Measuring Engagement: Two Short Links

Brief post today. First I wanted to tell everyone about Peashoot, a cool program that can follow link campaigns via Facebook or twitter. The best part is that, unlike HootSuite or Bit.ly which also can show stats from links on Twitter (or anywhere), Peashoot can connect into Google Analytics so that all information about how users interact with your web efforts can be collected together and shared. Here’s a more in depth review.

All of this can be better used to measure how the library is engaging patrons. Now engagement is kind of a trendy word these days. And, honestly, like most trendy phrases it is completely lacking in real substance. Well, analytics guru Avinash Kaushik briefly discusses how Google Analytics can be used to track engagement. What should we look for. What can be misleading.

The key insight in all of this, is that we have to define what engagement means for each campaign and each department. A teen library website will have far different criteria for engagement than a reading blog targeted towards adults. As usual, a successful program will have well defined goals and measures of success. Once those are defined, understanding the data is a snap.