Evaluating the Effectiveness of Government Digital Communications

Best Practices from Health Canada

Date: May 15th, 2014

Helping Canadians Maintain & Improve their Health

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Marketing and Communications in the Health Portfolio

Social Media Lens…

All Health Portfolio campaigns use social media

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Plan to Evaluate

• Establish SMART objectives

• Determine key performance indicators based on your objectives

i.e.: Fan base, reach of message, engagement

• Establish a baseline

use industry average if it is a new platform

use performance of current platforms if they exist

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Evaluation Strategy - Best Practices

• Set annual goals and breakdown into quarterly goals

• Begin with simple goals such as:

expand the reach of messages from traditional channels

grow the audience base

increase engagement (% of comments, likes, shares)

earn media coverage (cross platforms; social media to traditional media)

• Weekly assessment of success – what worked, what didn’t work

apply what was learned to develop new creative/communications

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Measuring the right metrics

Choose metrics that support your objectives.

• Fan base (number of fans, followers, subscribers)

shows the dedicated audience

can show if you are reaching your target audience (age, gender, location etc.)

• Engagement (likes, comments, shares, re-tweets, pins, views etc.)

shows interest in the information and helps expand the reach

comments can highlight two-way conversation

• Reach

shows how many people see the content

• Clicks

shows interest in the content, desire for more information

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Lessons Learned

• Focus on 3 or 4 metrics that demonstrate the value of the platforms

(i.e.: reach may be a better metric than Fan base in social media).

• Be aware of what each metric can show and how it could be perceived.

YouTube views and Subscribers: Subscribers show dedicated audience, Views show use.

How does this link to objectives?

• Analytics is as important as metrics. Tell the story.

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Telling the story: Case study

Total Engagement: 3,879(comments+likes+shares)

Clicks to web: 4,686

Simple metrics (likes, comments, shares) show engagement:

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Telling the story: Case study

Total Engagement: 3,879(comments+likes+shares)

Clicks to web: 4,686

Reach: 422,427 ENG

Adding additional metrics tells a more compelling story:

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Telling the story: Case Study

Postmedia -National coverage & Front page of the Ottawa Citizen

Social to traditional media. Adding earned media.

CTV’s “The Social”

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Telling the story: Case Study

Fan growth: Shows conversions and completes the story.

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Questions or Comments?

Karine Goneau-LessardA/Director, Marketing and Creative Services,

Health CanadaKarine.Goneau-Lessard@hc-sc.gc.ca

Lori FraserA/Chief of Marketing,

Health CanadaLori.Fraser@hc-sc.gc.ca