7 Measure Engagement

Part 7 of 27 Social Media Lessons From Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign

Obama’s Campaign focused on Activity and Engagement.

The transition point from your big picture vision and cause into action lives in the measures you make. Measure engagement not numbers or people. You’ll need to define how to measure this in your personal situation. Obama’s campaign created The Activity Index to measure activity individually and across supporter groups. Scores were given for key activities weighted toward offline activities. This turned the activity into a game and a friendly competition that kept people focussed and energised.
Once you’ve identified your critical measures turn them into a ritual. Obama translated fundraising into a thermometer graph on every personal page. They let supporters embed this on a personal webpage with a custom URL and they gave them tools for sharing and being public about their contribution.
Action : Define how to measure engagement and publicly display it for supporters to play the game with you.
Action : Provide the tools for actions to become rituals and regular practices.

Derived from Rahaf Harfoush, Yes We Did