Welcome to the late May edition of The Measurement Advisor. As we mentioned earlier this month, because of their ability to aggregate different data sets and show the relationships between all the various communications activities, dashboards are the real future of communications measurement. Simply put, they make it easy to braid together various data streams to quickly show not just trends, but how your work impacts business outcomes. Earlier this month we brought you:
- The Metrics You Absolutely Have to Have on Your Dashboard
- A Dashboard Creation Checklist
- This month’s Measurement Mavens and Measurement Menaces
This issue we’re focusing on the “how tos” of implementing dashboards:
• How to design customized metrics
Everyone agrees that the proliferation of metrics, particularly for social media, is overwhelming. Still, there is no doubt that customized metrics are valuable. Anyone with any experience and a brain will tell you that a share, like, or conversion can mean very different things, depending on if you work for an e-commerce business vs. a state university vs. your local police department. How do you understand what they mean and how to use them? The solution is to develop your own custom metrics that reflect your contribution to your specific business. We tell you how in this article.
• How to match the right data, tools, and metrics to specific objectives
It’s not easy sorting through the data and options floating around in your organization, never mind determining which ones are needed for your dashboard. We provide a detailed chart to guide your choices for data, tools, and metrics. View it here.
• How to get consensus on what should go into your dashboard
Here’s how to cook up some consensus and serve up a tasty meal of dashboard success. We provide all the ingredients and coach you on how to stir the pot and deliver. View my recipe here.
• How to pick the best vendor for your needs
Sophisticated, integrated dashboards are complicated things and heavily depend on technology. We’ve updated our vendor selection guide to help you through the process of picking the right one. Click here to see it.
• How to put your dashboard to work for you
Once you’ve got your dashboard in place, it’s just a lot of bells and whistles until it delivers the data you need to make better decisions. We’ll coach you through the process of getting insights from its various components. Get the scoop here.
