Measurement

As excited as we all are to jump into action with a brilliant new PR initiative, it’s important not to find yourself asking yourself in the aftermath “…wait, what should we have been measuring? Are the numbers we ended up with great, good, bad? Are those numbers important to my boss?” Look before you leap, and lay a foundation for what to measure and what to expect.

At a networking event last week, an industry colleague asked me if I’ve ever Googled myself. She whispered the question to me as if to self-Google were verboten. Fortunately, we were interrupted by a mutual… Continued

Brands, in an effort to get out a shareable tweet or a super-likeable post, are often caught in a daily trap of shallow engagement with its communities. Your stakeholders — humans just like you and… Continued

Good news for the communicator who relies heavily on metrics, but is often short on time: Google has announced an update that’s designed to make the Google Analytics interface a lot simpler to navigate. Here are the key features that may make it easier for you to respond to requests for metrics in record time.

It’s difficult to be at a PR conference and avoid hearing that video and photographs are exploding on social media platforms. Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers estimated in her most recent report that 3.25 billion photos are shared daily on Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Snapchat. It makes sense then that brand communicators are anxious to capture data related to imagery as they measure their PR efforts and use such metrics to shape corporate strategy.

Google just put more brains behind Analytics’ considerable brawn. Babak Pahlavan, senior director of measurement & analytics at Google, unveiled a variety of new features and beta tests for the search giant’s measurement platform at SMX East in New York City.

For the third year running as part of AMEC’s September Measurement activities, we’ll be hosting a Twitter chat with some of PR News’ Measurement Hall of Famers. Mark your calendar for the Measurement Twitter Chat: Monday, Sept. 19, 11 a.m. to noon ET. Hashtag: #PRMeasure

It’s true – a lot of people just don’t understand what PR people do. They think it’s about pitching the media, chasing positive coverage, then rinsing and repeating. Certainly media relations is an important component… Continued

In Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends report (2014), it was estimated that 1.8 billion photos were shared on select social channels daily. In her latest report, for 2016, Meeker estimates the figure for 2015 to be 3.25 billion photos daily. There are a bit more than 7 billion people on Earth. Think about how often every person on Earth, even those without internet access, would have to upload and share a photo each week to reach that figure. So the longtime practice of image analytics in traditional media has become a hot new topic in social media, and listening tools are starting to add image recognition to their capabilities.

The Olympics is not for the faint of heart. Never mind the athletes. Being a spectator or a sponsor requires as much grit and fortitude. I know. I just got back from watching my cousin, Caleb Paine, compete on the U.S. Sailing Team. For years, I observed the Olympics from the comfort of my living room, watching the celebration of human spirit and athleticism play out against what I assumed was a perfectly orchestrated spectacle, replete with major brands and a lot of media coverage. It’s not like that at all.