As discussed in Six Steps to a Social Media Strategy, I consider success criteria to be the lynchpin of the social media strategy. Every social media goal should have a matching set of success criteria. Here are four tips for creating good criteria.
First, some examples of success criteria:
- Six months post-launch of the social strategy, 10% of our new registrations can be traced back to the social channels we are working in.
- One year after launch, partners are posting an average of twelve articles a month on the wiki.
- One year after launch, the articles posted on the wiki receive an average three star (out of four) rating from customers.
Use the following guidelines to create good success criteria:
Include a timeframe
You don't have forever to meet your business goals, and therefore you don't have forever to meet your social media goals. Include a clear timeframe within which the criteria can be met.
Include specific numbers that must be met
You need to put a stake in the ground and provide specific numbers: 10%, 20 requests per week, etc. If you aren't specific, it's not measurable. Success criteria are black and white. Look at each one and imagine your boss asking you "Yes or no, were the success criteria met?" The success criteria need to be worded such that you could give a definite yes or no answer.
Make sure you can measure it
Obviously, you have to be able to actually do the measurement. As I describe in my post "What Does a Social Media Strategy Look Like," a later step involves determining how you will gather data for your success criteria, as well determining interim measures. As a result of that step, you may find you have to change your success criteria because you just can't get the data you had hoped to measure. For now, give it a little thought and try to define criteria for which you think you can get the data.
Tie it to a goal
Remember, the point of the criteria is to demonstrate that a social media goal has been met. Make sure each of the criteria actually serves that purpose. And include as many criteria as you need to ensure you have demonstrated the goal was achieved. It's perfectly acceptable to include overlapping criteria that provide a cross-check.