The Measurement Standard: Blog Edition

David Berkowitz: "100 Ways to Measure Social Media" presentation

100 Ways to Measure Social Media - Promotion Marketing Association 2010

View more presentations from David Berkowitz.

A Preview of the 2010 International Public Relations Research Conference, March 10-13, Miami

by Katie Delahaye Paine

Past readers of these pages will know that the International Public Relations Research Conference (IPRRC) is to PR research what South By Southwest is to music, movies, and the blogerati. It is the Olympics, the Oscars, and the Nobel prizes all wrapped up in one. It's a once-a-year research revelry.

Picture a bunch of normally serious research types, who spend 51 weeks a year crunching numbers and contemplating correlations, turned loose around a pool in Miami in March. Do we get down and party? You betcha. But we also think some pretty big thoughts, and have some pretty lively discussions.

See this article for coverage of last year's 12th annual IPRRC, including links to hundreds of photos.

Just to give you a flavor, here -- excerpted from the conference's schedule -- are a few of the 100-plus presentations I’m really looking forward to hearing:

A Q-Sort Study of Ethics among Public Relations Managers

Shannon Bowen and Dennis F. Kinsey, Syracuse University

Based on the Q-Sort analysis, we will discuss the factors that public relations practitioners consider most often when they resolve and consider ethical dilemmas. We are particularly interested in the measures that test concepts such as “greater good” or “public interest” against those such as, “just advocate and let legal worry about the ethics.”

Alienating a Key Corporate Stakeholder via Public Communication by a Corporate Executive: A Case Study of Whole Foods Market and the Healthcare Debate

John Wirtz and Austin Sims, Texas Tech University

Using the editorial written by John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, and the reaction that followed case study, the paper considers several questions about corporate communication in the public sphere. One example is, how should corporate executives balance their fiduciary responsibility to employees and stockholders, while maintaining an ethical communication position characterized by openness and honesty?

Blogs vs. Online Newspapers: Analyzing Different Emotions and Perceptions of Crisis Responsibility Displayed Online in the Samsung Oil Spill

Bokyung Kim and Joonghwa Lee, University of Missouri

Little research has been conducted about “affected stakeholders.” This study seeks to fill this gap by focusing on the influence of stakeholders’ perceptions of a crisis on either journalists’ framing of news reports or an organization’s CRS and by comparing stakeholders’ and journalists’ anger, alertness, negative word-of-mouth, and perceptions of crisis responsibility exhibited online.

Branding a Nation on Youtube: The Ethical Implications of a Promotional Choice

Chiara Valentini and Irene Pollach, University of Aarhus (Denmark)

In this paper, we study the ethical implications of stealth marketing via social media for the purpose of nation branding, using the case of VisitDenmark. Our data comprises both online and print news articles published by the four major Danish newspapers as well as by international news media in September and October 2009.

17 Building a “Subgame Perfect Contingency Theory”: Using Game Theory to Identify Expected Utilities and Equilibrium Strategies in Conflicts

Jeffrey J. Pe-Aguirre and Glen T. Cameron, University of Missouri-Columbia

Following the principles of Occam’s Razor, this study uses game-theoretic models to whittle down the huge number of contingency theory variables, and provides a parsimonious explanation for why some conflicts are resolved through durable compromise agreements, while other conflicts are simply irreconcilable.

Conceptualizing ‘Message Integrity’ for Public Relations Evaluation: A Case Study of Non-profit Organizations

Craig E. Carroll, Nell C.L. Huang, and Brooke Weberling, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Building upon the literature in framing, attribute agenda setting, agenda building, and mathematical theory of communication, the authors introduce and define the concept of ‘message integrity’ as a way to evaluate the processes of attribute salience transfer.

CSR 2.0 and Social Capital: An Analysis of Fortune 500 Companies’ Use of Social Media for CSR Communication Applying Social Capital Theory

Jee Young Chung, University of Alabama, Seungho Cho, Mississippi State University, Hyun-jin An, University of Alabama, and Taeho Kim, University of Alabama

The present study aims to examine how Fortune 500 companies use social media for CSR communication on companies’ Web sites applying social capital theory. A content analysis of Fortune 500 companies will show the current status of CSR communication, and the result will guide how public relations practitioners effectively and ethically communicate CSR with various stakeholders.

 

Cultural Divides in the Middle East: Communal and Exchange Relationships Between Military Public Affairs Officers and Arab Journalists

Matt Allen, U.S. Navy, and David M. Dozier, San Diego State University

This study analyzes data collected from military public affairs officers (PAOs) and Arab journalists in the Middle East in the spring 2009. Media relations for PAOs will be enhanced by de-emphasizing an exchange approach to their relationships with Arab journalists while placing greater emphasis on communal relationships.

Exploring the Impact of Social Media on Public Relations Practice

Donald K. Wright, Boston University, and Michelle D. Hinson, Institute of Public Relations (University of Florida)

This is our fifth annual survey trend analysis examining how social media are impacting public relations practice. Through our studies between 2005 and 2009 we found that public relations practitioners considered the impact of social media to have increased each year. Additionally those who told us social media and traditional mainstream media complement each other also had risen.

Facebook and the Fortune 500: Is Corporate America Embracing Social Media as a Relationship Management Tool?

Sean B. Robertson, San Diego State University

Public relations practitioners and publications have touted social networking sites as a tool for building organizational relationships. This study will build on earlier research efforts by examining Facebook, the leading social networking site with more than 300 million active users, and how Fortune 500 companies have adopted social networking as a relationship management tool.

22 Face-Off: How Public Relations and Journalism Have Exchanged Roles in the Modern Democracy

Robert S. Pritchard, University of Oklahoma, Terri L. Johnson, Eastern Illinois University, and Bey-Ling Sha, San Diego State University

This paper posits that the maturation of public relations and the deterioration of the news industry has resulted in public relations becoming the new Fourth Estate, that public relations has assumed the responsibility for opposing mainstream media and has perhaps even supplanted the media as the fourth pillar of democracy.

Finding Publics within the Blogosphere: The Blogger Public Segmentation Model

Nohil Park, University of Missouri, JiYeon Jeong, University of Missouri, and Jung Ho Han, Yonsei University (South Korea)

This study aims to suggest a new model for segmentation of blogger publics and identification of active bloggers swarm, addressing the limitations of Grunig’s situational theory in the blogosphere. Specifically, this study attempts to test the situational theory’s accountability using the method of Structural Equation Model, and constructs a new model for segmentation of blogger publics.

How Top Business Communicators Measure the Return on Investment (ROI) of Corporate Communication Efforts

Juan Meng, University of Dayton, and Bruce K. Berger, University of Alabama

This paper addressed the findings from two research projects related to how top business communicators measure the ROI of their organization’s corporate communication efforts. The first part reported the results of an international survey of 265 experienced business communicators worldwide. The second, qualitative study used in-depth interviews with 16 diverse and experienced business communicators.

ICTs and Public Relations: A Study of Corporate and Non-profit Web Sites Five Years Apart

Krishnamurty Sriramesh, Massey University (New Zealand), and Milagros Rivera-Sanchez, National University of Singapore

Only a few studies have explored the extent to which organizations are using a variety of social media in relation to their websites. This study compares the changes in the websites over two points in time, presents the changes in the use of web sites, and compares the web sites of for-profit corporations and non-profit organizations.

Measuring Social Media Credibility: Validation of Measurement and Examining Its Impact on Public Engagement and Supportive Behaviors

Minjeong Kang, Syracuse University

The purpose of this research is two-fold. First, this study aims to develop measurement of social media credibility from the perspective of new audiences and, second, to examine the influence of social media credibility on public engagement and supportive behaviors. To this end, multiple methodologies, both qualitative and quantitative, will be employed.

Mommy Bloggers and the FTC: Reactions to the Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials

Kelli S. Burns, University of South Florida

This study will content analyze the blogs of Nielsen’s Power Mom 50 to understand how mommy bloggers reacted to the FTC guidelines. The study result determined whether they posted a reaction to the FTC guidelines, whether they proclaimed support for or criticized these new policies, their understanding of the new guidelines, and the practices they use to indicate endorsement.

Social Media Engagement: How Organizations Use Twitter to Build Relationships

Daradirek G. Ekachai and Amanda Stageman, Marquette University

This study attempts to examine how selected Fortune 100 companies use Twitter to engage with their publics in order to build and/or maintain relationships with them. Using content analysis methodology, this study examines these corporations’ “tweets” to determine the extent to which they engaged with their “followers” to build trust, satisfaction and commitment.

 

The Corporate Image on Wikipedia in a Turbulent Economy

Marcia W. DiStaso, Pennsylvania State University, and Marcus Messner, Virginia Commonwealth University

This study is based on the premise that Wikipedia goes beyond providing simple reference material to the formation of public opinion by providing extensive, timely information. By comparing the ten Fortune 500 company Wikipedia entries in 2010 to the entries from 2008 and 2006 the authors identify how the formation of public opinion has changed over the years.

The Kindle Crisis: Exploring Ways to Evaluate Online Crisis Communication

Timothy W. Coombs and Sherry J. Holladay, Eastern Illinois University

The Kindle Crisis presents a unique opportunity to study stakeholder responses to crisis communication. This study examined the online responses to Amazon CEO Bezo’s apology for insights into this case and for developing a method for systematically evaluating online responses to crisis response strategies.

The Senior Communicator of the Future – Competencies and Training Needs

Tom Watson and Chindu Sreedharan, Bournemouth University (United Kingdom)

The research to be reported in this paper analyzes the responses of leading European and international senior-level communicators as to the knowledge, skills, relationships, 360-degree vision, and managerial abilities that senior communications professionals will need in five years’ time, and what it takes to prepare the next generation of leaders in globally integrated organizations.

Theoretical Perspectives in Social Media: Excellence versus Simple Information Provision

Sean Williams, Communication AMMO, Inc, and Julie O’Neil, Texas Christian University

This paper will explore current literature on social media use in public relations generally, and apply Excellence and other theories to attempt to explain social media’s potential impact on business communications through a content analysis. This is envisioned as a foundation for other research, informing the creation of a qualitative assessment to be conducted and eventually, a quantitative survey

Twitter Brands

Tina McCorkindale, Appalachian State University

Most public relations research about Twitter is based on case studies—a quantitative 31

content analysis has not been conducted. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to conduct a content analysis to determine how the “40 Best Twitter Brands” are using Twitter, and what makes these the “best” brands

AND I hope someone is interesting in hearing what WE have to say as well. Here’s what I’ll be presenting

Doing Measurement Right: On the Road to R.O.I.

Mark Phillips, USO, and Katie D. Paine, KDPaine & Partners

This case study will cover and include discussion of how the second year of USO’s comprehensive measurement program including a second year of survey/relationships data as well as a robust set of social media data. This study will show how this data has been used successfully to shape the USO entertainment, volunteer and media relations programs going forward.

Old Rules Don’t Apply and Standard Measures Fail—Defining New Ways to Measure Investor Relations

Katie D. Paine, KDPaine & Partners

To determine if any of the elements of activities provided by a corporate IR department, an analytical methodology was designed. The methodology broke down each report into three discrete elements: Analyst metadata, report metadata, and concept metadata. Individual company messages were also tracked for their prominence and further categorized as to their integrity.

Katie Delahaye Paine's New Product Launch Measurement Checklist

 
 

Your step-by-step guide to demonstrating solid results from a product launch.

Click here to download Katie Delahaye Paine's Product Launch Measurement Checklist now.

Back in January of this year, we presented Katie Delahaye Paine's Social Media Measurement Checklist and it was the most popular article and download we've ever offered. (You can read that article here, or just go ahead and download the checklist.) So we thought we'd stick with a good thing and offer another Checklist, this time for product launches.

----------Advertisement: Katie Delahaye Paine and her company KDPaine & Partners can help you measure your product launch, or any other traditional PR or social media program you might need help with. Email Katie Delahaye Paine now, or visit www.kdpaine.com for more information. -------------------

As before, Katie Delahaye Paine's Product Launch Measurement Checklist lays it all out for you -- just about every decision you need to make and every thing you need to do to handle your product launch in a way that will allow you to prove its success and learn from your experience. You can use it to plan your measurement program, and to keep track of your progress, too.

Remember that every program is a little different, so you will have to adapt the Checklist to your own situation. Notice, for instance, that right near the beginning you've got to define your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Sometimes not an easy thing.

(And if you need some help, take a look at Katie Delahaye Paine's book "Measuring Public Relationships," which will walk you step by step through most any measurement problem or program you need to deal with.)

So look over the Checklist, adapt it to your own situation, and get your product launch started. And please let us know how we can improve it. Click here to download Katie Delahaye Paine's Product Launch Measurement Checklist now.

Make Data Your Bitch: Dominate your data in ten easy steps.

 by Katie Delahaye Paine

Yes, it’s a great slogan. (Thanks to Gavin O'Malley and Pointroll.) I overheard it at OMMA, a conference that primarily focused on using analytics to measure online marketing. It was full of data wonks and stat geeks who cheerfully claimed credit for all kinds of stuff without taking into account any of the contribution from PR and social media.

Which, of course, got me thinking. The reason these guys (and gals) have all the power and credibility in their organizations is because they do use data to achieve their ends. PR people, on the other hand, have a tendency to let the data push them around. You’ve heard PR’s feeble data wrangling skills expressed at meetings, as in these real-life quotes I've had to deal with: 

• “I really don't believe that PR data, I just know that direct mail works.” 
• Or, “There’s really no data that shows that social media/PR was effective.” 
• Better yet, “You really can’t put any data behind that relationship/reputation stuff.” 

Arrgh!
 

And why do we let this happen? Because we aren’t familiar with statistical analysis -- or are afraid of it, or don’t know how to do it, or haven’t thought of using it. We let everyone else throw their data at us and we just duck under the table. Then we can’t figure out why we aren’t getting a seat at the table.

 

So how do we turn this around? Make data your bitch:

 Use data to achieve your goals. Don't let it push you around. 

 Take control of your data and make it work for you. Don't let it just arrive in waves and pour over your desktop. 

 Understand your data’s strengths and weaknesses. Leverage them so that you win in the end. 

 Don’t be afraid of data. Look it full in the face and say, “Bring it on!” 

Here are ten easy steps to dominating your data. 

1. Trust your data.
Make sure you’re getting data you can have confidence in. If you aren’t sure of your data, you won't use it like the incredibly powerful tool it is. 

• If you’re using an outside vendor, ask to see their inter-coder reliability scores. Ask them for their confidence levels and do periodic checks to make sure the data is coded the way it should be. 
• If you’re doing the data analysis yourself, ask a colleague -- or better yet a graduate student at a local university -- to check it for you.

2. Know your data.
Know it backwards and forwards, inside out and upside down. Take the time to learn the details. If you’re presenting, get prepared by having a friend or colleague ask you the really tough questions ahead of time. Have the answers at your fingertips. 

3. Draw conclusions.
Don’t just say, “There was a big spike in June,” or, “The numbers went up 10%.” Provide the “So what?” Like this, for instance: "The numbers went up 10%, which was significant not just for the increase, but because we accomplished it with half the budget. Therefore we recommend…” 

4. Tease out the really interesting stuff.
Here's an example: We were recently reporting on a thought leadership program in which one organization consistently dominated the industry. Normally, we look at the comparative share of thought leader quotes for each organization. In this case we noticed that the dominating institution didn’t just have the greatest share of quotes, they also had the highest number of individuals that were quoted. We dug into the data to discover that it was the depth and breadth of their program that enabled them to dominate in every area. If their leading expert on swine flu was busy with another interview, they had 4 or 5 others waiting in the wings all with equally fancy titles. The lesson here is that if we hadn't really dug into the data, we never would have discovered what the competitive advantage was.

5. Don’t just do the standard comparison.
Everyone always compares data month-on-month or year-on-year. We recommend looking at data over a thirteen month window to spot long term trends. 

6. Take a good, hard look at the bad stuff.
You’ll learn a lot more from your failures (and look like a hero for stopping a dog of a program) than you will from fixating on a small improvement in performance. Even more interesting: Look at what the competition is doing right. Where are they beating you? Finding out what customers like about the competition will yield much more insight than just listening to them complain about your own company. 

7. Beat the bushes.
Run correlations on anything you find interesting. So it doesn’t correlate, no harm done. Move on. Although, sometimes you can learn more from what doesn’t correlate than what does. 

8. If something doesn’t make sense, pounce.
Now that you really trust your data, trust yourself when something looks a little off. Get down into the dirt and figure out why. Nine times out of ten, it's not the data that wrong, it’s the program. 

9. Increase the depth and breadth of your data.
Beg, borrow and steal data from throughout your organization. Get it from online sources. Take your Market Research department to lunch and see what they’ve got. Track down your competitive intelligence gurus and take them to a ball game or dinner. (They’re the ones who really have the data. And the budgets.) Walk into your corporate library with a batch of fresh homemade chocolate chip cookies and find out what they have access to.

10. Once you’ve tamed the data bitch, dress it up and take it out.
Make it pretty and presentable. All the pie charts in the world don’t tell you nearly as much as a good spider chart. 
 
 

Why People Email Articles from the NYTimes

In today's NYTimes, "Will You Be E-Mailing This Column? It's Awesome" is about research into why people email articles. Analysis shows that positive stories, and those with emotion, are more likely to be emailed. (You research junkies will enjoy reading about how they did the collection and analysis.) But, most of all, readers want to share articles that inspire awe. 

Keep that in mind when you sit down to write your next blog post.  --WTP

Guidelines for Establishing a Corporate Vision

by Jenny Schade

See Jenny Schade's other recent article "Do Your Employees "Get" Your Corporate Vision?"

In establishing a company vision, it’s helpful to have an overview of what the vision is trying to do and what format it should take.  A vision is future-oriented and focuses on where the organization is going.  You might think of the vision as what your company wants to be when it grows up.  Some guidelines for developing a vision statement include:

• 
      Looks into the future 5+ years
• 
      Applies across all locations and business units
• 
      Is aspirational – describes where the organization wants to go but not how it will get there
• 
      Clarifies purpose and direction, and guides decision-making
• 
      Is memorable (25 words or less)
• 
      Motivates employees – helps them to feel proud, excited, and part of something much bigger than themselves
• 
      Works company-wide, builds on the organization’s heritage and culture

Jenny Schade is president of JRS Consulting, Inc., a firm that helps organizations build leading brands and efficiently attract and motivate employees and customers. Subscribe to the free JRS newsletter on www.jrsconsulting.net/newsletter.html

© JRS Consulting, Inc. 2010

Do Your Employees “Get” Your Corporate Vision? (If not, here’s how to fix that…)

Jenny Schade's Making It Count

Summary: It is often the case that employees don’t know how their day-to-day work is moving the company toward achieving its overall goals. The resources devoted to developing and obtaining employee input for a corporate vision will pay off in spades when team members across the organization get behind the vision and collaborate to move it forward.

See Jenny Schade's other article this month: "Guidelines for Establishing a Corporate Vision."

While meeting recently met with the vice president of marketing at a large hospital, I asked, “I notice the vision on your website describes you as unique in the way you collaborate with patients on their care.  That’s interesting.  How does that work?”

There was a brief pause. “We’ve had that up there for a while,” the client replied sheepishly.  “Our CEO loves it, but I don’t think I can give you an example of how we actually do that.  We should probably consider taking that down.”

It never ceases to amaze me that companies will devote extensive resources to develop a vision and strategic goals that satisfy executives in the board room, yet do little to ensure understanding of these objectives among the very people they are counting on to achieve them – their own employees.  

If the VP of marketing can’t explain the company vision, it’s unlikely other employees can relate to it either.  Unfortunately, “Sounds good, but I can’t tell you how it works” is the rule rather than the exception when it comes to many organizations’ vision statements. Staff members are often able to parrot the company vision but don’t know how to apply it.  Some say confidentially that they doubt the vision is attainable.

In the current economic climate, employees who understand what their organization seeks to achieve and how their role supports that goal provide a competitive advantage to lean organizations struggling to achieve business goals with fewer resources.  They can work self sufficiently, recognize when they need to step outside their defined role, and uncover options that bolster the organization's bottom line.

But as my story about the hospital vision shows, this depth of understanding and motivation doesn’t occur automatically.  In order to succeed, the organizational leaders who adopt the vision need to ensure that employees at every level understand the vision and are clear on how their job furthers the organization toward its realization.  This is where research and communications professionals can really add value.

By nature, a vision statement is aspirational and powerful – providing an overriding organizational focus.  Consider the original – and most successful -- vision statement:  “Go forth and multiply.”  Since its inscription in Genesis 24:2, this vision continues to inspire.

What about the most famous vision statement in the universe?  “To explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before.”  All of the team members on the starship Enterprise understood where their venture was going and how they fit in.

So how can organizations on planet Earth inspire their employees to achieve their visions? 

While vision statements can and should be initiated by leadership responsible for setting the direction of the company, they will only work if rank and file employees understand the vision and how it applies to their roles.  In other words, what does success look like and how can employees support its realization?

There’s only one way to enable this kind of insight – ask employees for input.  Before the website video, company celebration, or corporate roll-out associated with a new organizational vision, take the time to run the statement by employees company-wide through focus groups, an online forum or another vehicle in which employees feel comfortable expressing their opinions.  

When I’ve been retained to assist an organization to develop a corporate vision, I’ve worked with leadership to develop a draft and then asked employees to:

• 
      Write down for me what they consider to be the statement’s main idea.
• 
      Circle words they like, words they don’t like and anything they don’t understand.
• 
      Rate the vision 1-10 on its importance to the company as well as its attainability in the current environment.  For example, employees for one company wholeheartedly agreed “innovation” was important, but couldn’t see it happening in their bureaucratic environment.
• 
      Describe how they see their role supporting the vision’s achievement.  (If they can’t identify this – communicators know they have some important work to do!)
• 
      Share a story or example of how this company is on its way to achieving the vision. The stories generated from this exercise will show how the vision applies across locations and business units. They can be shared in communications launching and supporting the vision, bringing the statement to life for employees.

Obtaining employee input in a corporate vision accomplishes two key objectives:

1.    It ensures employees understand the vision and how their job responsibilities support it.

2.    It helps employees feel involved in the vision’s creation and engages them in its achievement.

In the end, many extensive employee engagement studies boil down to one common issue: Employees don’t know how their day-to-day work is moving the company toward achieving its overall goals.  The resources devoted to developing and obtaining employee input for a corporate vision will pay off in spades when team members across the organization get behind the vision and collaborate to move it forward.

Jenny Schade is president of JRS Consulting, Inc., a firm that helps organizations build leading brands and efficiently attract and motivate employees and customers. Subscribe to the free JRS newsletter on www.jrsconsulting.net/newsletter.html

© JRS Consulting, Inc. 2010

Please Note: The Measurement Standard newsletter website at www.themeasurementstandard.com is under repair. (If you tried to go to that site, you may have been automatically redirected here.) Normally, you can find our articles at both the website and this blog. Please bear with us, you may find some links that are not working. Below is a list of our new articles this month. --Bill Paarlberg, Editor, The Measurement Standard

New Articles for April 2010

Social Media Measurement:
Wikipedia Presence of the Top Ten Fortune 500 Companies

The 2010 IPRRC Social Media Research:
Corporate Tweets, Mommy Bloggers vs. the FTC, and the USO’s Social Media

Chris Near's Measurement Toolbox:
How to Analyze Your Brand Exposure in Social Media

Can the Pope’s Reputation Be Saved?

Research Tips and Strategy:
Now You Can Judge Customer Purchase Intent with Mouse Click Metrics from Omniture!

Movies, Media, and How Your Brain Works

Those of you into film and / or how the human brain works when it pays attention to media will be interested in an article by Natalie Angier in today's NYTimes: "Bringing New Understanding to the Director's Cut." It's about research that shows that the editing of movies seems to be coming to reflect the natural rhythms of the human brain.

It's long been my personal hunch that people's consumption of media (and thus the PR outputs we evaluate in the field of public relations measurement) has a lot to do with how their brains work. In fact, it probably has as much to do with how their brains work as it does with the number of impressions or key messages or whether or not the boss was quoted. And so the field of PR measurement ought to be studying how people consume media. (See my article "PR Measurement's Empty Head: Measurement ignores the most complex part of PR.") Today's NYTimes article is another hint that characteristics of the human brain are far more involved in the consumption of media that we currently take into account. --WTP

The Measurement Mavens of the Month: Four Who Score -- Gailanne Barth, Sue Burke, Al Orendorf, and Krista Thomas

I love my job. Think about it: People who want to be accountable, measure results, and constantly improve have to be the smartest people in business, right? And that’s pretty much who I get to talk with every day. If you don’t care to be measured, don’t want to be accountable, or to improve, you’re just not going to call me, right? That's a nice self-selecting sample.

So this week I was particularly blessed with four meetings chock full of smart, accountable, fascinating communicators. They all get this month's Measurement Maven of the Month Award:

There’s Gailanne Barth, Director of Marketing Communications, Corporate Strategy, and Communications at IEEE (the electronic standards body, publisher, and conference organizer). She introduced herself at my PRSA workshop and said that they were already collecting click-thru data, and measuring results from promotions, their image in the media, and another half dozen things. I truly wondered what I could teach her. But, as it turns out, she was there because she wanted to learn how to pull all those different data streams together into a meaningful dashboard. Turns out her boss is a data wonk, loves measurement, and really wants to make data-based decisions. Prospective clients don't get much better than that.

And then Sue Burke, Manager PR / Social Media for Conagra Foods, needed some tips to measure an 18-city rollout of a new product. I suggested some A/B ANOVA testing. Not only did she totally get the concept, she was exited do the collection and analysis. This is the stuff my fantasies are made of. (See Conagra Foods Foundation's Facebook page.)

And there’s Al Orendorf of Genworth Financial. Al’s been a measurement wonk since his days at Allstate, where we fed him all kinds of data for years. He now wants to get his whole team into the “data-driven” head space, so they brought me in. As it turns out, they’re measuring all kinds of good stuff already. They have a wonderful Facebook page for caregivers, which is the epitome of how a B-to-B corporation can use social media right. Does it sell stuff? They don’t know yet, but -- guess what? -- they have analytic tools in place to find out.

And there’s Krista Thomas and the folks at Thomson Reuters, who gathered more data wonks in one room than I’ve seen this side of an eMetrics conference. Web analytics, PR, social media, and marketing all working together to define metrics. That's my idea of a dream team.

Runner up goes to OMMA’s Measurement and Metrics conference, where I was a speaker and got to listen to all the web analytics guys talk about how we’ll soon be measuring mobile and video and all kinds of cool stuff. They’re definitely believers in measurement, even if they don’t always get it right (see this month's Measurement Menace Award). The best part was learning how Discovery and Pepsi and others were really using social media metrics to make better decisions. -- KDP

The Measurement Menaces of the Month: Web Analytics Guys Who Fail to Account for Social or “Earned” Media

I was at the OMMA Measurement and Metrics conference this week and heard a number of riveting presentations about the metrics being used by major corporations and research firms to measure the success of online marketing. And, let me say up front, there’s an impressive amount of measurement and analysis going on there. But invariably when I asked these people if any of their metrics take into account the conversations taking place in social media or the earned media coverage their companies get in traditional media, the answer was "No."

Which makes me wonder HOW DO THEY GET AWAY WITH THAT! If someone in PR ever presented data without accounting for the impact of direct mail, or display ads, or SEO, we’d be laughed out of the board room faster than you can say "regression analysis."  So what’s up with their research departments?

Do the folks at SeaWorld or Domino's think that online chatter doesn’t matter? Not likely. I can name a number of companies who know for a fact that it matters, because they measure it: Dell, Southwest, Jet Blue, SAP, Wells Fargo, and Sodexho, and that's just a few. Note what they all have in common: They’re all doing well in a down economy. 

So enough is enough, guys. Anyone within earshot of this post? Next time some web analytics wonk tries to attribute all the marketing or communications success to that banner ad, challenge him or her. Call them on their numbers and point out the inherent flaws in their research. Make them truly measure social media’s impact. And remind them that they have been named The Measurement Menace of the Month. --KDP

 

How’s all that Tweetey Changey Stuff Working Out?

The Paine of Measurement

Time to Get with the Social Media Program

There are lots of people out there claiming, "You can’t measure social media." And they’re partially right: You can’ t measure it if you aren't doing it!

Yes, I know, I’ve said this before, but being in New York (at OMMA Metrics Measurement) this week has been an interesting reminder of just how important it is. Granted, I tend to talk with smart people who “get” social media, and generally the reason they call me in is because they want to better understand how to not only “do social media” but how to measure its effectiveness. So my perspective is a bit tilted towards the forward-looking end of the spectrum.

Did Your Education Stop in 2008?

But I am astounded by the people who take pride in saying “I’m not into social media” or “I don’t need that stuff” – and then complain because their business is down, or they have no work, or they can’t get a job. Don’t you guys get it? 

Growing companies today don’t want someone who’s education in marketing and communications stopped in 2008. They want people who understand this brave new world and know not only how to navigate it, but how to make it work for them.

Like my new friend @musichall (Monte Bohanan, Electronic and New Technology Manager) who tweets for The Music Hall in Portsmouth, NH. When they have extra tickets to a show, they put out a discount notice on Twitter. He says he can measure the response to last minute coupon offers in milliseconds. Or @wildcat at Wildcat Mountain ski area in Jackson, NH. He fills his parking lot by Tweeting reminders about half-price specials.

Clueless in Corporate America 

For the one-third of American corporations that now have a Twitter account, I want to paraphrase Sara Palin: “How’s that tweetey, changey stuff working out?” Comcast, Dell, and Sodexho aside, most of the corporations on Twitter haven’t a clue how to have a conversation with their customers. They boil a press release down to 140 characters and let it fly. This is classic 20^th Century thinking in a 21^st Century world. The people who are doing it should be taken to the woodshed for a crash course in how to listen and respond to a conversation.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not blaming the communications folks. I’m blaming the corporate culture. Most of the time, it’s not the fault of the communicators, it’s the fault of IT and the lawyers. Internal corporate censorship means that most communicators can‘t even access the tools they need to do their job. In the last few months I’ve presented to organizations where I haven’t even been able to access them because of internal corporate blocks. And I’m not talking radical sites, I’m talking Tweetdeck and YouTube, and even my own DIYDashboard site.

But it probably won’t matter anyway. In every industry and market there are a few smart people who are doing it right. And those are the organizations that will succeed and thrive and beat the pants off their slower-moving competitors. The dinosaurs will become extinct.

Take Your Job and Tweet It

My advice is to get a wireless air card from your cell phone provider. Or go to a Starbucks or your public library. Take a week off, go home and play around in social media. Learn the rules, read the experts, have a conversation. Then come back to work armed with your new knowledge. 

If you still can’t persuade the powers that be to participate, offer to be laid off. Yep, take the plunge: Chances are that, without social media skills, your company is going to tank anyway. So read the Tweets on the wall and move yourself and your new skills to a company that will appreciate them -- and survive.

Happy Measuring,

 

 

A SMUG Is Born: A social media understanding group to help everyone get up to speed on social media issues and standards.

by Katie Delahaye Paine

There have been numerous efforts of late to bring some order to the chaotic world of social media measurement. SNCR had its first metrics standards meeting last spring in San Francisco. Phillip Sheldrake held his Influencer Scorecard summit last December. Nate Gilliat had his analytics camp last month. And last week, the WAA released its standards document.

So when Dr. Don Stacks invited me to part of a meeting of the minds last Saturday, I couldn’t decide if I should be relieved or alarmed. 

As it turns out, I feel genuinely excited that maybe now there is a place for all these efforts to come together.

The meeting consisted of representatives from virtually all possible concerned groups – PRSA (Christina Darnowski), IPR (myself, Don Stacks, Don Wright, Michelle Hinson), academia (Marcia Watson DiStaso, Penn State; Paul Argenti, Dartmouth, Tina McCorkindale, Appalachian State University), WAA (Jim Sterne), SNCR (Jen McClure, Mike Kelly and myself), IBM (Jennifer Galitz McTighe), and several others.

The Social Media Understanding Group's goal is to provide an “on ramp” for folks to get up to speed on the issues and emerging standards for social media. Right now there’s a Facebook page, and ultimately there will be a web site that will serve as a repository for all the various documents and initiatives and research floating around.

Our first effort will be to conduct research to determine exactly where and what people are doing and where and what they need. So stay tuned.