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Communications professionals are well aware of the business value they bring to their organizations and to their clients. Communicating that value to the C-suite, though, has historically been a struggle, which is no small irony. The availability of digital data has proven to be a mixed blessing for PR professionals. The data is there to show a multitude of communications successes but, for CEOs and CFOs, data that doesn’t connect directly to business goals can seem devoid of value and meaning.

Starting today, Facebook will demote what it calls “engagement bait,” posts that lure users into interaction by explicitly asking for likes and shares without offering editorial value. The posts are one way that brands can take advantage of Facebook’s (ever more discriminating) News Feed algorithm by boosting engagement to gain more organic reach. But the platform is taking action in response to widespread complaints, likely forcing some brands to rethink their approach.

Communications executives have begun in earnest to make their way into boardrooms, C-suite meetings and the critical business conversations at their organizations. But the pace is not fast enough and the courage of their convictions… Continued

Therese Van Ryne, head of global PR and the global customer reference program at Zebra Technologies, shares five key questions that a PR or marketing pro needs to ask before setting up a dashboard that effectively evaluates your campaign performance or share of voice.

PR measurement may seem like a huge undertaking and many PR pros might not consider themselves data scientists. But that doesn’t mean you can’t find meaningful correlations in your PR data. Take it from Katie Delahaye Paine, also known as The Measurement Queen, who has been a pioneer in the field for more than two decades.

Now is the time to have a serious discussion about PR measurement and how we can advance the profession by throwing away old models and embracing the new. So says Andrew Bowins, an executive director at KPMG and a PR News Measurement Hall of Famer. By moving away from vanity metrics and into reliable insights—by “living at the intersection of big data and digital storytelling”—PR pros can elevate the conversation with the C-suite.

Reporting the data from a communications campaign is more than just writing up a tally of various metrics. Too many communicators try to use measurement simply as an end in itself, a gauge of how well a campaign performed after it’s over. Rather, analytics should inform every stage of the planning process, says Carrie Schum, executive vice president of strategic planning, analytics and research at Porter Novelli.

With AMEC’s Measurement Month just completed, we asked Weber Shandwick’s president of measurement and analytics Allyson Hugley to reflect on the state of PR measurement as well as how PR pros can change the mindset about the importance of measurement and using data to glean business insights as opposed to proving the worth of the PR function.

When it comes to measuring your PR and communications efforts, more is not always better. Janneke van Geuns, head of insights and analytics at Google, says that she has seen communicators who try to collect and track an overabundance of metrics. But collecting more data isn’t going to bring about better insights, she says. Instead, communicators should break through the clutter of unnecessary (and just plain meaningless) metrics to focus on the ones that truly matter to you and your organization.

When I ask my friends in PR what they’d do with a bigger budget, their first instinct is to smile that “yeah, right!” smile. It’s hard enough to keep the budget they have much less… Continued