Analytics in the Digital Strategies realm differs from how you may think about stats and data in a typical field ministry setting. Our movement developed a framework for measuring our fruitfulness called the Local Movement Indicators (LMIs), which as the title says, is relevant to local movements. They primarily measure what staff/volunteers are doing.
In the digital realm, some of the definitions used in our framework are different or more extensive, and therefore we want to highlight the differences to avoid confusion. An additional essential difference is that digital analytics measure what our users are doing, not what we are doing. This gives us crucial insight that allows us to serve them in their spiritual journey better.
You will notice that these concepts create a funnel. We want to see people go from exposed to engaged to connected.
Exposed
Digital: This is the broadest possible touch of users with our ecosystem across owned experiences, partnerships, and social outposts in the last 365 days. If someone clicked on an ad and visited an Everystudent.com site, regardless of what content they looked at or how long they spent looking at it, we would count as exposed. We do not want to stop here- we want to see people become engaged and connected.
LMI: Number of people who have been exposed to the gospel through mass means (group presentations, TV/Radio, JESUS film, evangelistic websites).
Engaged
Digital: This is how we “Know” people. And once we have this, we can better offer content and next steps to help people “Move” in their journey toward Christ. We define engagement by three things:
A user has given us a piece of information that allows us to get back in touch with that person.
We have placed the user on the Scale of Belief: Unaware, Curious, Follower, Guide.
The user has touched our ecosystem in the last 365 days.
Additionally, variations of this word may show up in different ways. In marketing or when using social media, engagement might mean that someone liked a post or left a comment. There are other industry definitions of this term that we also use. However, the description explained above is our core definition when talking about our overall goals and measurements of Digital Strategies fruitfulness.
Known and Moving - this is our theological, strategic, and technical framework for helping people go from exposed to engaged to connected. Just as in Matthew 28, Jesus calls his disciples to go and make disciples (move/win-build-send) and baptize (known/identified with Christ), we want to help know and move people online toward becoming multiplying disciples.
To further understand Known and Moving, watch this short video explanation here.
LMI: Engaged disciples is the number of people who are walking in the Spirit and who are involved in the process of spiritual growth and early ministry through biblical community (e.g., churches, fellowships, discipleship groups, online communities).
Connected
Digital: connected to a guide - known and moving with someone they know and trust. This would include those engaged with a friend, personal mentor, a personal relationship via email, one-on-one engagement in a conversation facilitated by an app (e.g., JF app, GodTools)
LMI: Not used as a term