I read a post by Luisa Woods at Marketing Metrics a few days ago that called my attention; she has a very interesting point of view on why should we measure UGC. Since I worked for one year at  esnips, a 100% UGC website, the question was not whether UGC could/should be measured or not, the exclamation was: measure it or we will fire you! :-)

So I ended up with a very practical model, which I presented at emetrics washington and will present again at emetrics Canada. Here is the description:

Presentation Title: User Generated content: Is it good for you?

Description: User Generated Content (UGC) is a growing strategy for increasing the content of websites. But how can you measure it and decide if it works for you? Three important categories of analysis are: content quantity (increases crawlable content), content linkability (increases engagement), and content strength (targeted keywords that will improve SEO and/or words that indicate brand awareness). Adding content is not enough - it is essential to analyze how it influences SEO, site engagement, and brand  awareness. This presentation will show different applications of UGC, its consequences, audience, and financial aspects. Two case studies will be presented on how to measure UGC using text mining tools.

What do you think? Sounds like measurable? I tried very hard to find variables and use Google Analytics and text mining to help me. But I still believe there are hundreds of variables in this function. Please leave one of them in the comments...

Comments

[Jaume Clotet]

Hi Daniel,

Find here my contribution, the AVC (Added Value Content), for calculate value of every new content by category to focus efforts on those contents what maximize company and users value.

http://clotet.wordpress.com/2008/02/18/added-value-content/

What do you think? your comments are welcome.

Jaume

[Luisa Woods]

Hi Daniel,

I really appreciate the response, and it is very helpful in allowing me to get a better understanding of how my article might be interpreted.

I went and checked out esnips.com earlier when we were talking about UGC. I love the concept of social dna, and models for connectedness through shared interests. It is compelling to the user, and a niche marketer´s dream.

In the framework that I propose, the establishment of KPIs and therefore the design of metrics for esnips.com, for instance would first be driven out of the position of maximizing shareholder value, and then placed in the framework of a conversion stream with measurable transactions.

Now, I am not at all familiar with the business model of esnips.com, so I am going to jump to a few conclusions here.

Let´s assume, for instance, that the mission for the company is to acquire membership of 20million active users, with a demographic and psychographic profile for each one, so that it can be sold to a major ad network. In this case, maximizing shareholder value is defined in a certain way. the content that I seek to have each participant contribute is demographic and psychographic profiling content. Pageviews are secondary to profile accuracy and recency. The types of transactions I measure might be things like number of new registratons and profile fields completed. The conversion stream would be focused on viral invitations, trust-building activities that would encourage more profile-building.

If for example, I am instead focused on generating ad revenue for my business model, and charging premiums for niche targeted ads, my means of maximizing shareholder value is quite different. I am focused on maximizing content contributions from participants that generate multiple page views (and advertising opportunities) per visitor. I am more focused on measuring the current interest of the site visitor - what subjects are they searching under and what clues does this give me as to the type of niche ads I should be serving to meet an immediate need. The transactions I measure might be, volume of content uploaded, most popular search terms, and ad clicks, and the conversion stream might be registered user to author to paid advertiser.

Now, of course, this is a very narrowly considered example. I am certainly in no position to establish strategy or appropriate performance metrics for esnips with no information. However, what I seek to illustrate, is how I would go about designing a system for measuring UGC is dependent on

1. how do I maximize shareholder value as defined by the business model
2. what do my objectives determine are valuable "transactions" to measure on my site
3. how do I seek to improve the relatioship with my stakeholders over time from prospect, to lead to client to loyal client to product champion. How have I defined the progression?

What do you think?

Jaume, I went and read the article that you mentioned here, and posted my comments. I´d love to hear more.

Again, thanks for the feedback

Luisa