Loops of Learning

It has always been crucial for an organization to measure their efforts in order to see if they are succeeding, but with social media becoming a valuable tool in today's society, we need to utilize learning loops and social media measurements, as well. The process of learning loops includes the implementation of  planning, measuring engagement, tracking, metrics and reflection. First, organizations must think through what they want to learn from their project. They need to have a specific and narrow objective, which can be achieved by identifying a target audience.

Second, organizations need to understand that they need to start off with low-cost, low-risk experiments, also known as microplanning. Finally, key learning questions should be established so they can learn about them as the project unfolds, and then find relevant metrics to track. After the planning stage has been completed, an organization is now ready to move on to measuring engagement and connections. By following conversations people produce, organizations can better understand how to stimulate and broaden these conversations. Blogs are a great way for organizations to connect with people and other organizations. They offer the following measuring options:

• Number of subscribers-want a growing audience of people who care about blog
• Monthly trends-help understand how to better connect with and engage readers
• Engagement metrics-examine topics and styles driving the highest attention
• Bookmarking-allow for future reading and tends to attract additional readers
• Comments-each one is part of a larger conversation happening on blog
• Influence- each influential blog is part of larger conversation within the blogosphere
• Industry index- regularly review lists to understand their influence better and connect

The next important step for organizations is the reflection process. By reflecting on what the project has produced, can make the next effort even better. Valuing learning and receiving insight is key to getting tangible results. Also, organizations need to take time to review what their overall purpose is and how social media fits in. Examining return on investment can also be looked at as a way of reflecting. Return on investment includes benefits, costs and value of an effort, whether the results were tangible or intangible. The ultimate goal of social change for an organization is having people do something on their own for the organization. By using social media, change can be affected directly.

The Humane Society used the process of learning loops in their efforts to make people aware of the dog fights, Michael Vick, had been housing. By following the process, they were very successful in analyzing which topics received the most traction for discussion, specified which parts of the network responded frequently and determined who were the main influencers. By examining these metrics, they were able to create great awareness for animal cruelty through a YouTube contest This is a great example how the use of learning loops became a powerful way for the Humane Society to learn and improve their future efforts. Here is the winning YouTube video-how cute!