Measurement

Behind the scenes, certain heroes have been meeting and debating about the standardization of PR measurement practices, and putting these practices to work and doing, yes, PR, for these practices. At PR News’ annual Measurement Conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., we inducted a few of these heroes into PR News’ Measurement Hall of Fame.

If you’re measuring every activity because you think more is more and that everything is important, then it’s time to switch lanes. But as you embark on a week of heavy measuring, I realize you might need a pep talk. So here’s a few morsels of wisdom from our conference speakers to get your engine running.

If that new car you’re shopping for doesn’t have the latest bells and whistles, it’s likely you’ll opt for the one that sports the coolest technology and whose dashboard displays practically everything except your blood… Continued

Is the glass half empty or half full? That’s the dilemma raised by the latest PR News survey about measurement practices. On the upside, more PR pros appear to be relying on measurement than previously. The flip side is the pace toward a more analytical mindset is incremental.

“It’s not just tracking mentions, but how are you being mentioned, what messages are you getting across!” With this important central concept in mind, Cindy Villafranca, senior specialist, communication & outreach at Southwest Airlines, walked… Continued

At PR News’ April 21 Measurement Conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Cindy Villafranca, senior specialist, communication & outreach, Southwest Airlines, will discuss the trial and error process she used to arrive at her current measurement dashboard strategy. In particular, Villafranca will talk about “socializing” dashboards, which has nothing to do with embedding social media icons in your dashboards.

Once you’ve developed a program and set your KPIs, how exactly do you go about doing the work of measuring? The communications space is now inundated with a motley collection of tools ranging from free to prohibitively expensive. And they all promise to be the alpha and omega of your measurement needs. But PR pros looking for a little guidance on some of the tools available to communicators needn’t worry.

With the plethora of tools available and an abundance of social metrics crying out for attention, what are the best metrics to measure?

If there’s a letter in the alphabet that sprouts legs and chases PR pros through the hills and valleys of their nightmares, it’s the letter D, as in data and dashboards. Your first step in cutting them down to size: Have a clear understanding of what success looks like to senior leaders.

The C-suite’s time is limited and expensive—a recent estimation found that a one-hour meeting with executives at a mid-sized company would cost shareholders $30,000 per hour. These three measurement tips will help focus your PR reports to ensure they line up with executives’ priorities.