LinkedIn is OnBoard with PeerReview

One more flashback to earlier post The Metrics Can Change the Message, Too. Looking at the new features rolled out by LinkedIn, they get it, too: peer reviews make great metrics.

http://learn.linkedin.com/groups/

Check it out at http://learn.linkedin.com/groups/.

Come get me, Mother. I'm through.

Corrections and Extensions: Metrics Part Deaux *and* Extra Medium

A couple of follow ups:

1. As to The Metrics Can Change the Message, Too on 7/10/2010– I missed a great resource to link to. Check out The 10 Social Media Metrics Your Company Should Monitor at the Social Times site. Some great lesson and observations on measuring the effectiveness of social media initiatives.
2. As to The Medium Can Change the Message on 6/25/2010 – Apologies to my large and small friends who took offense to being excluded in the title. I will get right to work on a follow up piece, "The Large and Small Can Change It, Too." And in anticipation of their protests, as well, I will begin research on behalf of my extra medium friends. There, anyone not happy now?

Come get me, Mother. I'm through.

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.