Last Updated: March 15, 2024

The ability to accurately gauge member engagement is important for several reasons. It helps you understand what members are interested in and how they want to be involved. Additionally, it can help you identify areas where members may be struggling or feeling disconnected.

Ultimately, member engagement is key to keeping your community or organization strong and vibrant. By understanding the different ways that members engage, you can ensure that everyone feels like they are a valuable part of the team.

Key Takeaways

• Member engagement is crucial for keeping a community or organization strong and vibrant. It refers to the level of involvement and interaction members have with the organization.
• Engagement can be measured through various metrics such as number of logins, time spent on site/app, bounce rate, and number of social shares.
• Creating scorecards is one of the best ways to gauge member engagement. It involves defining what engagement means for your organization, creating a scoring system for each metric, and setting goals.
• When creating a scoring system, consider what activities to measure, how often they need to occur to reflect engagement, how much weight to give each activity, how to score inactive members, and how frequently to update scores.
• Membership management software like Glue Up's member engagement scorecards can automate the process, allowing you to assess engagement over time, set benchmarks, analyze drivers of engagement, and take actions to improve retention, loyalty, and acquisition. Regular use of engagement scorecards ensures a healthy, thriving community.

The Power of Scorecards

Scorecards are undoubtedly one of the best ways to gauge member engagement. They provide an easy-to-understand overview of engagement levels at a glance. They can be customized to track specific KPIs that are important to your organization. And third, they can be used to identify patterns and trends over time.

Using a scorecard to track engagement is an essential part of any membership strategy. By understanding what factors are driving engagement levels up or down, you can make adjustments to your approach accordingly. In this article, we will provide you with the framework to maximize the effectiveness of using scorecards.

What is Member Engagement?

There's no one-size-fits-all answer to the question of what is considered member engagement, as it can vary depending on the organization.

However, in general, member engagement refers to the level of involvement and interaction that members have with the organization. This can be measured in a number of ways, such as through surveys, focus groups, or simply by keeping track of how often members participate in physical activities or virtual events.

Organizations should strive to foster a sense of community and belonging among their members, as this is often what leads to high levels of engagement. When members feel like they are part of something larger and that their contributions are valued, they are more likely to be actively involved. Creating opportunities for social interaction and offering ways for members to get involved in the organization's work are just a few of the ways to encourage engagement.

At the end of the day, member engagement is essential because it results in a more vibrant and active organization. Members who are engaged are more likely to stay with and support the organization in the long run.

Furthermore, engaged members are often willing to go above and beyond in their support, whether through volunteerism or monetary donations. In short, member engagement is critical to an organization's long-term success and smooth operation.

How to Measure Engagement?

There are a few different ways to measure member engagement. Here are some of the most common metrics:

Number of logins

This is a good metric to track overall engagement. You can see how often members are logging in to your site or app.

Time on site/app

This metric helps you see how long people are spending on your site or app. If they're spending a lot of time, it means they're engaged with what you're offering.

It shows how interested members are in the content you're providing. If they're spending a lot of time on your site, it means they're finding the content valuable and worth their while. On the other hand, if they're only spending a few minutes, it could be a sign that your content isn't relevant to their needs or that they can find what they're looking for elsewhere.

Time on site also indicates how engaged members are with your brand. If they're sticking around, it means they're likely to be loyal customers who will continue to use your services and recommend you to others.

Assaf Cohen, who runs the card game site Solitaire Bliss, suggests understanding how your time on site is improving. “While overall time on site goes up, you want to understand why. We always look at what solitaire games are driving more time playing, and then we ask ourselves how we can continue to improve this.”

Finally, time on site is a good way to measure conversions. If you're selling products or services on your site, the longer someone stays, the more likely they are to make a purchase.

Bounce rate

This metric measures how often people leave your site or app after only viewing one page. Bounce rate is one of the most commonly used indicators of engagement, and for good reason. A high bounce rate usually indicates that visitors are not finding what they're looking for on your site, or that your site isn't providing a good user experience.

There are a few different ways to reduce your bounce rate, such as optimizing your website for search engine ranking, improving the quality of your content, and making sure your site is easy to navigate.

The number of Social Shares

It's no secret that social media is a powerful tool for brands and businesses. But did you know that the number of social shares your content gets is actually a really good indicator of member engagement?

This metric shows how often people are sharing your content on social media. If you have a lot of social shares, it means that people are engaged with your content and they're sharing it with their friends and followers.

Think about it: when someone takes the time to share your content with their network, they're effectively saying "this is worth my time and attention, and I think it will be valuable to others as well." In other words, they're engaged.

Social media engagement is a great way to get insights into which content is resonating with your audience—and what they might want more of. So, if you're looking for ways to measure member engagement, make sure you're taking social shares into account.

These are just a few of the most common metrics used to measure member engagement. There are many other ways to measure engagement, so choose the metrics that make the most sense for your organization.

How to Create and Use Scorecards for Gauging Engagement?

Now that you have an understanding of the several different metrics that you can measure member engagement, you now have the ability to create scorecards to gauge this. Here are the basics of creating one

Define What Member Engagement Means for Your Organization

There are some key factors to consider that can help you create a tailored definition that meets your specific needs.

1. The goals and objectives of your organization or community. What are you hoping to achieve? What kind of impact do you want to make? Your definition of member engagement should be aligned with these goals and objectives.
2. The demographics of your members. Who are they? What do they want from their membership? What motivates them? Understanding your members' needs and motivations will help you develop a definition of member engagement that resonates with them.
3. The resources and capabilities of your organization or community. What kind of time, money, and other resources do you have to invest in member engagement? What are your strengths and weaknesses? Knowing your limitations will help you create a realistic and achievable definition of member engagement.

Create a Scoring System for Each Metric

There are a few different ways that you can score member engagement. One way is to create a scale, with the most engaged members at the top and the least engaged at the bottom. Another way is to give points for different activities, such as logging in, posting content, commenting, and so on.

Whichever method you choose, it's important to be clear about what you're measuring and why it's important. This will help you to create a system that accurately reflects member engagement and allows you to track progress over time.

When creating a scoring system, there are a few things to keep in mind:

1. What activities do you want to measure?
2. How often do these activities need to be carried out to be considered engaged?
3. How much weight should be given to each activity?
4. How will you score members who don't carry out any activities?
5. How often will you update the scores?

Once you've decided on the criteria for your scoring system, it's time to start assigning points. This can be done manually or using a software tool. If you're doing it manually, it's important to be consistent in how you award points. For example, if you're giving points for content creation, make sure that all members who create content receive the same number of points.

Set Goals for Each Metric

There's no universal system for setting goals for metrics to measure member engagement, as the right goals will vary depending on the specific community and what's important to its members. However, here are a few tips to get you started:

1. Start by thinking about what you want to achieve with your community. What are your overall goals? From there, you can start to brainstorm which metrics would be most relevant in measuring progress toward those goals.
2. Once you have a list of **potential metrics**, it's time to start setting goals. Keep in mind that these goals should be realistic and achievable - otherwise, you'll only end up disappointed. It can be helpful to set both short-term and long-term goals so that you can track your progress over time.
3. Finally, don't forget to regularly review your goals and adjust them as necessary. As your community evolves, so too should your metric goals.

Following this framework will ensure that you're setting the right goals to measure member engagement in your community. Doing so will help you to better understand what's working well and where there's room for improvement - ultimately leading to a more successful and engaged community.

If you are using Glue Up’s member engagement scorecards, there is no need to follow the steps above since everything is automated. These scorecards allow you to assess:

• Your members’ engagement over time
• Set comparative benchmarks of active versus passive membership
• Analyze why some members are more engaged than others
• Modify your initiatives to improve customer retention and loyalty
• Target the right set of functions to boost member acquisition

All-in-all, scorecards are valuable tools for gauging engagement because they offer a clear picture of where engagement levels are high or low. They can also help identify areas where engagement is declining, which can be an early warning sign of potential problems.

If you're not already using scorecards to measure engagement, now is a great time to start. Get a demo of Glue Up membership engagement scorecards (MES) to ensure that your community is healthy and thriving.

Author Bio Joe Troyer is one of the founders of Virtual Valley. The company owns and grows profitable bootstrapped ventures that are entirely bootstrapped and funded by customers, forcing us to focus on building products that customers, not investors, love. Joe's latest venture Review Grower aims to compete in a market with competitors doing hundreds of millions a year. Our goal is simple: By creating enterprises that address the most pressing issues affecting tomorrow's top firms, we enable growth in marketers, agencies, and companies.