The Metrics Can Change the Message, Too

Somebody once said (I'm thinkin' it was Zig Ziglar):

"You don't get what you expect; you get what you inspect."

I had the opportunity to meet a corporate social media manager recently and it was really enlightening to hear him speak. He is one who understands the ethos of the social citizen as well as the goals of his employer and he moved from conversation concerning one of those to that of the other seamlessly. This guy really seemed to be cut out for this type of work and is loving it. But he said one thing in particular that struck me and later, it occurred to me that he was rephrasing Zig's (alleged) comment and applying it to his trade. He was speaking of his corporate online community's top contributors as people who churn out a lot of volume (recipes, for example ... and he didn't work for Betty Crocker) just to maintain their top status. He said he realized that he was getting just what he was "asking" for (or "inspecting") because in evaluating the coveted top contributor spot, he solely inspected volume of posts, giving no regard to quality. So he decided to approach his social media vendor and ask for a new feature that would allow the community to evaluate how helpful a post was (see Facebook's "like" and Amazon's "stars"). Then the top contributor would instead reflect the top peer review rating.

You change your metric, you change your content. And suddenly "top contributor" status organically aligns with the business. Sure, people will still "like" a good recipe for banana puddin' (note to Wes: "It's got bananas an vanilla wafers an' puddin' ..."), but those turning to the community for job support will be registering their "likes" as well. Smart move.

Come get me, Mother. I'm through.