Integrating and evaluating social media as a part of your communications package: The honeymoon is over

Because of their reach and interactive capabilities, new and social media tools have generated as much buzz among communicators and marketers as they have among the audiences that the communicators hope to reach. Initially the novelty of new media channels superseded the need to find practical uses for them. As interactive online tools have matured, organizations have begun to require a return on their investment, which in turn requires useful evaluation metrics. Purpose-driven application of new and social media opens the way for both strategic use and quantitative evaluation. The tools available to occupational safety and health organizations such as government, industry, unions, and non-profits include social networking, video and file sharing, blogging and microblogging, and collaborative authoring. Each has distinct uses, and not every tool will be useful to every organization. Initiatives can often be measured with standard web analytics packages and any number of other free or low-cost solutions. Many tools also provide their own metrics. Others can be tracked via third-party web applications. Novelty no longer justifies the use of new and social media; they need to be integrated into organizational communication strategies as productive, measurable channels.