The measurement of digital content in ecclesial communication was part of the presentation “Tools and metrics”, presented by Guillermo Bustamante during the VII International Church Communications Seminar, a meeting that brings together communicators, pastoral agents, and specialists from various countries to reflect on the challenges of evangelization in the digital environment.
Bustamante pointed out that before talking about metrics, it is essential to ask about the meaning of communication: “One cannot know what they are going to measure or how they are going to measure something, if they do not really know what they want to publish or what they want to say”.
To this end, he proposed three questions: what is expected from a publication, what message is desired to be transmitted, and what would happen if that content were not published. According to him, these questions allow for understanding the true value of communication and its impact on the community.
Four strategies for digital communication
The speaker explained that metrics should be linked to concrete objectives and presented four strategies that guide communication on social media. The first is the creation strategy, whose goal is to attract new followers and build community. At this level, one of the main metrics is the number of people who follow an account or platform.
The second is the maintenance strategy, focused on strengthening the participation of those who are already part of the digital community. In this case, more than the number of followers, interactions, comments, and the times a piece of content is shared become relevant. Bustamante noted that he prefers “a small account with people who interact constantly” rather than a large audience that remains indifferent to posts.
The other two strategies correspond to defense and recovery, especially useful in crisis contexts. The defense strategy seeks to respond to questions or problematic situations with the support of a committed community, while recovery involves communicating changes and concrete actions to restore the audience's trust.
Listen before acting
Among the operational strategies presented, he emphasized the so-called listening strategy, considered the most basic and necessary to know what is said about an institution, a parish, or a diocese.
In this process, he recommended measuring aspects such as the reach of the content, the sentiment associated with the comments, the most mentioned topics by the audience, and the users with the greatest influence within the digital community. “In digital, the great grace is that everything can be measured. Everything leaves a mark, everything leaves a record”, he said.
To analyze emotions and feelings, he recommended the free tool Lavia_Lex, developed by Brazilian researchers, which allows examining texts and detecting emotional trends, themes, and conversation patterns. He explained that these tools help identify which topics generate interest among users and who could become strategic allies to amplify messages or support an institution in complex times.
Social networks for dialogue
Another of the aspects of the conference was the importance of dialogue. Bustamante recalled that social networks were born as spaces for conversation and lamented that many organizations have forgotten that purpose: “Social networks are born with a goal, and the goal is precisely that we can converse”, he stated.
He expressed the need to respond promptly to users, especially when seeking practical or pastoral information. As an example, he mentioned the importance of communicating timely changes in mass schedules or parish activities.
Among the indicators to evaluate a dialogue strategy, he mentioned the speed of response, the depth of the connections generated with the audience, the quality of the conversations, and the degree of humanization of the messages. También resaltó las posibilidades que ofrece la inteligencia artificial para automatizar respuestas frecuentes y facilitar la atención a los usuarios sin perder cercanía.
How to face digital crises
Regarding crisis situations, the specialist recommended maintaining a single institutional voice and conveying clear, coherent, and consistent messages: “It’s better to turn red once than purple several times”, he commented when referring to the importance of providing timely and transparent responses.
In these cases, he suggested analyzing the level of polarization in conversations, identifying predominant emotions, and assessing the potential for content to go viral. Additionally, he insisted that the coherence of the message is fundamental to generate trust and credibility.
As he explained, the ultimate goal is for digital communities to become spaces capable of educating, informing, and helping to distinguish true information from erroneous or misleading content.
Communicating changes and strengthening the community
The last strategy addressed was that of change, which consists of effectively communicating the transformations that organizations or communities experience. Bustamante noted that once a modification is implemented, it is necessary to verify if the audience understood and incorporated it. For this, he recommended maintaining constant communication and evaluating user responses.
Al finalizar su intervención compartió materiales de apoyo para los participantes, incluyendo una recopilación de 19 digital tools, a content planning for social media, practical documents on metrics and an academic study on experiences of ecclesial communication.
During the Q&A session, he recommended avoiding the closure of conversation spaces and betting on responsible moderation, relying on committed digital communities that contribute to sustaining a respectful and constructive dialogue.
“People need to feel that we are taking charge of the problem”, he concluded, reiterating that metrics are not an end in themselves, but tools at the service of a closer, participatory, and effective communication for the mission of the Church.
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