Knowing if Your Strategy is Working

You understand your audiences and their needs, made a plan, and gotten it started. How do you know if it is working?

An important part of the process is defining clear measures of success. How you define“success” is unique to your organization, the particular project, and the specific tool used.

For some, success may be measured by increases in the number of appointments or medications remembered; for others, it may be an increase in community awareness about information such as sexual risk behavior and resources such as HIV testing centers.

If you're using new media for community-building and support - for example, a social network and support forum for individuals living with HIV and their families – success may be measured by how many people participate and contribute to the social network.

It is important to determine what you want to measure, and then measure consistently and continuously - and, as your new media services evolve, measure them again.

One of the best ways to evaluate your success is to ask your audiences. You can ask for comments on your blog, conduct online surveys, or issue invitations for focus groups on your Twitter feed. Use every opportunity of direct contact with members of your community to ask them:

Do they use your new media tool?
What does it do well?
What could it do better?

You can add some or all of these questions to intake forms, newsletters, follow-up questionnaires, in print as well as online.

Tools such as Google Analytics can be useful to track who is using your website/new media tools and how often. Applying the appropriate new media tools and technologies, to address an organizational, service or community need, can be very empowering. In addition to providing feedback to improve the use of new media in response to HIV, this feedback can help keep projects on track.