It's the age-old PR dilemma: Communicators want bigger budgets from senior management. Senior management wants more numbers from communicators. Communicators can't measure their
efforts to get said numbers without bigger budgets.
Welcome to the modern-day catch-22 of the PR industry. While the boilerplate outlook appears grim, there is hope; in fact, many professionals and organizations are leading
measurement efforts that confront the challenge of budget constraints--not to mention those associated with lawless digital media channels and engaging online influencers.
"Proving value begins with understanding your organization's PR value system," says Mark Weiner, CEO of Research in Public Relations. "Negotiate what is meaningful, reasonable
and measurable."
If negotiating these three qualities seems easier said that done, well, it probably is. However, Weiner and his industry peers do offer points and counterpoints for making
headway amid all the measurement mayhem.
*Understand measurement's benefits. Focusing on measurement's inherent opportunities rather than its challenges is the first step in getting senior buy-in. "Measurement allows
you to set objectives and evaluate performance," Weiner says. "Objectives create a structure for prioritization, reduce the potential for disputes, help form successful programs and
set the stage for evaluation."
Evaluation, then, "helps executives link results to objectives, provides opportunities for continual improvement, [offers] a structure around which future plans can be built and
builds trust," Weiner says.
In terms of actually conveying these benefits to management, Nancy Ryan, director of public relations for the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), offers these tactics
that have been successful in her own organization:
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Report on peer organizations and competitors;
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Benchmark;
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Identify metrics for PR team objectives;
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Create board of directors and executive committee reports based on quantitative data;
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Give presidential presentations and annual reports to members; and,
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Allocate 3-4% of total PR budget to measurement.
*Accept the differences between ink and engagement. Ink, impressions, paid and earned media--however you classify it--traditional media coverage of your messaging has benefits.
"Paid messaging promotes the benefits of choosing an ASPS member surgeon, and earned media reflects the use of the ASPS brand [by increasing] over the last three years," Ryan says.
"Consumers see similar messaging in both mediums."
However, many would argue that these types of media measurement don't take engagement into account, especially in the context of conversations that percolate in social media
platforms.
"Social media engagement combines the conversational skills of PR with the measurability and content of online marketing," says Curtis Hougland, CEO of Attention PR. "Campaigns
combine top-down media with bottom-up media to bridge awareness and adoption based on data about who is saying what and where. This is data-driven PR."
*Realize the importance--and advantages--of online engagement. "Authentic communication is the foundation for successful social media," Hougland says. "It's the difference
between speaking with your customer and speaking at them."
With this, he offers the following tips for engaging with (and ultimately measuring) online engagement with your influential audiences (for a step-by-step guide to online
engagement, see sidebar):
1. Psychographics, not demographics: Web communities are built on psychographics--individuals with mutual interests self-organizing around topics of conversation.
2. Brand control: When customers increasingly create and share their own media, they are effectively sharing control of your brand with or without you.
3. Influence vs. reach: Don't reach 1 million people to influence 100; instead, engage 100 to influence 1 million.
4. Vital vs. viral: Sustain outreach to generate word of mouth, rather than only episodic buzz.
5. Production and distribution: An audience will not just come if you build it; you need to be engaged with people where they are having relevant conversations.
Then, he says, there are the advantages of online engagement:
1. Improves natural search performance: Inbound blog links + depth/timeliness of conversations = Google success;
2. Inspires brand engagement and advocacy;
3. Increases tonal sentiment;
4. Drives "unattributed" sales and registrations; and,
5. Fosters theme coherence.
*Take your metrics online. Once you understand these facets of social media engagement, you can initiate measurement strategies that will quantify meaningful interactions with
audiences. Hougland offers these steps for initiating measurement in the context of one sample client (a record label, in this case):
1. Map audience segmentation to online communities. The record label's communities were identified as being opera, fan sites, pop music/culture, fan sites and reviews.
2. Identify the influencers within each community. Within these communities, specific influencers--Rolling Stone for pop music/culture and a Facebook group for fan sites,
for example--were identified.
3. Inventory (and potentially create) shareable digital content. For the record label, these assets included photo mash-ups, free tracks and YouTube links.
4. Share assets authentically by aligning audience, community, influencers and content. This, of course, is where the rubber meets the road.
Media measurement doesn't have to be the biggest hurdle that the communications department must overcome. It's just a matter of, as Hougland says, understanding that "engagement
binds all channels," from print to social to experiential. Engage with influential audiences in as many channels as possible, and complementary metrics and data will naturally
follow. In terms of engagement, if you are looking for a single best practice, consider Hougland's advice: "Be completely transparent in all communications." PRN
CONTACTS:
Curtis Hougland, [email protected]; Nancy Ryan, [email protected]; Mark
Weiner, [email protected]
Step-By-Step Online Engagement
1. Conduct an early analysis to determine initial tonality, theme and authorship of online conversations.
2. Activate real-time social media monitoring.
3. Benchmark performance metrics to measure impact of a campaign through a social media report card.
4. Inventory digital assets.
5. Articulate strategy based on asset availability and audience segmentation.
6. Create a tactical outreach matrix that maps audience, community, influencers and assets.
7. Craft and approve sample communication.
8. Create, organize and tap digital assets across sharing communities.
9. Share digital assets and information with blogs, social networks, forums and rich-media sharing communities, both proactively and reactively.
10. Measure and optimize.
These tips were provided by Curtis Hougland, CEO of Attention PR.