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Learnings from the live web:

‘Stories & Numbers’

A Framework for Measuring Engagement

MCN 2009

Dr. Jason Ryan, iCrossing

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Introduction

This presentation

1. Background/context

2. What is engagement?

3. Framework for measurement

4. Case study

5. The ROI of engagement

6. Opportunities/challenges for Museums

About me

Working in digital for 14 years

Joined Cogapp in 1998 - many projects with Museums & Galleries

UX and consultancy work for cultural, government and commercial clients

Left Cogapp in 2007 to join iCrossing, a global digital marketing agency

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Context – online has changed, is changing…

We started by adapting existing models – •marketing•catalogs•structures•collections

Somewhere along the way realised it was about doing things differently…

Explosion of content creation and distribution tools = disruptive

From passive online consumers to active participants

Users increasingly building their own interfaces to and contexts for our content

The web IS social

Everyone is having to adapt…

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Many organizations see their website as the sum total of their online existence

– but every organization will always exist in a far broader network

- the question is how we choose to listen to and engage with those networks

The network view

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Designing a distributed web experience

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Web analytics is about individual “eyeballs on page” metrics such as visits and time spenton site

Analytics is often ignored – it needs to work with qualitativeobservations to tell a better story and understand what success online looks like

But visitors complete actions such as commenting and watching videos that can not be tracked by simply calculating time on site

And people interact with a site’s content by sharing and discussing it in the broader network - on blogs, forums, social networks and content streams and feeds.

How do we evaluate visitor engagement that takes place off our owned website?

What can we learn from that offsite engagement?

Measurement models need to change

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Measurement models need to change

Recognising the user as active participant – and considering the total online experience – not just the onsite experience

There is a paradigm shift underway from mass media measures (traffic) to engagement measures

Active attention

Deliberate actions

Brand and content advocacy

Development of a user-centric Engagement Framework which recognises:

Awareness, Actions and Advocacy

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Advocacy(Creators)

Actions(Contributors)

Awareness(Consumers)

A user-centric framework

Volume &Brand Control

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Foundations

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Method – Engagement Scorecard

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Channel 4: Bow Street Runner

Channel 4 is one of 4 terrestrial broadcasters in the UK

It has a public service broadcasting remit – including education programming

It was felt that education programming was not reaching the intended audience

Channel 4 took the bold step of taking all education programming online - Including taking content to the audience

iCrossing did a pilot project with Channel 4 to measure engagement with the educational flash game 'Bow Street Runner'

Bow Street Runner is historical role playing game set in Georgian London – and explores the foundation of the first police force

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Channel 4: Bow Street Runner

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Bow Street Runner The Game

An episodic 5-part RPG built by Littleloud based on the 5 part TV series City Of Vice

Features video shot in high-definition

channel4.com/cityofvice

The game was not marketed – awareness and traffic was driven solely by social media outreach – seeding content on relevant blogs

Players are Bow Street Runners

Level up from Runner to Chief Inspector

Investigate crime >

Collect evidence >

Present case >

Solve crime

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To understand the landscape of the networks in which our potential audience exists

Objectives

To understand how users engaged with the game outside of the Channel 4 networks

To measure the effectiveness of the social media seeding plan

To measure how awareness spreads within the network

To evaluate the Measuring Engagement framework

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Discovering Engagement Online

• Engagement with online content is distributed across networks

• Multiple measurements at multiple points are required to capture all interactions

Influential sites Social networking Forums Social bookmarking

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Involvement: Are people coming to the site & playing the game?

Interaction: How far do they get in the game, do they come back, do they interact with other users and Channel 4?

Intimacy: What do they feel about the game, do they bookmark it?

Influence: How far do users spread knowledge of the game through associated networks?

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Method – Engagement Scorecard

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Web Analytics Engagement Metrics

Visits Visits

Time on Page Time on Page

Bounce Rate Bounce Rate

Comments on c4 forum

Rank & Esteem data

Return Visits

Email Sign-up

Comments on non-C4 sites

Positive Sentiment

Negative Sentiment

# Tags/ Bookmarks

Links

# Influential Blogs

Influential Blogs: Positive Sentiment

Influential Blogs: Negative Sentiment

Page Rank

Average Search Engine Ranking

City of Vice Viewing Figures

Going beyond Web Analytics

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Results

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Intimacy

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I finished the 3rd game but missed the esteem points at the

end. I wanted to play 3 again but it had already saved my password for game 4 which

doesn't exist yet. The password for 3 is gone. If I want to play it again, I have to start over… I’m

not going to do that 1

Based on what I read, I thought the episodes were supposed to come out

every Monday, but Ep. 2 took an entire month to show up. Hopefully… we'll be seeing a weekly release schedule from

here on 2

I was hoping episode four would be up today,

following the general weekly pattern lately,

but seems not 4

Oh brother... on episode 2 with the nails in the hatch... whenever I try to pull them upwards I get my mouse outside the

screen and I have to start all over!!! This happened twice now … this is sooooo

frustrating 3

Makes me wish for programs of similar quality to be developed here

for education. Imagine doing problem-based learning in this

format… today’s kids would want something a bit edgier and more interactive. Who’d be up to the task? Discovery Learning? The

History Channel? 1

Flash loading

problemsRelease DatesPasscodes Loading Time

Gameplayfrustrations

Negative Sentiment

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The game is really well done and uses a pretty decent cast of

actors… the actors are caught in full-motion and talk in

real time 1

Historically accurate detective game where you have to

investigate the locations in order to find clues and

evidence 3

The game was created as a companion to the UK television

series City of Vice and is not only well-acted, but also takes great pains

to be historically accurate 2

Bow Street Runner… is a murder mystery that takes place in the seedier

neighborhoods of Georgian London… you poke around at things, talk to people, and

little by little the facts are uncovered 4

GameplayActors Plot Atmosphere

Positive Sentiment

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Seeding Networks

Network map snapshot for Bow Street Runner

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Traffic Source – first 6 weeks

• Over 300,000 visits in the first 6 weeks

•Traffic from referring sites accounts for most visits > 75%

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Performance of Seeded Sites• 35% of all traffic came from 17 seeded sites; over 75% of all traffic from extended network

• Top 4 seeded sites each sent more than 10,000 visitors

• Of the 17 seeded sites, 8 sent more than 1,000 visits to the game

•Sites from Turkey, Brazil, Japan and Taiwan also sent more than 10,000 visitors

Seeded sites

Non-seeded, UK

Non-seeded, non-UK

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Total Playing Time

47,826 hours47,826 hours

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Seeding Networks - Insights

The blog seeding of BSR was very successful in attracting gamers

Seeded sites also attracted links from other gaming websites

Seeding drove majority of traffic to game (>75%)

Seeded sites attracted nearly 1000 links between them

Traffic for the game never reached the same level after the initial seeding

The sites identified through direct response info, web stats, and desk research

Seeding was done too early

Seeding could also have targeted ‘gatekeeper’ and 14-19 year old demographic

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Outcomes

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The importance of social tools to encourage Discussion and Advocacy

Insight into the effect of decisions – (beta, delays emails)

Sentiment fed into the design and allowed fixes to be prioritised

Understanding how quickly the community take ownership of the product

Seeding worked driving 75% of the traffic

Outcomes

Provided a benchmark for similar initiatives

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Moved from a small Education pilot to contract to measure online engagement for the whole ‘Disarming Britain’ TV series and related online activity

Highlighted the real possibility of an AGILE PLANNING FRAMEWORK – from seeding to creative execution

Validation of the approach and framework –

led to a Forrester Case Study – the first on Measuring Engagement

Outcomes

What if marketing and creative just got better over the course of a campaign?

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Street Crime Season

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Disarming Britain blog: Network growth

Week Two Week Four

Week TenWeek EightWeek Six

External incoming link

Blog Post/Page

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Top Referring Sites to C4 MicroSite (you don’t always get what you want)

Airgun EnthusiastsAirgun Enthusiasts

US Rifle Enthusiasts US Rifle Enthusiasts

Anti-Knife CommunityAnti-Knife Community

Grime Fans CommunityGrime Fans Community

Football CommunityFootball Community

Q&A SiteQ&A Site

Pro Gun Ex- SoldierPro Gun Ex- Soldier

Dutch BlogDutch Blog

Gun AdvertisingGun Advertising

Community Action SiteCommunity Action Site

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Disarming Britain Season – themes of discussion

Themes of wider discussion

Glamorisation of violent crime

Issues relating to child discipline in school and in the home

Mentioned in the news alongside the Home Office campaign and reports of fatal stabbings

Media scaremongering

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Channel 4 & Home Office Bebo friend networks

Friends with one profile

Contributed content to both profiles (Comment or Whiteboard post)

Friends with both profiles

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Which content drives traffic

“Spy shots of McLaren P11 supercar”

“McLaren P11 pictures surface”

“Nissan's Nuvu: electric, cartoonish”

“Aston Martin and Mercedes 'to strike £235m (€300m) deal‘”

“Test Drives Audi's new S4!”

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The value of content

Visit Value Link Value

Total Value this month:

The value of content…

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Summary – Outcomes & Insights

The user-centric framework is a useful tool for evaluating user engagement

Ability to measure ROI for government and non-profit organisations in terms of social impact

Potential to benchmark and index engagement scores by web traffic

Always design-in measurement

Don’t be limited by analytics tools – aggregate everything!

“Numbers & stories” – is a practical approach that allows analytics insights to ‘travel’ within organisations

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Thoughts about Museums

Web visits is a metric that is ‘understandable’ to Museums – it is rooted in the real world

How many Museums go beyond visits and page views as the primary measure and attempt to evaluate how engaged visitors are ?

With more and more free quality content and media online, Museums, as well as commercial brands, face competition for attention

Unlike many commerical ‘brands’ Museums have rich and potentially very engaging online content

By extending their measurement models Museums can:

• drive more traffic• provide better experiences, and • even find better ways to monetise their content

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JASON RYANVP, Head of User Experience, iCrossing UK+44 (0) 1237 828 146 jason.ryan@icrossing.co.uk

thank you.

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What is engagement?

Awareness:

Have people heard about you?

How do you know?

Conversation:

What is depth and quality of the conversation?

Advocacy:

Who are the influencers?

What are they saying about you?

Actions:

What actions are being taken?

Sales, downloads, subscriptions, ratings?

A relationship