Water is Life Measurement Guide

December 13, 2013

Madison Margeson Meghan Caraway Kendall Gardiner Alison Ryncarz WATER IS LIFE: A CASE STUDY / ASSIGNMENT BACKGROUND

The following digital and social media measurement plan outlines the campaign metrics and key performance indicators that DDB Worldwide Communications Group, Inc. could have utilized in their 2012 “Hashtag Killer” campaign for their nonprofit client, Water Is Life.

Capitalizing off of the popular #firstworldproblems hashtag, DDB developed a campaign to drive fundraising and awareness to Water Is Life’s mission to providing clean water for communities that have very real problems. The group hi-jacked the already-trending hashtag and released a series of videos of children in Haiti reading off some of the tweets that featured the hashtag. The juxtaposition of a pregnant woman in a rural village saying, “I hate it when my house is so big that it needs two Wi-Fi routers,” confirms the fact that “first world problems” are not real problems. The videos quickly went viral across the web, making it the number one non-profit social media campaign of 2013.

Our group developed this plan in an exercise to understand how nonprofit organizations can increase awareness, funding, and ultimately generate social change through cost-effective digital platforms.

GOALS and OBJECTIVES

Empathy. Transparency. Collaboration. Innovation. These are the core values of Water is Life. Values that drive our mission to provide sustainable clean water solutions to those who don’t have access. According to Water.org, forty percent of the people in Haiti lack access to clean water. This year, 1.8 million people will die due to waterborne disease. The majority are children.

Water is Life strives to help communities in need by raising donations to provide innovative ways to solve this problem through tools like wells and purification straws. In order to continue to provide these solutions, we propose a strong social media campaign to drive awareness and funding towards our efforts. We have three primary business goals for an effective Water is Life social media campaign.

Our first goal is to educate. We want to educate the public about the lack of clean drinking water in developing countries, specifically in Haiti. According to Water is Life, 884 million people don’t have access to clean drinking water, which is more than double the population of the United States. We want people to be educated about staggering statistics like this that have to do with the lack of clean drinking water and the amount of disease and deaths it leads to. Our second goal is fundraising. As a non-profit organization, encouraging the public to donate to the cause is key. It is only through donations that Water is Life can provide water filters, wells, sanitation training, hygiene education and more to the many communities in need. Financial support provides the means to save lives.

Our third and final goal is visibility. We want people to become more aware of Water is Life as a non-profit organization. Water is Life is a unique organization that not only provides innovative ways to provide clean drinking water, but they focus on both long and short term solutions to this epidemic. Focus on sustainability is key and we want to increase our visibility. Water is Life is not just about providing clean drinking water. It is about the opportunity that clean drinking water provides and how it can help transform a community.

Together, these goals will support Water is Life’s mission to becoming a successful and impactful non-profit organization. Water is Life’s mission is to bring clean water to those in need - short and long-term. Our social media campaign will aim to not only grab our target audience’s attention, but to keep our audience’s attention. Social media is the perfect platform for our non-profit to achieve maximum ROI.

1. EDUCATION: We want to educate the public about the lack of clean drinking water in developing countries, specifically Haiti.

2. FUNDRAISING: We want the public to donate money to Water is Life.

3. BRAND VISIBILITY: We want people to become more aware of Water is Life as a non-profit organization.

AUDIENCE

The target audience for this campaign is social media-savvy, middle-class United States citizens ages 20-40 who are familiar with the phrase “first world problems.”

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s guide to writing for social media, social media can encourage participation, conversation and community to spread key messages and influence decision-making. The Pew Internet & American Life Project report in 2011 stated nearly half of adults used at least one social media networking site in 2010 and those numbers have increased rapidly over the past few years. Social media is one of the most effective ways to engage this age group. For this campaign to be effective, we need our target audience to be familiar with the key phrase of this campaign (#FirstWorldProblems), which is why we are targeting a media-savvy group.

We are focusing on middle-class citizens because one of our business goals is to increase donations and in order to do that we believe a financially stable target audience is key.

Finally, while the age group we are targeting is media-savvy, it is also an extremely globally aware and socially conscious age group. While not regarded as globally aware as Gen X, Millennials (born between 1980-2000), are extremely open minded and receptive to new ideas (Livescience). Generally a more liberal group, Millennials tend to be environmentally conscious individuals (New Geography), which is why we believe they will be receptive to this campaign.

TIMEFRAME for MEASUREMENT

The timeframe for measurement of this campaign begin the first day in October and last three months, ending at the end of December.

We will measure social media activity on a weekly basis, one time per week for twelve weeks. We will look at content every Friday to keep a consistent schedule that is easy to compare and track our success, or adjust our strategy if we are not successful.

While three months is not a long timeframe, we envision this campaign being somewhat like the KONY 2012 campaign. Their video went viral over several months and was still a hot topic for months after its launch. During the initial viral craze, we want to measure to see the impact that this campaign has on our organization and how it helps us reach our organizational goals.

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

GOAL: Education KPIs: ● Track general key terms on social media platforms: i.e. clean water ○ Tracking the origin and quantity of key terms like “clean water” and “water contamination” can lead us to target audiences who will be interested in learning about Water is Life specifically. Our goal of education can be reached by identifying those using these key terms and informing them of the organization. ● Page views of WaterIsLife.com’s “About” page and “The Water Crisis” page, including duration and inbound links ○ The number of page views on our information pages can tell us how many people know about the problem and are informed based on our content. These pages are the hub of educational material for our audience. ● Number of views on Water is Life’s YouTube and Vimeo (The Gift of Water page) ○ This number will show how many individual users have viewed our content. Because we want our message to go viral, measuring this number over our timeframe can give us information on how successful we are in comparison with other viral campaigns.

GOAL: Fundraising KPIs: ● Net social media-driven fundraising (conversion) ○ Viewing how fans of our social media content interact with our donation page is an important fundraising strategy. We want our content to drive audiences to action, so we can view the amount of click-throughs to our donation page from our pages, then cross-reference that amount with the frequency of actual donation. ● Number video-driven fundraising (conversion) ○ Viewing how viewers of our YouTube and Vimeo content interact with our donation page is also a pivotal KPI for fundraising. We can view the amount of click-throughs to our donation page from our video pages, and again cross-reference that amount with the frequency of actual donation. ● Total web donations ○ Viewing how many donations were made on the Water is Life webpage can tell us how much money we have raised online.

GOAL: Brand Visibility KPIs: ● Brand mentions via Google Alerts ○ Knowing the quantity and quality of “Water is Life” mentions on the web will be pivotal in determining the share of voice we have in the non-profit market. ● Total number of followers, subscribers and fans on social media sites (Facebook, , Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, Vimeo & ) ○ Our audiences can engage and learn about Water is Life’s mission at any time through our social media portals. The number of followers and Likes on each of our social media pages can indicate the amount of potential donors we have. We can compare this number to other non-profit competitors to determine our success. ● Activity ratio ○ While we want our message to go viral, we also want our fans to be engaging not only by “liking” our page, but participating in the discussion. Making our brand visible and viral is heavily dependent on the social community sharing our messages. Our performance can be determined as successful or not successful depending on the volume followers that actually share or engage with our content. ● Credibility - who’s talking about Water is Life? ○ Volume is not the only important factor in measuring our online success. Credibility is another important factor. By studying the source of Facebook posts, Tweets and more, we can determine if key influencers like celebrities or political figures will endorse Water is Life.

METRICS

● Key terms: Increase frequency of key terms (clean water, water contamination, etc.) by 30% ● Brand mentions Google Alerts: Increase frequency of brand mentions by 150% ● Page views: Increase views of WaterIsLife.com’s “About” page and “The Water Crisis” page by 60% ● Page view duration: Increase view time duration by 30% ● YouTube and Vimeo views: Increase frequency of video views by 200% ● Net social media-driven fundraising (conversion): Increase ratio of fans-to-donators by 120% ● Number video-driven fundraising (conversion): Increase ratio of viewer-to-donators by 120% ● Total web donations: Increase ratio of viewer-to-donators by 120% ● Total number of followers, subscribers and fans on social media ○ Facebook fans: increase of 30/week ○ Twitter followers: increase of 30/week ○ Instagram followers: goal of 1,000 followers at end of campaign ○ Pinterest: increase of 10 board followers/week ○ YouTube subscribers: increase of 20/week ○ Vimeo subscribers: increase of 10/week ○ Blog subscribers: increase of 10/week ● Activity ratio: ○ Facebook “People Talking About This” (PTAT) ratio: 20% of users Like/Share posts (interact with our content) ○ Twitter: 20% of users Favorite/Retweet our tweets ○ Instagram: 15% of users Like our photos ○ Pinterest: 15% of users re-pin our content ○ YouTube: 40% total increase in views with each additional video ○ Vimeo: 35% total increase in views with each additional video ○ Blog: 10% total increase in views/comments/reblogs with each additional post ● Credibility frequency (who’s talking about Water Is Life): Increase credible people mentions (celebrities, political figures, etc.) to two organic mentions each month

MEASUREMENT TOOLS

In order to track key terms that are related to Water is Life, Google Trends could be used. Google Trends measures the interest in a specified search term over time. It charts the number of searches in a graph that is useful to determine the popularity of the term at a specific time and the change in popularity of the term over a period of time. Google Trends would be able to track the interest in key terms such as ‘clean water,’ which would lead us to potential members of the target audience.

Google Analytics, a service that generates detailed statistics about a website’s traffic and traffic sources, could be used to determine the amount of views for the Water is Life ‘About’ page and ‘The Water Crisis’ page. Google Analytics tracks visitors from all referrers, including search engines, social networks, direct visits and referring sites. We could use Google Analytics to measure the inbound links from Water is Life to social media websites or vice versa, as well as the duration spent on each page.

We could also use Google Analytics to track social media or video traffic to the donation landing page (i.e. the “Thank You” page that loads after a donation is made). This will identify the number of times someone goes from a social media platform or YouTube/Vimeo page to making a donation. By making the social media platform or YouTube channel as the initial page and making the “Thank You” page as the end goal, we ensure that we are only measuring those who actually make the donation and view the “Thank You” page (that will only load once a donation is made). This will allow us to measure the number of social media fans or video viewers who go immediately from the sites to making a donation. We will also measure the amount of people who go from the website homepage to the donation landing page, to track the those who don’t go directly from a social media or video platform to giving money.

We will measure the total donations we receive over the three-month time period based on our internal databases (such as online calculators). This can be done by adding the donations together and looking at the total number of donations, or looking at them in increments.

We will use Google Alerts to measure the sources in which the term “Water is Life” is mentioned. By setting up the program to alert us whenever a blog, website, news article includes the brand’s name, we can identify what platforms use the term the most and then analyze the content of them.

In order to determine the total number of fans and followers on all social media, we will use a variety of measurement tools. Facebook Insights is an important tool because it measures all metrics regarding Facebook usage, such as total page Likes, number of comments, daily active users, new Likes and Unlikes, Like sources, demographics, pageviews, page mentions and number of fans. Facebook Insights is a comprehensive tool that will give us a lot of information about individuals who are using this medium to interact with the Water is Life page. Facebook’s PTAT function (People Talking About This) can also allow us to track the ratio of the quantity of Likes to percent of people interacting with our page.

Twitalyzer is a similar tool to Facebook Insights in that it measures the number of followers, tweets, retweets and the prominence of certain accounts on Twitter. Twitalyzer has branded itself as the “one stop shop” for all Twitter analytic needs because it combines basic Twitter measures with demographic data, metrics like Klout and its own proprietary scores. Curalate is a tool that monitors traffic from visual platforms such as Pinterest or Instagram. It measures the same metrics as Facebook Insights and Twitalyzer. All of these tools are relevant to the measurement of metrics regarding activity ratio of fans and interaction of fans through social media.

In order to determine who is talking about Water is Life, Social Mention could be used. Social Mention is a social media search and analysis platform that combines user generated content into a single stream of information. It would allow us to easily track and measure what people are saying about Water is Life in the social media landscape. Social Mention monitors more than one hundred media properties and also searches and comments. We could also use Twitterfall to find out who is talking about Water is life by measuring hashtags and trending topics. Twitterfall allows users of Twitter to view upcoming trends and patterns posted by users in the form of tweets.

We will use YouTube Insights to measure the views on our YouTube Channel. We can track how many views each video has and when the views take place during the day. Vimeo has its own analytics that can be measured on each individual video. This too will allow us to see the total number of views as well as when the views take place. CONCLUSIONS

At the conclusion of our twelve-week Water is Life campaign, we will compile all of our data from the tools that measured our key performance indicators into a series of graphs that will provide an easily digestible visual of the impact of our campaign. Once we have created a compilation of our data, we can then analyze what our measurement tools actually mean in regard to the success of some or all of our business goals for Water is Life.

Through our measurement tools we will be able to determine which social media platforms have the highest engagement with the public. For example, if we are focusing on the data of increased followers/subscribers on social media and we achieve our metric goal of 30 followers/week, but we only get 10 new twitter followers/week, we will know that our campaign engages our target audience on Facebook more frequently than twitter. We can translate that into recommendations for altering our current and future campaigns to be as effective as possible. Additionally, knowing which social media platform is most effective will help us target what platforms will lead to increased donations, which is one of our primary business goals.

By analyzing the times of day that receive the most traffic, we can see what posts receive the highest number of views and identify if there is a trend in the time it was posted. Then, we can create a schedule that takes advantage of the hours where the most people are active online.

We can identify what type of content receives the most positive impact. For example, tweets or Facebook posts of alarming facts (i.e. the percentage of people without clean drinking water) could be more or less engaging than a tweet or Facebook post that asks users to answer a question (i.e. what’s on your bucket list?) We will be able to determine that by the share of voice; we can assume that the more popular posts will generate more retweets, likes, shares or comments on social media platforms. This will allow us to determine what types of posts are the most popular. This will help us develop stronger engagement with our social media users.

We can use Google Alerts to determine what the most “newsworthy” characteristics we have. We will look at the sources where our brand is mentioned in blog posts or news articles and identify what exactly they are writing about us. We can then use this information to our advantage by either doing more of it if it was positive or changing the structure of something else. In addition to determining brand sentiment, mentions on reputable media sources, such as Business Insider, will increase our credibility as a non-profit. PLAN MATRIX

Business Key Performance Indicator Measurement Tool Metric Goal

Education General key term Google Trends Increase by 30%

Water Is Life “About” and Google Analytics Increase by 60% “The Water Crisis” educational content page views

Number of Vimeo and YouTube Insights, Increase by 200% YouTube views Vimeo Advanced Statistics

Fundraising Net social media-driven Google Analytics Increase ratio of fundraising (conversion) fans-to-donators by 120%

Number video-driven Google Analytics Increase ratio of fundraising (conversion) viewer-to-donators by 120%

Total web donations Internal Database, Increase ratio of Online Receipts viewer-to-donators by 120%

Brand Brand mentions Google Alerts Increase by 150% visibility

Total number of social media Facebook Insights, Facebook: Increase of followers, subscribers, fans Twitalyzer, Curalate, 30/week (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube Insights, Twitter: Increase of Instagram, Pinterest, Vimeo Advanced 30/week YouTube, Vimeo & blog) Statistics Instagram: 1,000 by the end of campaign Pinterest: YouTube: Increase of 20/week Vimeo: Increase of 10/week Blog: Increase of 10/week

Activity ratio Facebook Insights, Facebook: 20% of users Twitalyzer, Curalate, interact with content Youtube Insights, Twitter: 20% of users Vimeo Advanced Favorite/Retweet Statistics Instagram: 15% of users Like our photos Pinterest: 15% of users re-pin our content YouTube: 40% total increase in views with each additional video Vimeo: 35% total increase in views with each additional video Blog: 10% total increase in views/comments/reblo gs with each additional post

Credibility Social Mention, Increase of two organic Twitterfall mentions each month WORKS CITED

"CDC's Guide to Writing Social Media." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Apr. 2012. Web. 19 Nov. 2013

Edwards, Jim. "Poor Haitians Reading #FirstWorldProblems Tweets Might Be Best Ad Of The Year." Business Insider, 5 Oct. 2012. Web. 18 Nov. 2013.

Kratsas, Christian. "Facebook Insights Explained – People Talking About This." Snaptastic Blog. 19 Sept. 2013. Web. 20 Nov. 2013. .

Main, Douglas. "Who Are the Millennials?" LiveScience.com. N.p., 9 July 2013. Web. 20 Nov. 2013.

"Water is Life." Water is Life. Web. 16 Nov. 2013. .

Water.org. 1990. Web. 18 Nov. 2013

Winograd, Morley, and Michael Hais. "How Green Are Millenials." New Geography, 5 Feb. 2013. Web. 18 Nov. 2013.