8 Key Metrics for Business Social Network Success

The full and original article was published on Broadvision

The fallacy of “If you build it, they will come”. Implementing a business social network with an eye towards tracking adoption patterns will help you to understand the behaviors of your users, the gaps in collaboration and communication. It is not enough to simply build your network and assume everyone will use it, or use it well. Tracking and measuring adoption and use is required for real success. If your organization is looking to implement a social network, here are eight metrics you should care about.

1. Most active communities/groups
   Which groups or communities are most active on the network? Active communities can serve as templates for best practices for those who are lagging behind. Some communities may be less active by nature but viewing activity by community or group over time can expose opportunities for incentives or education.

2. Inter-group connectivity
   How much are communities or departments within the organization communicating and collaborating with each other? This metric looks at the volume of communication between different groups and departments in the network. Measuring the number and intensity of connections between departments gives great insight into how this collaboration is happening (or not).

3. Number of active members
   Of all the people you’ve invited to join your social network, how many are actually logging in? This is the most basic indication of whether your network is successful. If people aren’t logging in, none of the other metrics matter.

4. User activity
   Who is contributing the most? Some users will contribute much more than others. In the early stages, these people can be critical to the success of overall adoption and can be turned into “community champions”. Activity alone, however, does not adequately measure the value of contributions to the network, you want the right kind of activity.

5. Contribution per user
   How many content items, comments and ratings has the average user contributed? This is important because you don’t want the majority of members lurking in the wings. A good business social network solution should contain a mechanism by which you can track behaviors such as content creation, comments and ratings, etc., as this mechanism tells you a lot about how the network is being used.

6. Most valued users
   Who contributes the most valuable content in the network? Measuring volume of contribution alone is no longer as meaningful. When launching a new network you will care most about people simply using it, but as the network becomes better established metrics around quality will be more important than quantity.

7. Average social reach
   How many other members does the average member effectively interact with? If people are not engaging with each other’s content, then they’re not really working socially. To know if your users’ average social reach is high or low, you need to consider the nature of your organization, and how many people a member would typically need to communicate with in doing their job. It can vary greatly from role to role.

8. Participation Distribution
   What percentage of users contributes 90% of the content posted? If your most active user left the network, how useful would your network be? In a highly balanced network, 90% of the activity would come from 90% of the participants. For typical internal social networks the following best practices can be applied:

• 90% activity from 10% of users = poor
• 90% of activity from 20 – 30% of users = OK
• 90% of activity from 30 – 50% of users = good
• 90% of activity from >50% of users = very good