Understanding Event Metrics

If you want to run great events, you’re going to need great data. Server Insights are a valuable tool for planning, evaluating, and improving your events over the lifetime of your community.

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Getting Started

Before you get too deep into planning an event, head to Server Settings > Server Insights. It’s here you’ll find some useful info for scheduling, such as:

• Where Do People Live? You’re probably not going to get a great turnout if it’s 4 AM for half your members.
• When Are People Active? If there’s any major hotspots, that might be a good time slot for big events. If you want to try something experimental, maybe pick a slower time.
• Who Are the Regulars? If you’re relying on participation, spotting specific highly-active members to plan around might set you up for success.

Measure Improvements

Nobody’s expecting your first event to be perfect. On the contrary: you should try new things, experiment, and add little improvements whenever you can. 

Server Insights are one way to tell how things are shaping up. If you’re seeing an overall increase in messages and voice activity, that’s a great sign. As a general rule, a 1-2% increase in participation is a sign of progress while 3-5% is the gold standard. 

That said, don’t be afraid of lower-performing events. Consider the goal: did you learn something important? Reach out to underserved members of your community? Numbers are useful, but as long as you understand what you’re working towards, they don’t tell the whole story. 

Get the Community Involved

While you should take an active role in running events for your community, a good long-term goal is to empower members to step up and run their own.

However, when evaluating the success of community-run events, remember that their numbers tend to be more modest on average. A server where moderator-run events bring in 200-300 users might only get 30-50 attendants per community event.

As with your own events, the numbers are less important than growth over time: if the percentage is going up, you’re giving your community members the support they need. If it’s not, consider asking your community members if they want more resources: moderator support, Server Insights, or just a good ol’ fashioned plug.