KDPaine's PR Measurement Blog

Scary statistic of the day

From the  Center for Media Research:
According to a new strategic leadership study conducted by Louws Management Corporation, while 80% of 711 advertising and marketing professionals surveyed said they are strongly aware of their company's brand positioning, only one fourth of them "...can clearly articulate (their) company's brand position to... clients, customers or prospective clients." This includes 30 percent of senior management, notes the report.

Heading South West and Middle East

It's the third day in a row that I've awakened with the thermostat at zero or below, so I'm starting to really look forward to some upcoming speaking gigs that will take me to warmer climes.
  In the event you want to catch up with me you'll find me in Honolulu Feb 21st doing a PR Measurement workshop for PRSA, then its off to ROMI  in Miami on Feb 28th. I'm also doing both the Chicago and LA versions of Bulldog's Advanced Technology for PR conferences March 2 & 16. I'm also at the New Comms Forum in Las Vegas, March 7 & 8, the IPRRC in Miami, March 9-11, MediaWatchME's cofnerence in Dubai March 19, IPRA in Bahrain March 21, Blogher Business  in New York on March 23rd, and the SNHU Stoneyfield Entrepreneurship Forum on March 30.
That's just February and March.  April will see me i Chicago, Tampa and Pittsburgh and May will bring me back to Chicago, and LA.
And if you're more into doing this on line, check out the PRNews Webinar on Feb 9th and the PRIA webinar on Feb 28th. 

Great stuff for 21st century marketers

Jeremiah's got a great post about using social media in customer reference programs.. It should be a must read for every corporate marketer.

Be careful what you wish for

The social media mavens, and more particularly their bosses, have been screaming for metrics and analytics ever since the first marketer paid the first dollar to start a blog. My only advice is, to quote Isak Dinesen from Out of Africa

 “be careful what you wish for, when God wants to punish you he answers your prayers.”

In the past year  there have been all kinds of developments that are bringing accountability and measurement to social media. So once again, there are no excuses.

 Lets start with Feedburner that offers Standard Stats and TotalStats to measure the traffic to your blogs. It’s a nifty little tool that gives you great feedback on what postings are drawing traffic, and how the traffic is increasing or decreasing over time.

 The Electric Sheep Company is about to start a service that will give Second Life participants a way to track footfall in your second life .

We've been advocating for unique visitors for years, so its nice to know that a new ruling from JICWEBS has determined that page impressions are no longer an adequate measure and unique visitors are mandatory.

Where in the world is KDP?

I love "visited countries map" thing -- but it is daunting to think that despite all the travel, I've only seen 18% of the world
create your own visited countries map or vertaling Duits Nederlands

I do better domestically
create your own visited states map

Brilliant PR move

I'm a huge fan of Jon Stewart and considerably less a fan of Bill Gates, but I have to concede that his appearance on the Daily Show was one of the best PR moves of the year.  Stewart managed to make Gates appear almost charming, and the guy was certainly on message.

Shel Israel's worst nightmare?

After debating the relevancy of PR measurement with Shel Israel for two decades, we engaged in a far more enjoyable conversation about the ROI of blogging last year at the New Comms Forum in Palo Alto where I essentially conceded his point.
Now Forrester's Charlene Li, another New Comms Forum speaker, has come out with a paper called the "ROI of blogging". We trust Shel's heart is in good shape because if not, this report will give him a coronary. Don't get me wrong, I have a huge amount of respect for Charlene, but the false assumptions and inaccuracies in this report are scary.
My favorite is in the section on calculating "costs"   that includes "startup: less than 1 hour per blogger for training" --  good luck to the company that turns an employee loose on the blogosphere with less than an hour of training.
Then there's the statement that the startup costs for a blog should be between $25,000 and $45,000 --   haven't these guys heard of Typepad?  They should talk to the guys at Intuit who got their blog started for $15.  I also love the fact that they say that monitoring your brand in the blogosphere should cost between $75,000 and $300,000 annually. Please don't tell that to most of my clients who are paying a fraction of that for our CGM Dashboard.
But the biggest problem I have with this report is the emphasis on measuring ROI  based on the cost to buy ad space in the "publication" in which your brand is mentioned. Talk about applying 20th century techniques to 21st century media. First of all, the vast majority of blogs are not necessarily advertising vehicles, and suggesting that Ad Value Equivalency applies in the blogosphere is absurd. Just when we get consensus among PR practitioners that this is a metric that is widely discredited, Forrester decides that its fine to use it in the blogosphere.  Secondly, the whole point of social media is to have a conversation not scream at an audience or blast their eyeballs with brand mentions. 

I love the way life turns out

A million years ago, when I was in boarding school at Madeira in Greenway, VA I was a virtual outcast. Like my mother and sister, I'd elected to go to boarding school because Madeira offered what I thought at the time was a better education and going off to boarding school was what you were supposed to do in NYC in the 60s. I soon discovered that I was something of a misfit, not quite finding a place in the southern boarding school life. Some place along the way,  inspired by my Aunt Carmel, I joined the Garden Club and met Holly Knowlton who, looking back, was probably the nicest kid in my class. She was certainly the nicest one to me. She didn't care that I wasn't cool, or   "in"  or any of the other things that made you the high school "influential".  She was a friend, and that's what I needed at the time. We traded Christmas cards for years. She did the traditional thing, and married a nice military guy named  David Petraeus, who is now in charge of the US military operation in Iraq and she is  someone that the President is grateful to..    Turns out, she's just as good a friend today as she was back then, not to me, but to a much more important constituency.
I'm now running a $1 million + company in New Hampshire and would like to think that I have  a little influence over the tiny kingdom that is PR research. It's incredibly cool to me to think that these two kids, who weren't part of the "in crowd" are now so much happier (and influential) than we were at Madeira.

MY favorite chart of all time

Got to love the Onion and its ultimate chart. This reminds me of the "Big Spike in June"  chart, which we used  to illustrate how NOT to write about results.  The point was, don't just says "there was a  big spike in June"  -- because the response will invariably "why?" or "So what, what does it mean"  . Say that there was a big spike in June because you spent an extra $50K on PR that month and if you wanted to sustain that level of positive coverage, you needed to keep on spending.  The ultimate sign that it was the ultimate cliche was when an employee named his band "Big Spike in June."  Come to think of it, its a great name for a band!

Cyberalert does a really nice thing

For the past three years, CyberAlert, Inc., the media monitoring company has been offering grants in the form of a year's worth of free clipping services to non-profits. Its a great program, and one that more companies in the business should offer. The total value of this year’s grants approximates $65,000.  Since starting the PR Grants program in 2004, CyberAlert has awarded a total of 74 grants with a retail value of more than $125,000.This year's winners were:

 

 100 Black Men of America, Inc.

www.100blackmen.org

Atlanta

,

GA

With 106 chapters, the organization’s volunteers provide mentoring, education, health and wellness services to urban youth.

 

ALS Society of  Canada www.als.ca

Funds research on ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis / Lou Gehrig’s Disease), supports provincial ALS societies in providing care to persons living with ALS, and provides public information to build awareness of the disease.

 Break the Cycle

www.breakthecycle.org

Focusing on the issues of domestic and dating violence, provides domestic violence prevention, early intervention, and public education services.

 

C3: Colorectal Cancer Coalition

www.fightcolorectalcancer.org

Dedicated to improving screening, diagnosis and treatment of colorectal cancer and to increasing awareness that colorectal cancer is preventable, treatable, and beatable.

Center for Constitutional Rights, The

www.ccr-ny.org

Dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Undertakes litigation to guarantee the rights of those with the fewest protections and least access to legal resources.

 

Donate Life

America

Donate Life America is a not-for-profit alliance of national organizations and local partners across the United States, serving as a national voice and inspiring all people to save and enhance lives through organ, eye and tissue donation.

Environmental Defence

www.environmentaldefence.ca

Dedicated to protecting the environment and human health by conducting public education programs and advocating for effective government policy.

 

Environmental Literacy Council

www.enviroliteracy.org

In the quest for environmental literacy, the Council brings science-based, cross-disciplinary teaching resources into classrooms around the world. Maintains extensive online library of learning materials and teaching activities related to the environmental sciences.

Family Literacy Foundation

www.read2kids.org

United Through Reading® program enables deployed military parents to stay connected with their children by reading books aloud on videotape or DVD and sending them home for the children’s enjoyment.

 

Guttmacher Institute

www.guttmacher.org

Dedicated to advancing sexual and reproductive health worldwide through research, policy analysis and public education.

 

Immigrant

Legal

Resource

Center

, The

www.ilrc.org

Undertakes educational and advocacy initiatives on behalf of immigrants. Works to create a society that embraces diversity, respects the dignity and rights of all, and values new Americans’ contributions to society.

 

In Kind

Canada

www.inkindcanada.ca

Helps companies and charities connect by receiving donations of surplus goods from companies and allocating the goods to member charities.

 

International Children’s Digital Library

www.icdlbooks.org

Dedicated to the preservation and online distribution of children’s literature worldwide. Maintains the world’s largest multi-cultural collection of children’s literature available free and accessible worldwide over the Internet.

 

Keep

America

Beautiful

www.kab.org

AmericaImplements public education and hands-on programs that benefit the environment including litter and illegal dump clean-ups, graffiti removal and recycling drives to enhance beautification of America.  .
 

Lance Armstrong Foundation

www.livestrong.org

Dedicated to inspiring and empowering people affected by cancer, helping them live with, through and beyond cancer.

 

Medicare

Rights

Center

, The

www.medicarerights.org

Through hotlines, education programs and policy initiatives, provides information to people with Medicare and helps assure that older adults and people with disabilities get good, affordable health care.

 

National Philanthropic Trust

www.nptrust.org

Promotes and facilitates charitable giving by individuals, families and organizations, and assists donors with the administration and investment of their philanthropy.

 

Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN)

www.rainn.org

Carries out programs to prevent sexual assault, help victims and ensure that rapists are brought to justice. Operates the National Sexual Assault Hotline (800-656-HOPE).

 

Reading

Is Fundamental, Inc.

www.rif.org

Through community volunteers in every state,

RIF

provides 4.5 million children with 15 million new, free books and literacy resources each year in order to make reading a fun and beneficial part of their everyday life.

 

Security on Campus, Inc.

www.securityoncampus.org

Dedicated to safe campuses for college students. Provides services to the victims of college campus violence, educates students to protect themselves and works to ensure that campuses are in compliance with the “Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security and Campus Crime Statistics Act.”

 

Sierra Club of

Canada

www.sierraclub.ca

Dedicated to bringing citizens together to solve environmental problems, improve their communities and the earth.

 

(Joint Award)

VetDogs and Fidelco Guide Dog Foundation

www.vetdogs.org and www.fidelco.org

IraqAfghanistanVetdogs (Guidedog Foundation for the Blind) trains and places guide and service dogs to veterans returning wounded from Iraq and Afganhistan. Fidelco breeds, trains, and places German Shepard guide dogs throughout the U.S and  Canada.

World Federation for Mental Health

www.wfmh.com

Working to improve mental health services worldwide, promote good mental health and well-being, and increase public understanding and acceptance of people with mental health problems.

 

Over 450 not-for-profit organizations applied to CyberAlert for the PR Grants, an increase of nearly 40% from the previous highest year. “The increase in applications may reflect the greater recognition among non-profit organizations of the value and benefit of utilizing media monitoring services and we are pleased to be able to increase the number of grants awarded in response to the increase in applications,” stated William J. Comcowich, president and CEO of CyberAlert.

 

The

Alliance

for Consumer Education (www.inhalant.org) was among the 2006 PR grant recipients that made innovative use of the CyberAlert news clipping service. “The daily summary that arrived in our in-box each morning alerted us to cases relevant to our key program, inhalant abuse prevention,” said Colleen Creighton, Director of Foundation Programs. “We were then able to immediately get educational and preventative materials out to individuals and groups in the affected community. Thanks to the CyberAlert service, we were able to equip thousands of parents with the materials needed to discuss the issue of inhalant abuse with their children and hopefully prevent those communities from suffering a tragic loss.”