Did you (really) see that? All views are not equal

At SWOOP Analytics, we design metrics that are not only insightful, but can consistently support the insights our end users are looking for. Most commonly we are interested in data that will show how well people are engaging with content, as opposed to how many people are seeing it. On digital platforms we have many signals available to us to help measure the level of engagement a post might receive. The ubiquitous ”view” , “seen by” , ”impressions“, is typically front and centre, quickly followed by reactions. 

The common consumer digital platforms rarely go beyond these basic metrics. Unfortunately, they are often poor measures of engagement. There are technical inconsistencies as to what constitutes a “view”, meaning they can range from a quick scroll past, through to a deep reading session. Views can also be misleading. A graphic example of this is YouTube switching its compensation model from “views” to “watch time” and “audience retention”, as views could be too easily manipulated. 

The term “engagement” can be interpreted in various ways, depending on the context of the content being shared. For instance, a post featuring a picture of your dog on the company’s social network might only require a simple view or a reaction to be considered engaging. However, a post about your prospective hybrid working policy demands a deeper level of interaction. In this scenario, “engagement” means active participation from a diverse and representative group of employees who are willing to discuss, debate, and suggest improvements. Clearly, a mere view count is insufficient to measure true engagement in such cases. 

The hierarchy of content engagement metrics 

Below we have created a simple hierarchy of digital signal measures that are matched to typical digital content: 

Our hierarchy of engagement for internal content places “Views/reactions” as only suitable for monitoring content at the base of our hierarchy - social posts. As we move up the hierarchy, time spent becomes more important. For content like training updates or company news that may only be relevant to a proportion of employees, we are looking for a true “read”, more so than a “glance”. These can only be differentiated by “time spent”. In SWOOP Analytics for SharePoint intranet, this would constitute a Visit.  

At the next level we have content supporting knowledge sharing. This content might be constrained to a discipline aligned Community of Practice e.g. the community of Internal Communicators, or ways to fix a common IT problem. With this type of content, feedback in the way of comments and questions are welcomed and, therefore, should be tracked. 

Company-wide project initiatives, like a major organisational change or enterprise-wide wellness program, may also be looking for feedback, but because they are enterprise-wide initiatives, we need to know what proportion of employees have engaged with the content. On most platforms “views” are simply counted, and not attributed to individuals. In SWOOP Analytics for Viva Engage we have included the Reach metric to provide insight into what percentage of employees have reacted or replied to a post.

Surveys and polls are an explicit initiative to gain employee responses. Response rates are regularly captured by the digital tools that support surveying and polls.

At the top of the hierarchy are compliance related content e.g. updated safety policy, cyber security policies etc. For organisations whose operations are governed by external quality standards, there will often be a need to prove that the policies have been read and understood by employees. Where this is the case, tools will be provided to facilitate the formal capture of employee compliance.

Re(View)

We accept that consumer social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, X and LinkedIn have educated us into using views and reactions to monitor social media content engagement. Firms marketing on these platforms have recognised how poor these measures are in tracking engagement, leading to a plethora of third party tools for measuring engagement for marketing purposes.

As employees move their focus from consumer platforms toward their own internal social networking platforms like Viva Engage, they will find the same basic measures, but not the third-party tools that can provide the equivalent of marketing insights on consumer platforms. This is where SWOOP Analytics comes in.

SWOOP Analytics provides the sophistication of the external marketing analytics, but focused on internal platforms like Viva Engage and SharePoint intranet as source platforms. Rather than marketers, our focus is on internal communicators - both functional professionals and leaders - needing to maximise the effects of their internal communications.

Metrics like views and reactions often fail to capture true engagement. By adopting more meaningful metrics, such as time spent and feedback, we can gain a deeper understanding of how content resonates with our audience. SWOOP Analytics’ advanced tools help bridge this gap, ensuring that internal communications are both effective and impactful.