Capturing Impact from Social Media - Building the Evidence for an Impact Story

Sep 13, 2026

Guidance on identifying and capturing meaningful, tangible, and well-evidenced impact from social media within research projects. The content distinguishes useful impact data from lightweight metrics, explaining how to add context, document interactions, and store supporting evidence such as URLs and screen captures. It links social media success to project goals, SMART objectives, and KPI setting, then applies REF 2014 impact definition to interpret real engagement, evidence of change, and coherent impact storytelling.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryPresentations

FormatPDF

Pages35

Reading Time12 min

AccessFree to download

Outline for Today

Identifying useful impact data

Tools and approaches for capturing evidence

Some assumptions

What is useful relevant impact in the context of Social Media?

What does (social media) success look like?

Goals and Key Performance Indicators for social media

REF Impact Definition (for REF 2014)

Indicators of success in social media

Discussion: Understanding Success

Capturing Impact from Social Media Nicola Osborne Digital Education Manager/Service Manager, EDINANicola.Osborne@ed. ac. uk Outline for Today • Identifying useful impact data for your social media channels. • Tools and approaches for capturing evidence . • Understanding the data, and how it indicates impact. • Reflecting upon and benefitting from impact data . • Building the evidence for an impact story. • Resources associated with today can be found here: http://bit.ly/ImpactSocMed Some assumptions … • You are currently using social media in your researchcommunications . • You have access to the appropriate social media channels – with atleast 2 people having access to monitor, manage, etc . • You are aware of the UoE Social Media Guidance(http://bit.ly/edinburgh-social-media) • You are working on research projects and are looking at impact in thecontext of REF, reporting to funders, etc . So, first … a few things that are NOT usefulsocial media impact • Data and/or standard metrics from social media channels withoutindication of context or meaning. • Sharing, likes, follows, and other lightweight engagement, unlesssupported by richer interactions or a trail of evidence of change,impact, etc . • Descriptions of engagement without evidence to back it up – URLs,screen captures etc . These should be in PURE. What is useful relevant impact in the contextof Social Media? • Something meaningful – engagement beyond likes, shares, etc . • Something tangible – which means capturing screen shots, capturingappropriate data, understanding the process and relationship betweendifferent types of interactions and resultant impacts . • Something well evidenced – with URLs, documents, screen captures, etc . inPURE. • Something that tells a compelling and coherent story … Which sometimesrequires you to play detective … • For ideas, there are a range of social media examples (some very good) inthe REF2014 Impact Case Studies: http://impact.ref.ac.uk/CaseStudies/Results.aspx?val=social%20media . What does (social media) success look like? • What are the key goals and expectations of your project or researchteam? • Which audience(s) are you trying to reach? • What kind of impact are you trying to achieve? • What would a successful outcome look like? • How would you know you had achieved this goal? • When would you know that you had achieved this goal? • How does impact fit into the wider project? • How does a successful outcome fit with the research objectives or outputs? • What reporting is required as part of the core project work? What are your goals and “Key PerformanceIndicators” for social media in your project? • You can capture MUCH more information than is actually useful. • Establishing SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant,Timely) goals for a project will help you decide on appropriate KPIs tomeasure progress towards those goals . • Goals should be about real change, impact, (not usually numerical) . • Setting KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) early on, and reviewingthem regularly, will help you capture and track progress and impact. • Scheduling and documenting your process will ensure you and yourcolleagues can maintain records and tracking of your project overtime – and build evidence for your impact story. REF Impact Definition (for REF 2014) “an effect on, change or benefit to the economy, society,culture, public policy or services, health, the environment orquality of life, beyond academia.” Indicators of success in social media include … • Indicators of real engagement – contributions to a hashtag, comments, replies,write ups, genuine participation . E.g. comment threads, a group of tweets to ahashtag, etc. • Data with context and a relationship to other richer engagement with yourproject, or of acting upon that project by taking the research out into policy, thecommunity, etc . E.g. a blog post describing these impacts.

FAQs

What social media data is not useful for measuring research impact?

Social media metrics without context or meaning are not useful. Simple likes, shares, follows, or engagement descriptions without evidence such as supporting documents or properly captured trails should be avoided.

What does useful social media impact look like in this guide?

Useful impact is meaningful beyond lightweight engagement, tangible through captured evidence (e.g., screenshots and structured data), and well evidenced with URLs, documents, and screen captures. It should also connect to a coherent narrative of change.

How should social media goals and KPIs be set for a research project?

Set SMART goals to decide what KPIs can measure progress toward real change and impact. Establish KPIs early and review them regularly, and document the process to maintain records that support the impact story over time.

Sep 13, 2026

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