Myth Busters

Hello friends,

My social media class has now moved on to the most important book of the semester. Everything we have read up until this point has stressed the importance of social media and how to successfully utilize the tools. "Measure What Matters" by Katie Delahaye Paine teaches us how to measure the effectiveness of social media. What we learn from this book will help us to determine if any of the social media tools and tricks we use actually worked for a particular project.

Katie Paine hits home her point of the importance of measuring your social media efforts in the first  two chapters. Chapter one highlights reasons why companies shy away from measurement. She claims that most of the so-called reasons people give stem from common myths about measurement. So Paine precedes to debunkify some of these myths. I'm only going to talk about a few of them for my readers sake.

Myth #1: Measurement = Punishment
Professionals associate measurement as a way to check on what they are doing and potentially pick out their flaws. I think that this is ridiculous. God forbid you are accountable for your work. Isn't that what having a job is all about? People are also afraid that measurement will conclude with bad news, resulting in cancelling projects that aren't working.

Truth: If something isn't working, you shouldn't continue to pump time and money into it. Measurement can help prevent the waste of money and resources for a business.

Myth # 3: Measurement is too expensive
This may be one of the biggest reasons why people ignore measurement.

Truth: Paine says you cannot afford not to implement (duh!) If you don't measure what you have done, how do you know what is working, what is not and what needs to be changed.Your company could be spending the budget ineffectively, but measurement allows for increased efficiency.

Myth #5: Measurement is something you do when a program is over.
Many people make the mistake of thinking you can only gauge the effectiveness of a program after it is complete. Therefore, measurement is deemed unnecessary.

Truth: Silly people, measurement should be implemented at the very beginning of a program. Checkpoints should be in place throughout the life of a program to measure what has worked up until that point. If you only measure the effectiveness at the end of a program, you eliminate any opportunity to make changes to improve the outcome.

I really like this book so far. We have only read two chapters, but I think that the information provided is probably the most useful to my career after college. Hopefully I will retain what I learn from this book and use it in the future.

   

Until next time,

Katie