Measurement

As professional communicators, we must align common practice with the business community’s demands. If executives require information and context to determine which investments are most likely to produce viable long-term success, PR’s earned media data stream must integrate with other business data. The good news is that new ways to measure earned media are at hand.

Our monthly roundup of data-related items begins with a 500-person survey about PR measurement. While it’s said to be common knowledge that the amount of data is overwhelming communicators, this didn’t rate very high in the survey. Next, a FleishmanHillard report shows consumers don’t expect companies to take stands on every issue. Last, a survey debunks the notion that coverage of the 2020 elections will make it impossible for companies to tell their stories on TV.

Nearly everyone in PR has heard the order from someone in the C-suite: “I want to be in The NY Times or the Wall St. Journal.” Getting your story in a major outlet is not a media relations strategy. Michael Brito, an EVP at the Zeno Group, proposes a balanced media relations approach, including pitching stories to smaller publications where they may resonate better with readers. He uses data to bolster the logic of his proposal.

Since the dawn of PR as a profession, the sector has been fighting for the right to exist. If you’ve been considering how to reframe PR functions as part of a broader business strategy, here are five ways to stay focused.

With school beginning soon (yes, the summer has flown by), we turn to educators, most of whom are or were PR pros, to tell us what areas of the profession communications students need additional training in. Then we ask PR pros to give us their assessment of incoming PR candidates and their training needs.

You want to get this social influencer thing down. We all do. But not everyone can get George Clooney to push their wares, like Nespresso did. Still, you’ve got good products and you need to get the word out. So how do you choose the ideal influencer? And more importantly, how can you tell if your choice was the right one?

It’s critical to keep a vigilant eye on your audience and frequently take its temperature. For example, based on the negative media coverage of big tech, you’d expect the industry’s reputation would be abysmal. Instead of assuming, a researcher used data to test that assumption. Some of the results were surprising.

With the unofficial start of the summer on July 4, Americans break out their grills. Demand for beef rises as a result. How can a vegetarian staple like hummus compete at this time of the year? Sabra Hummus did its homework and combined its research with humor for a campaign that goes to the heart of customers’ anxieties.

There was a slew of PR-related studies released recently. Some contained good news for the industry, others did not. Included in the findings: a good portion of executives in the U.K. don’t know what the abbreviation PR means; earned media remains a good bet; PR firm profitability remains in good shape; and MuckRack has added publisher data to its suite.

With PRNEWS’ Top Women in Healthcare Communications awards luncheon coming up later this month, we asked our data partner Shareablee to look at the most socially active pharma and healthcare insurance providers for the first months of 2019. Clearly, these sectors need to address their social media strategies as both suffered major downturns in consumer engagement vs 2018.