As a Khoros Community Product Coach for two years, I often was asked questions such as:
- “What content are my members most engaged with, and who is most active?”
- “What are members searching for in the community, and are they finding results? “
- “What type of content should we be creating more of for our members?”
If you are asking yourself these same types of questions, then this post is for you! I'll provide you eight tips you can use today to help you answer those questions.
So let’s get started! Open Community Analytics in your instance, and follow along with me for a more “hands-on” experience 🙂
Content Metrics
Content metrics is the most comprehensive area for Community metrics, where you can see metrics from a high-level, and down to the node or topic level.
TIP 1: What’s the best way to view metrics on content in your Community?
- View metrics on a specific post, forum, or discussion style > Select the Content - All Categories menu and then look at the Community Structure chart, select the specific category, sub-category, and then forum/post to view the metrics for that particular area.
- View metrics for a particular discussion style across the WHOLE community > Select the discussion style of interest located beneath Content > All Apps and then look at the Community Structure chart to view the top 50 metrics for that discussion style.
BONUS: Click into one of the listed Top 50 discussion styles to view its top 50 topics!
Example: Selecting Blogs will show you the top X blogs from all communities, in all categories, all together.
TIP 2: How do I get more granular metrics on what my members are doing?
- Apply a filter or two or three to get more granular data!
- Here is where I like to apply a filter for role = customer*, allowing me only to view content metrics related to the customer role.
- Note: The role customer* will need to be adjusted to match your community’s role(s) given to your customers.
TIP 3: How do I sort range for different content metric results?
- Looking at the Community Structure chart, you can sort any of the columns by clicking on the title. This will adjust the metrics column from descending to ascending. *The title of the column will also be bolded when selected.
- Note: Notice the above chart now reflects the sort change as well.
TIP 4: What does Kudos Given, Accepted Solution, Unique Visitors, etc., mean?
- Use the informational tooltips for a definition of how Khoros defines that metric.
- Example: What does "Kudos Given " mean? Click on the column title Kudos Given in the second chart. Then look at the above bar chart on the top left-hand side. Kudos Given will be written, along with an informational tooltip that you can click on.
- Note: These informational tooltips live throughout Community Analytics and Community Admin!
Search Metrics
Search Metrics helps you identify the type of content your members are searching for and whether their search terms yield results. When looking at Search Metrics, searches include the total number of search terms OR phrases entered during a period, regardless of whether search results were returned. This will EXCLUDE nonhuman requests (web crawlers) and related search behavior like filtering results, paging through search results, "instant search, and autocomplete.
BONUS: The most widely searched terms yielding '0' results provide insight into customers' needs and direction on what type of content you should be publishing within the community.
TIP 1: What type of content are my members searching for?
- Apply filters to get more granular data! Same as for Content Metrics, applying the role = customer* filter allows you to focus only on your members searching for in the community, excluding any search results done by you, employees, etc.
- Note: The role customer* will need to be adjusted to match your community’s role(s) given to your customers.
TIP 2: What exactly are members searching for when they search for X term?
- Looking at the "Searches with Results" chart, click on a highlighted term to see the top-clicked search result links for that term, how many times each link was clicked, as well as related search terms that members also search for.
TIP 3: What is the Click Rate column used for?
- The Click Rate column in the Searches with Results chart shows you the number of times (as a percentage) users clicked a search result for a specific search term. Use this information as one data point in assessing how effective search results are for specific search terms. Create a Promoted Search Results Rule (About Promoted Search ) to help boost specific content using these search terms.
TIP 4: How can I increase our community’s search results?
- Use the Searches without Results chart to find out which words your community users are searching most that have not yielded any results, as these could be good synonym candidates. Create synonym rules for Community Search
IMPORTANT NOTE: It’s important to know that search metrics are not scoped at the node level. For example, you may notice an identical term listed in the Searches with Results chart and the Searches without Results chart. This is because a member could be searching for the term analytics from the home page of your community, resulting in a very broad search across the entirety of the community. However, a member could also navigate to a particular category or even sub-category and search for the exact same term and receive no results for content with that term in that particular area. In this case, the term analytics will appear in both charts.
Questions? Comments? Thoughts?
If you have any questions on the tips provided, please comment below and I’ll get back to you! Additionally, you can schedule a complimentary 1:1 Community Product Coaching Session: Community Analytics Overview at your convenience!
