In the pre-social media world, measuring a PR initiative’s effect on a given stakeholder group was akin to measuring a monologue’s effect on an audience: A message was disseminated, the message recipient listened (or didn’t listen) and the subsequent actions taken by said message recipient were evaluated and recorded. As communicators’ capabilities became more advanced, so, too, did these evaluations; more could be implied from available data, and these implications could shape future objectives and initiatives.
As is the case with so many PR-related activities, the emergence of social media completely changed the game. Now, measurement isn’t a linear action; it is three dimensional in order to account for the many facets of conversations and the varying degrees to which they engage multiple stakeholder groups.
“Public relations and social media are not measured the same way,” says Beth Harte, principal at Harte Marketing and Communications. “Social media measurement is [about] engagement.”
And therein lies the challenge, as engagement is a nebulous thing to quantify (and qualify, for that matter). But, as social media becomes increasingly central to every communications effort—marketing included—measuring these campaign elements becomes more crucial. While the difficulty of doing is relative to “1.0” PR iterations, there is a veritable buffet of tools and tactics that can help to elevate your understanding of the impacts of all your communications efforts.
â–¶ Remember that listening = measuring. Thanks to the duality of modern communications (organizations’ control being less than or, at best, equal to that of stakeholders), listening to the conversations about your brand that are already taking place prior to your own efforts is critical to measurement success. According to Rob Key, CEO of Converseon, this is the point at which you will:
• Mine conversations for data;
• Identify key influentials;
• Determine topics/sentiment;
• Establish success metrics/key performance indicators; and,
• Conduct internal and external discovery.
These actions can only be accomplished by listening closely to conversations within the social media universe—an intimidating concept, but one that is made possible by an ever-growing number of free and user-friendly monitoring tools (think Technorati, Google Alerts, TweetScan, etc.).
â–¶ Go mining for data. One of the biggest advantages of social media is its intrinsic ability to provide data at little-to-no cost—you just have to know what to look for and where to find it. As for the question of what to look for, Key identifies volume, sentiment, influence, topics and subtopics as some of the many available mining dimensions. (See “Sample Social Media Data Sources” sidebar.)
In regard to the reasons for mining online conversations for data in the first place, he says, the list goes on and on:
• Identifying influentials who are defining your brand;
• Informing creative decisions by capturing conversations between customers and prospects, in near-real time;
• Providing more effective, timely market research;
• Informing search/content development; and,
• Developing competitive intelligence.
â–¶ Make the results relevant to senior management. If the aforementioned reasons for data mining aren’t compelling enough, here’s another one: This information will get the attention of senior management, which speaks in numbers.
“Prepare data with an executive mind-set,” Harte says. “Demonstrate how your plan will lead to online engagement, relationship building and sales. Explain it’s not just a PR initiative, but a corporate one.”
To do all of these things successfully, Harte recommends developing relationships with other internal departments that might have access to relevant information, including HR, marketing/sales, IR and business development.
â–¶ Set measurable objectives. Once you’ve listened to the conversations already percolating online and mined them for informative data, you are ready to set your communications initiatives in motion. In doing so, though, it’s essential to make sure your objectives are measurable before getting started.
“To be measurable, objects must address a specific behavioral effect, a designated public among whom the effect is to be achieved, the expected level of attainment and the timeframe in which those attainments are to occur,” Harte says. He identifies the following categories of social media objectives that communications execs must consider:
• Outputs: Total opportunities to see (OTS), share of positive OTS, total number of OTS key messages, share of positive positioning.
• Outtakes: Percentage change in awareness, preference, discussions of key messages, etc.
• Outcomes: Percentage change in downloads, sales, requests for information, etc.
â–¶ Measure according to each category of objectives. When measuring a specific social media effort—say, blogger relations—take outputs, outtakes and outcomes into consideration. With regards to outcomes, Harte says, there are three things that get measured:
• Links: Do you have more inbound links? Measurement tools include Technorati, BlogPulse, Alexa, etc.
• Visitors: Is there an increase in traffic being driven to you? Tools include comScore, Compete, Nielsen, etc.
• Sentiment: Are bloggers helping change sentiment? Tools include Market Sentinel, Biz360, etc.
In terms of measuring blogs’ outputs, Harte says it’s about the quality of the discussion, as judged by depth of coverage, dominance, subject, tonality, positioning of key messages and nature of the posting.
As for measuring outtakes, Harte says, “Look for messages, themes and perceptions of your brand. How does the blogosphere position your brand?”
â–¶ Be forward thinking. The beauty of mining all this data is having the ability to spot trends and, ultimately, to make educated predictions that inform future social media initiatives.
With trending, changes in conversations can influence downstream behaviors and establish correlative impacts for eventual econometric modeling. Then, Key says, “Overlay all relevant data sets for correlative analysis and, eventually, to enable predictive modeling.”
Whether you embrace social media measurement fully or approach it with hesitancy, there is no excuse for dismissing its importance. The rules of the game have changed and, so, too, must communicators’ strategies for playing to win.
“Offline rules don’t always apply,” Key says. “Effective engagement requires an altruistic approach that understands, respects and gives to the community without the expectation of specific immediate commercial outcome.” PRN
CONTACTS:
Beth Harte, [email protected]; Rob Key, [email protected]