internet, the digital space offers museums the opportunity to reach more people online than could visit in person. As one of the first cultural institutions to fully embrace social media, the Brooklyn Museum has had great success in engaging audiences outside of its physical address. With close to 100,000 followers on Twitter and over 20,000 likes on Facebook, the Brooklyn Museum’s popularity surpasses many other major cultural institutions and companies.

However, if the increase in online visitor engagement does not translate into an increase in physical attendance, and in turn greater revenue, does that mean a museum has failed?

The easy answer is yes; the more complex one is no.

If we look at other forms of metrics besides physical attendance, such as age, geographic, and racial demographics, can we say a museum has been successful?

While focusing on its low general attendance, The New York Times mentions, “[e]ven though the Brooklyn Museum’s audience hasn’t grown, it has become younger and more diverse. A 2008 museum survey showed that roughly half of the attendees were first-time visitors. The average age was 35, a large portion of the visitors (40 percent) came from Brooklyn, and more than 40 percent identified themselves as people of color.”

The contrasting metrics at the Brooklyn Museum calls attention to the difficulty in evaluating the efficacy of social media and the need for tools that capture the complex, nuanced nature of brands.

This problem applies to all brands  — whether it is a museum, corporation, or person.

While increasing revenue should be a priority for brands, I would argue the first and foremost goal of social media should be facilitating conversations and communities around your brand.  Social media is a long-term investment that involves cultivating sustainable relationships with audiences as partners rather than as consumers. With social media, a brand may not see an immediate increase in sales but could see a lot of discussion happening around a brand.

Furthermore, growth may be actualized in unexpected ways. In the case of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, while general attendance may have gone down, geographic, racial and age diversity went up. This particular case study highlights the need to re-think the ways we have measured success in the past and create frameworks that take into account the nuances of growth.

There is a wealth of information on social media best practices, but based on the example of the Brooklyn Museum, here are a few guidelines we can start from:

• Define your goal(s). What do you hope to achieve by having a social media presence? Is it to increase revenue? Amplify brand awareness? Provide customer support? Produce real-time content?
• Define the audience(s) you’d like to reach. Who do you want to engage with? Your existing customers? First-time visitors? Locals? Hardcore gamers? Teens?
• Identify methods that could help audience(s) interact with your brand through social media and help you achieve your goals. Not all social media platforms are created equal. Each platform has a distinctive set of capabilities and cultural context. Based your goals and target audiences, you should think about which platform will best serve your needs.
• Focus on the big picture, but also pay attention to the nuances. While general attendance or revenue may be your bottom-line, in what other ways is your brand growing? Who is talking bout your brand? What kinds of conversations are taking place? Quantity and quality are both important in evaluating the efficacy of social media. 
• Don’t rely on a single source for measurement but a myriad of sources. Because even quantitative data is interpretive, it’s important to look at a diversity of reporting tools to determine the efficacy of your social media presence. Each measuring platform has different strengths and weaknesses.

What ways do you think we should measure the success of social media? 

(Melissa Andrada :: @themelissard)