Strike the 3 Outs - It's a Social Media Metrics Lottery!

I'm interested in your feedback. 

The public relations metrics "Outputs, Outtakes and Outcomes" were mentioned briefly at the recent eMetrics DC conference - but only briefly.

As it turns out, using the PR 3 Outs is water under the bridge. It just doesn't work in the social media, Web 2.0 world.

In his November 2007 post, Let’s put Outputs, Outtakes and Outcomes in the Outhouse, Don Bartholomew suggests

What we need is a metrics taxonomy that is easier to understand and explain.  Perhaps simple and descriptive enough that we could skip the need for explanation altogether.  I propose the following three terms:

• Exposure - to what degree have we created exposure to materials and message?
• Influence - the degree to which exposure has influenced perceptions and attitudes
• Action - as a result of the public relations effort, what actions if any has the target taken?

Don builds on this thought in the subsequent post, A New Model for Social (and traditional) Media Measurement, where he presents the following social media metrics model:

Jason Falls takes it a step further in his post, What Is The ROI For Social Media?, when he says

The problem with trying to determine ROI for social media is you are trying to put numeric quantities around human interactions and conversations, which are not quantifiable.

In this post, Jason includes an interview with Katie Delahaye Paine which is highlights the difficulty of measuring ROI in social media:

For several years, I've been using the following stairstep graphic to visualize how we are trying to engage people in the online space. 

You see, World Resources Institute is all about turning ideas into action. We work at the intersection of environment and human needs to provide solutions for a sustainable world.

The basic idea of the following visualization is that we move people from satisfaction with us in general to ownership of our ideas (which then become integrated with their ideas).

I guess it gets down to value - who values us and our content. Value can be shown in many ways and the more engaged a person becomes the more valuable we and our work become.

And the quickest way to create value is to create relationship.

Some basic metrics that work for me to date include:

• Who I'm talking with (and who is talking with me)
• Posts by others that link to our content
• Comments, forwards, retweets, embeds, bookmarks, diggs 
• Trends in joins, follows, fans, friends  

But the more I look at the above visualization, the more I see an essential element is missing. 

You see, it is one-way. What am I - what are we - doing to impact others. 

This approach seems like a hammer hitting a nail until it is fully engaged in the crossbeam.

It doesn't take into account that this - all of this - is a conversation. And not just a two-way conversation.

It is a multitude of voices where anyone can contribute something meaningful at any time. Where in the level playing field any voice can suddenly offer something real, meaningful, inspiring, and motivational - sometimes in a single tweet.

In a way, it's like a lottery where the odds are in your favor. Everyone keeps contributing in the hopes that they will gain something, and everyone gains small wins on a consistent basis. 

But you have to play to win. And the more people play, the more people will win because the jackpot is higher and the odds improve.

Yet that doesn't even capture it, because at some point we need to sit back, evaluate and say, "Wow, what just happened here?" Taking time to do that and capture the story is a valuable metric indeed.

What say you?