The Measurement Standard: Blog Edition

Truth or Truthiness? New Software Checks Copy For Falsehoods

Hey, all you social media sentiment analysis and NLP geeks out there, here's a cool thing on its way: Truth checking software that flags written copy for possible falsehoods. Read "Bull beware: Truth goggles sniff out suspicious sentences in news" at Nieman Journalism Lab to find out more.

MIT grad student Dan Schultz is writing "...software that flags suspicious claims in news articles and helps readers determine their truthiness... His software is not designed to determine lies from truth on its own... [it's] designed to detect words and phrases that show up in PolitiFact’s database, relying on PolitiFact’s researchers for the truth-telling."

Shultz says, “The ultimate goal is to enable intelligent conversations about contentious issues.” True that. --WTP

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5 Questions to Ask a Measurement Vendor (Humor)

Choosing the best public relations measurement or social media measurement vendor from the many available can be difficult. According to a recent poll, there are over 3 billion social media consultants who would like you to hire them.

To help you interview your next measurement vendor, we’ve put together several question-and-answer scenarios so you can evaluate their expertise. Included are some helpful tips on how to respond.

Question #1: Why would I want to measure my public relations or social media programs?

-- Possible Answer A: [Vendor adjusts bulging Sansabelt waistline.]
“Our vast number-crunching expertise and seven-color statistical graph charts will prove you do your job better than anyone else!”

What you do: Smile politely. Pull secret lever to drop vendor through trap door into crocodile pit.

--Possible Answer B: [Vendor removes massive horn-rimmed glasses and stares intently into your eyes.] 
“It's all about the conversation! We use our proprietary Influensationess^® and Buzzifaction^® Indexes to track your influence in the social space and leverage the engagement of your social media presence.”

What you do: Maintain smile while showing vendor out door. Lock door. Release the hounds.

--Possible Answer C: [Sun breaks out from behind clouds, casts divine light.]
“Measurement will provide you with the data you need to make more efficient and effective decisions.”

What you do: Quietly rejoice. Let your spirit be refreshed. Proceed to next question....

Question #2: What’s the best way to measure my program?

-- Possible Answer A: [Vendor twirls curly mustaches while waggling eyebrows.] 
“Our special AVE technology will conclusively prove the dollar value of your coverage. How does a multiplier of, oh, say, 5, sound to you?” 

What you do: Restrain vendor. Put tar on to boil, gather chicken feathers.

--Possible Answer B: [Vendor strokes goatee and speaks while simultaneously checking Blackberry.]
“Hits to your website show eyeballs in action. Our secret Advanced Site Sensing® technology will actually reveal how many people visit your website every day!” 

What you do: Maintain smile while dismembering vendor with your laser eye beams. Or, if office is above 5th floor, use repulsor rays to defenestrate.

--Possible Answer C: [Slight radiance visible around vendor’s head.] 
“I don’t know yet, I have to get to know your program, audience, and business objectives first.” 

What you do: Raise eyes to heavens. Sing brief hymn of praise and adoration. Blot tears of happiness and proceed to next question...

Question #3: How would I measure my relationships with my audiences?

-- Possible Answer A: [Vendor scratches back of mullet.]
“Relationships mean nothing. It’s all about getting the coverage, reaching beaucoup eyeballs, and getting your message out in front of your main target stakeholder audience groups.”

What you do: Use desk button to activate the faulty x-ray machine hidden beneath vendor’s chair. Carefully maintain smile and eye contact while lethal dose is administered. Graciously dismiss vendor.

-- Possible Answer B: [Slight tilt to the head.]
“Why would you want to measure relationships?”

What you do: Being careful not to get your hopes up, respond: “Because I want to learn the nature of what motivates my audiences.”

-- Possible Answer C: [Faint sounds of harp music.] 
“Depends on your situation, but looking at engagement could be a good start, then maybe a Grunig-based survey.”

What you do: Prepare a burnt offering. Inquire if vendor is looking for venture capital. Proceed to next question...

Question 4: How would you measure my ROI?

-- Possible Answer A: [Vendor flashes big smile while crossing her legs and adjusting very short skirt, waggles foot with red stiletto pump.]
“You are talking my language. I’m sure your ROI is just huge! We can track it with hits, impressions, likes, or any other measure that works for you!”

What you do: Carefully maintain eye contact. Use button under desk to activate rocket-assisted ejector seat, launching vendor into stratosphere.

--Possible Answer B:
“Your best ROI is impressions, because PR is all about getting your key messages out to as many people as possible.”

What you do: Maintain smile while approaching vendor to within arm’s length. Use snake-head-fist to strike softly with forbidden dim mak death touch to liver or kidneys. Continue to smile. Show to door.

--Possible Answer C: [A hush falls, time seems to stand still.]
“Your ROI is the percentage difference between what you invest and the revenue it generates. If you don't have the dollar data to make those calculations, we might do better to express its value in terms of other business goals.”

What you do: Ask if vendor is single. If yes, get your eligible son/daughter into the room immediately. Proceed to next question...

Question #5: In your view, what’s the point or purpose of social media?

-- Possible Answer A:
“To get your message out to more people, faster. Plus, you can get some intern to do it, so it’s free!”

What you do: Snarl menacingly while moving hand toward the .44 Magnum in your AceCase SpeedRack^® shoulder holster. Ask vendor if he/she feels lucky.

--Possible Answer B:
“To proactively address your brand reputation in realtime by leveraging your human assets and image channels to maximize your bandwidth in the social space.”

What you do: Use your Level 33 Necromancer to cast Spell of Eternal Immobility, drink a mana potion, then immediately cast Searing Flames of Hell.

--Possible Answer C: “To build relationships.”

What you do:  Hire the vendor. Call caterer, order fatted calf feast. Secretly review plans for world domination.

--WTP

(Thanks to Ian Drurie at Conversation Marketing for the idea. He really knows how to write a snarky-but-humorous blog post.)

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--Bill Paarlberg is editor of  The Measurement Standard blog and newsletter, and of Katie Paine's new book Measure What Matters. The Measurement Standard is a publication of KDPaine & Partners, a company that delivers custom research to measure brand image, public relationships, and engagement.

Human vs. Automated Sentiment Analysis for Herman Cain: CrowdFlower

Jodie Ellis at CrowdFlower compares automated sentiment analysis with crowdsourced human analysis for media mentions of Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain.

It’s clear that the un-named automated solution she tried could not recognize positive or negative posts in a vast majority of cases, scoring them neutral by default.

She says, “In addition to the Herman Cain Twitter data, I looked at headlines, blogs, and a broad swath of social media commentary on all the candidates. The conclusion I can draw from my effort is that sentiment detection, is indeed, still a very challenging problem to solve through automation.”

It’s always reassuring to be reminded that when the robots revolt, we will defeat them with our sarcasm. --WTP

If you are interested in sentiment analysis, you might want to read:

Should You Analyze Sentiment? With Computers or Humans?: 7 questions to help you decide.

and,

Does Sentiment Matter?

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Maciej Ceglowski: The Social Graph is Neither (Pinboard Blog)

You have no doubt heard the expression, “For social media, you are not the consumer, you are the product.” Well, Maciej Ceglowski, the founder of bookmarking website Pinboard, has taken that theme to another order of magnitude with his provocative essay about what we think of as social media: “The Social Graph Is Neither.”

Consider:

 Imagine the U.S. Census as conducted by direct marketers – that’s the social graph...

You might almost think that the whole scheme had been cooked up by a bunch of hyperintelligent but hopelessly socially naive people, and you would not be wrong. Asking computer nerds to design social software is a little bit like hiring a Mormon bartender...

Social networks exist to sell you crap. The icky feeling you get when your friend starts to talk to you about Amway, or when you spot someone passing out business cards at a birthday party, is the entire driving force behind a site like Facebook...

It's as if an ad agency built a nationwide chain of pubs and night clubs in the hopes that people would spend all their time there, rigging the place with microphones and cameras to keep abreast of the latest trends...

Right now the social networking sites occupy a similar position to CompuServe, Prodigy, or AOL in the mid 90's. At that time each company was trying to figure out how to become a mass-market gateway to the Internet. Looking back now, their early attempts look ridiculous and doomed to failure...

Thank God we left ourselves the freedom to blunder into the series of fortuitous decisions that gave us the Web.

My hope is that whatever replaces Facebook and Google+ will look equally inevitable, and that our kids will think we were complete rubes for ever having thrown a sheep or clicked a +1 button.

My big chucks of quotation do Mr. Ceglowski a disservice, because his essay is much more involved than these highlights. But the idea is to get you to go read it.

And Bobby Johnson has a great discussion of it at GigaOM: "Reasons why the social graph deserves to die.” --WTP

(Thanks to Rafiq Phillips for the illustration. It is not a part of M. Ceglowski’s essay.)

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Avinash Kaushik -- Data Analysis 101: Seven Simple Mistakes That Limit Your Salary

You should read Avinash Kaushik’s blog Occam’s Razor. He’s a seriously brilliant and engaging writer, amazingly prolific, and discusses topics concerning data and measurement that you’ll find interesting and oh-so useful.

Take, for instance, his recent post “Data Analysis 101: Seven Simple Mistakes That Limit Your Salary.” It's an incredibly informative mash-up of, as he says, Data Analysis 101 with How to Make Charts That Make Sense and Actually Communicate With Your Boss. He even shows you a couple times when it's better not to use a chart to display your data.

Don’t miss several exciting bonus items buried inside, like a Statistical Significance Calculator and some simple but important advice:

“Red is bad and Green is good. Always. Don’t try to be cute.”

Go read it. --WTP

The State of Setting Social Media Measurement Standards

This post provides background on social media measurement standards, a summary of recent social media standards-related events, and links to some organizations involved. If you want to be included, please leave a comment. (And if you just want to know how to measure social media, then download Katie Paine’s whitepaper “The Social Media Measurement Manifesto: Yes we CAN, and already ARE measuring Social Media.”)

While there are many different ways to measure social media, there are as yet none that very many people agree upon that should become standard across programs or segments of the industry. The state of the art in setting social media measurement standards is that some groups have agreed upon some definitions and goals (see Barcelona and Lisbon, below), some measures have been singled out as definitely not standards (like Facebook Likes and Klout scores), but there are no specific metrics that are industry standards yet.

Keep in mind that there are a great many different persons and organizations working to develop social media measurement standards, and that everything about the subject — from the data, to the media themselves, to the organizations and their motivations — are complex and in a state of flux. (The illustration to the right gives you an idea of this complexity, it was used to help organize The Conclave, see below.)

What is clear, however is that social media measurement standards are necessary (read Katie Paine’s “The Four Big Reasons Why We Need Social Media Standards,” also David Geddes’ recent post on the IPR site “Framework, Standards, and Metrics: PR Research Priorities Part 2). As things stand now, there are so many vendors measuring and defining social media in so many different ways, that clients often don’t know the best tool for the job, or who to trust to provide it.

The Bottom Line is the Bottom Line

For the measurement industry, the bottom line on standards is really the bottom line: The sooner the measurement industry can adopt standard practices for social media measurement, the sooner it can start providing more services for more clients. With standards in place, the industry will be less fragmented, more confident of its products, and more useful to its clients. And it will do more business.

Social Media Measurement Standards Events: What's Happened So Far?

-- Major International Measurement Summits in Barcelona (2010) and Lisbon (2011) reached consensus on basic principles of measurement. The 7 Barcelona Principles act as a statement of global good practice in for public relations measurement in general. For more on the Barcelona Principles, read “The Barcelona Principles Checklist.” (Thanks to Ketchum’s Perspective for the illustration). 

One of the top four action points that resulted from the Lisbon Summit was to create and adopt global standards for social media measurement. Read more at “2011 Lisbon Conference Early Returns: Slides, Summaries, and Voting Results.” To the right is a video with some background on setting standards from the Lisbon Summit, featuring Katie Paine, Richard Bagnall, and Tim Marklein (all of whom participated in the recent Social Media Measurement Standards Conclave, see below).

-- The Social Media Measurement Standards Conclave occurred on October 25th and 26th, when Katie Paine hosted a dozen social media measurement experts. Read more:

• An introduction to the event and the organizations represented: Setting Social Media Measurement Standards: The Conclave, The Coalition, and The Big Ask
• Some notes during the event: The Social Media Measurement Standards Conclave: Photos and Attendees
• A summary of discussion and results: The Durham Conclave: Our Progress on Setting Social Media Measurement Standards

Organizations Involved in Setting Social Media Measurement Standards

There are several organizations working on setting social media measurement standards:

-- The Internet Advertising Bureau launched a framework for measuring social media in July of 2010, then followed up in February of 2011 with a Social Media Measurement and Intent Guide.

-- The Web Analytics Association issued their standard definitions in 2009 and is in the process of updating them now.

-- CASRO (the Council for American Survey Research Organizations) has just recently issued its Social Media Research Guidelines.

-- The Coalition includes the International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC), the Council of Public Relations Firms (CPRF), and the Institute for Public Relations (IPR). Their goal is to define, develop, and promote industry-leading standards for the earned media aspect of social media measurement. Read all about it on the IPR website. National or international organizations that want to support the Coalition or contribute their ideas, recommendations, and expertise should contact Barry Leggetter, Executive Director of AMEC, at barryleggetter@amecorg.com.

-- The WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association) has issued guidelines that provide specific best practices on how bloggers, marketers and other who use partipate in social media can be transparent and non-intrusive.

Coming Events in Setting Social Media Measurement Standards

The Big Ask Conference. On November 17th, AMEC is hosting The Big Ask social media measurement conference in London, where it aims to ask PR and media intelligence professionals what they want to see as part of the new global standards.The Coalition will participate in The Big Ask.  Visit this site for more information on The Big Ask. --WTP

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Can You Pass The Pew Research Center News IQ Quiz?

And (spoiler alert) if you are female and a Democrat, you may find it especially difficult.

Hey you! You’re a smart, well-informed professional, right? Wouldn’t you like to find out just how well-informed? I encourage you to go take the Pew Research Center Political News IQ Quiz right now. It’s fun and informative and only takes a couple minutes.

I confess that I didn't totally ace it. In fact, I found it surprisingly difficult, and I learned a couple things while doing it.

When you have finished, don’t miss the demographic breakdown of correct and incorrect answers by question. And be sure to read Pew’s report on the results. You may be surprised by a few things. Notice, for instance, that women routinely score almost two questions below men on the test. (They even do worse on identifying a certain prominent female...) And Republicans do almost two points better on the test than do Democrats. Uh... no comment.
 -- WTP

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--Bill Paarlberg is editor of  The Measurement Standard blog and newsletter, and of Katie Paine's new book Measure What Matters. The Measurement Standard is a publication of KDPaine & Partners, a company that delivers custom research to measure brand image, public relationships, and engagement.

An Infographic That Neglects the Delta Is Instantly Obsolete, e.g. The Internet in 60 Seconds

There is much more knowledge to be gained in understand how something is changing, rather than just knowing where it is.

For example, above is an infographic about the Internet, dated 6/15/11, from Design You Trust. It’s an appealing design, and would have been sort of interesting five months ago, when it was meant to illustrate how big the Internet is, and how fast it is changing at one point in time.

But it would have been really interesting if it showed how these stats were changing over time.  

Any data like that displayed here —  a snapshot of one moment — is instantly obsolete. Especially for something that changes as fast as the Internet. The real opportunity here would be to express these quantities as curves with respect to time.

In other words, it’s interesting to know that, as the infographic says, 13,000 iPhone apps were being downloaded per minute. But what would be really interesting would be to show how that stat is changing day-by-day (or maybe week-by-week or month-by-month) and present it in a way that communicates the change of the stat over time.  See the chart to the right, which I found at Pocket Protector Games. 

Often, and especially in public relations or social media measurement, what you really want to know is if a stat is going up or down, and how fast. That can be where the more valuable knowledge lies. --WTP

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--Bill Paarlberg is editor of  The Measurement Standard blog and newsletter, and of Katie Paine's new book Measure What Matters. The Measurement Standard is a publication of KDPaine & Partners, a company that delivers custom research to measure brand image, public relationships, and engagement.

Social Media Response Decision Tree

So, you say it’s your job to monitor social media for your organization and respond when it’s necessary? How do you know when and how to respond? Here is a social media response decision tree to help you decide from Social Media Influence.

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Measurement Menaces of the Month: Anyone Using Klout as Their Primary Measure of Performance

Our Measurement Menace of the Month Award goes out this time to anyone that uses a Klout score as a primary measure of performance. Here are a couple of examples.

Klout as an MBO? Get a Klue.

Klout, a controversial free tool that measures online social media activity, caused major agita recently when it changed its algorithm to include more social media channels and to “make it more accurate.” This was to the bubble that is social media marketing what October 23, 1929 was to Wall Street: People were (virtually) jumping out of windows. 

Bob LeBrew captured a number of the comments in his post on Danny Brown’s blog.  My favorite was:

I have been feverishly working at increasing the Klout score for my company, as it is part of my MBOs. Now, with a sudden 12 point drop, it will reflect poorly (and inaccurately) upon my efforts.

[Stunned look of total disbelief] Let’s hear that one again?  

1. Your MBOs are based on Klout???
   What kind of an organization do you work for that relies on a free tool that, until recently, based its scores primarily on Twitter? Sure, go ahead and use Klout as one metric in your mix, but understand it for what it is. As Brad Fay said at the recent Social Media Measurement Standards Conclave, “90% of word-of-mouth is offline.” And, by the way, never put all your eggs in one basket.
2. The 12 point drop will reflect poorly???
   No. What reflects poorly is the fact that you are relying on Klout as a primary measure of success. Klout is just one tool, and it has both strengths and limitations. Remember, Klout recently improved its algorithm. Which means it wasn’t very reliable before. (As anyone who has ever looked carefully at their Klout results will tell you. Mine say that I’m influential on the topic of Syria. Is it just because I am a  follower of @Andy Carvin and am fascinated with the Middle East? I certainly don’t influence anyone’s opinions on the topic.)

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not blaming Klout. (Well, maybe just a little.) They provide a fun free service that lets people rank themselves against other people. It’s essentially Hot or Not for social media types. And just as I wouldn’t evaluate a potential husband on Hot or Not, I certainly wouldn’t consider Klout a valid metric for someone’s hire or raise. But lots of companies do.

A Klout Score: The Latest Fashion Accessory?

Bal Harbour Shops is promoting Kout as a must-have fashion accessory. They required attendees to have a Klout Score over 40 to get into their “oh so exclusive” Fashion Week party.  

Now, I grew up literally surrounded by fashion; my mother was Editor-in-Chief of Harper’s Bazaar magazine. Which would probably qualify me as being at least somewhat influential in fashion. (And, anyway, my Klout score of 67 would have admitted me to the party. So there.)

But here's the wrinkle: I find spending a lot of money on clothes to be morally repugnant. In fact, I buy all my business and dress clothes at Goodwill. You'll never see me speak in anything but a Goodwill outfit. It's my way of reducing my carbon footprint, keeping stuff out of  landfills, and creating jobs in America. And, oh yeah, getting well-crafted classic fashions at low prices. So I would far rather spend a month in a tent at Occupy Wall Street than be a customer of Bal Harbour Shops.

Now, if I blog about that often enough will I be even more influential on fashion? And would that influence ever lead to a purchase at Bal Harbour Shops? Probably not.

So to these examples and to all organizations out there that are measuring success via Klout scores, you are our Menaces of the Month. Congrats. --KDP

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Katie Delahaye Paine is CEO of KDPaine & Partners, a company that delivers custom research to measure brand image, public relationships, and engagement. Katie Paine is a dynamic and experienced speaker on public relations and social media measurement. Click here for the schedule of Katie’s upcoming speaking engagements. 

Six Recent Events that Signal a Public Relations Measurement Spring

The Paine of Measurement

To paraphrase a line from David Frost, “That was the Week that Was.” Or maybe it was a month — or two. At this point, so much has happened recently in the world of social media and public relations measurement it’s hard to keep it all straight.

I frequently remind people who refer to me as “The Queen of Measurement” that Measurement is a very small Queendom. But recent changes in our social media and public relations measurement industry have many parallels to the bigger world in which we communicate and measure.

Here are six recent signs of change and vitality in the world of PR measurement:

1. VMS suddenly declared bankruptcy.  While not entirely unexpected by insiders, the vast majority of customers of VMS were taken by surprise when their video monitoring supplier collapsed. Its fall could be the measurement world’s equivalent of the end of Lehman Brothers, or maybe the revolt in Tunisia. It’s an event unthinkable a few years earlier. And we will look back on it as the moment in time when the media monitoring world changed forever (see “3 Reasons Why VMS Failed, and 3 Lessons for Survival”).
2. FIBEP hosted a social media event.  For the first time in its 60-year history, FIBEP hosted an all-day workshop on social media. This venerable organization collects content for most of the major international brands in dozens of countries. It brought in speakers like myself for a discussion of what the changing media landscape means to these mostly family-owned companies. The discussions were insightful and astonishing. Clearly, many of these firms are facing a choice between being in the content collection business or the content management business. They are not alone.
3. PRSA hosted its annual international convention ...and brought together many of the thought leaders in the profession. Some of the presentations were illuminating for their brilliance. Others showed just how far the PR profession needs to go in terms of evaluation and measurement. They also demonstrated that the professional association for an industry that is all about managing public relationships can have relationship problems itself (see “PRSA’s Reputation Crumbles”). 
4. Thanks to social media, Occupy Wall Street moved to the front page of mainstream media. Regardless of the size of the movement itself, OWS has used social media to stake a claim to the American consciousness, further challenging the value of traditional media eyeballs in today’s society. Yes, the goal may have been media exposure, but what they achieved was a change in American consciousness. I witnessed this at eMetrics New York while talking to some folks from att.com. The conversation turned from measurement to OWS — and they decided to head downtown to join the movement.
5. Klout changed its algorithm ...causing many people who have been defining their success with their Klout scores to leap out their (virtual) windows. One witty Twitterer even started #occupyklout, which may say more about the OWS movement than anything else. Let’s hope Klout’s move has prompted a number of organizations to reevaluate how they measure success.  
6. The Social Media Measurement Standards Conclave convened. For the first time in history, the worlds of word-of-mouth marketing, web analytics, and communications came together to cooperate on an initiative that will benefit us all. Our goal was to make progress on industry standards for social media measurement, and we did (see “The Durham Conclave: Our Progress on Setting Social Media Measurement Standards”). In my little world, that’s even better than the EuroCommission getting agreement around the Greek debt talks. 

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Katie Delahaye Paine is CEO of KDPaine & Partners, a company that delivers custom research to measure brand image, public relationships, and engagement. Katie Paine is a dynamic and experienced speaker on public relations and social media measurement. Click here for the schedule of Katie’s upcoming speaking engagements.

MDG Blog: The ROI of Social Media Infographic

An infographic from MDG Advertising, The ROI of Social Media:

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The Conclave Attendees Are the Measurement Mavens of the Month

The Social Media Measurement Standards Conclave took place last Monday and Tuesday in Durham, New Hampshire. To ask anyone to give up two days of his or her time these days is asking a lot. So when 12 high-level communications professionals showed up on my doorstep, I have to admit I was more than pleased. I was impressed. And I was more impressed by the work they accomplished.

(For coverage of the Conclave, see “The Durham Conclave: Our Progress on Setting Social Media Measurement Standards” and “The Social Media Measurement Standards Conclave: Photos and Attendees.”) 

We hereby recognize the individual Conclave attendees with our Measurement Maven of the Month Award. They truly are Measurement Mavens. Each is a best-of-the-best expert in their own field, with drive, innovation, and brain power that has brought success to their own companies. But each was also there to represent a large organization of measurement professionals, and together they represented nearly 50,000 individual members. Most importantly, they cared enough about the entire industry and process of measurement that they’d devote two days (and probably many more in the future) to debating and establishing industry standards.

We owe them all a huge round of applause and gratitude. Here’s the list of this month’s Measurement Maven award winners, the attendees at the Social Media Measurement Standards Conclave,10/25/2011:

• Richard Bagnall: Metrica, AMEC (The International Association for the Measurement and Evaluation of Communication)
• KC Brown: Cision Global Analysts
• Mark Chaves: SAS Institute
• Brad Fay: KellerFay Group, WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association)
• John Lovett: Web Analytics Demystified, WAA (Web Analytics Association)
• Tim Marklein: WCG, CPRF (Council for Public Relations Firms), IPR (The Institute for Public Relations)
• Jennifer McClure: Thomson Reuters, SNCR (Society for New Communications Research)
• Frank Ovaitt: IPR
• Eve Stevens: AMEC, CPRF, Waggener Edstom Insight and Analytics
• John Stieger: Procter & Gamble
• Paige Wesley: IABC (International Association of Business Communicators)
• Professor Don Wright: PRSA (Public Relations Society of America)

Also, special Runner-Up status goes to Rajiv Narang of Dell, Pauline Draper-Watts of Prime Research, and Philip Sheldrake of InfluenceCrowd.com. All of whom would have attended the Conclave by phone conference if the technology had worked. 

Congrats to you all. --KDP

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Katie Delahaye Paine is CEO of KDPaine & Partners, a company that delivers custom research to measure brand image, public relationships, and engagement. Katie Paine is a dynamic and experienced speaker on public relations and social media measurement. Click here for the schedule of Katie’s upcoming speaking engagements. 

The Measurement Standard Contents for November 2011

Here is a list of links to posts in The Measurement Standard for the month of November, 2011:

 Truth or Truthiness? New Software Checks Copy For Falsehoods

 5 Questions to Ask a Measurement Vendor (Humor)

 Human vs. Automated Sentiment Analysis for Herman Cain: CrowdFlower

 The State of Setting Social Media Measurement Standards

 Can You Pass The Pew Research Center News IQ Quiz?
And (spoiler alert) if you are female and a Democrat, you may find it especially difficult.

 An Infographic That Neglects the Delta Is Instantly Obsolete, e.g. The Internet in 60 Seconds

 Social Media Response Decision Tree

 The Measurement Menaces of the Month:
Anyone Using Klout as Their Primary Measure of Performance

 The Paine of Measurement:
Six Recent Events that Signal a Public Relations Measurement Spring

 MDG Blog: The ROI of Social Media Infographic

 The Conclave Attendees Are the Measurement Mavens of the Month

 The Durham Conclave: Our Progress on Setting Social Media Measurement Standards

Last Month’s Contents: Click here to see The Measurement Standard Contents Page from October, 2011.

The Durham Conclave: Our Progress on Setting Social Media Measurement Standards

by Katie Delahaye Paine

For additional coverage of The Conclave, see “The Social Media Measurement Standards Conclave: Photos and Attendees,” and “Setting Social Media Measurement Standards: The Conclave, The Coalition, and The Big Ask.”  For a summary of the state of social media standards, see “The State of Setting Social Media Measurement Standards.”

Despite its uncompromising “Live Free or Die” motto, New Hampshire has long been known as a place where people can come to an agreement. In 1905, diplomats on both sides of the Russo-Japanese war came here for one of history’s great peace negotiations, and the result was the Treaty of Portsmouth. The Bretton Woods Conference of 1944 led to the creation of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. And, of course, anyone who has seen On Golden Pond (filmed at Squam Lake in Holderness, NH) will remember that, in the end, Ethel Thayer gets her wish: “...wouldn’t if be nice if we could all get along this time?” 

It probably won’t go down in history, but the discussion about social media measurement standards that began last week at my home in Durham, New Hampshire, was a big achievement for our measurement industry. A dozen measurement experts representing almost as many professional organizations came together to eat lobsters and find some common ground. While we didn’t get to an official “Treaty of Durham,” we did discover remarkable unanimity around several important issues.

I attribute our success to a liberal application of flying lobster juice. There’s nothing that breaks down barriers faster than the messy tooth-and-claw negotiations required to get the meat out of a stubborn lobster.

The GAAP for Social Media Standards

The consensus we achieved was largely a result of the one common problem we all recognized we needed to solve. No matter what your arena — web analytics, word of mouth, social media strategy, public relations, business communications, or measurement — clients want consistency in the definition of terms and how they are used. 

Procter & Gamble’s John Stieger summed this up nicely as “Generally Accepted Accounting Practices (GAAP) for social media reporting.” And, when we really got down to it, we all needed definitions in the same five areas:

• Content
• Reach /Engagement
• Influence/Relevancy
• Sentiment/Advocacy
• Impact and Value

In addition, we all seemed to agreed on a number of general points:

Why we need standards. 

John Lovett of WAA reminded us that (quoting Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, also attributed to others),  “The good thing about standards are there are so many to choose from.”

Clearly there is mass confusion in the marketplace, and CEOs want to see order. Mark Chaves pointed out a fundamental issue: “Social media measurement is not a marketing problem, it’s a business problem. We have got to tie standards back to the balance sheet.” Which was seconded by Jen McClure: “To measure success, there is nothing better than to go back to the goals of your CEO.”

Frank Ovaitt had related thoughts: “We have only the power to recommend standards not inforce them. The customer will actually adopt and use the standards, so they are who will decide on them in the end. If we don't develop standards that matter in the marketplace, then we won't be successful.”

Transparency is key. 

We may not get to universal agreement on what numbers we will use to define success, but if we are not open and transparent about how we get to those numbers, there is no credibility. As Brad Fay of WOMMA put it: “We need something like an FDA nutritional label requirement. For any project, what were its influence, engagement, sentiment and content sourcing ingredients?” 

Professor Don Wright approached this in a different way: “There should be a way to ensure research quality by letting people know that whoever is doing social media measurement actually knows how to do it.”

Part of transparency is clearly defining the universe that you are measuring, whether you are measuring paid, owned, or earned media:

• Paid would include: Paid space, sponsored tweets, Google and YouTube ads, paid SEO, and LinkedIn ads.
• Owned would include: Online communities, brand sponsored LinkedIn groups, branded social channels, @branded tweets, branded Facebook pages, and branded YouTube channels.
• Earned is everything else.

Engagement is not conversion. 

Conversion will be different for different organizations depending on their goals. What ultimately needs to be measured is the impact of social media on the business, whether it is in sales, share, cost savings, customer retention, or efficiency.

Klout scores are not measurement, and neither is sentiment by itself.

As Mark Chaves said, “Sentiment  shouldn’t get you hired or fired. Sentiment alone as a business driver is questionable.” “Clients fixate on tools,” said Tim Marklein, “and mistake those for standards. We need to work at a higher level. We need to get beyond single vendors and simplicity.”

Frequency as a metric may not apply in social media.

While frequency is a standard metric in traditional media, things are very different in social media, where the power of frequency isn’t clear. Frequency doesn’t necessarily lead to a conversion/sale or outcome in social media and, in fact, may lead to lesser credibility.

Now that we can all get along, where we go from here?

Whether it was the lobsters, the company, or the combination of the two, we all agreed that there was much work to be done, and that this would not be our last Conclave. —KDP

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Katie Delahaye Paine is CEO of KDPaine & Partners, a company that delivers custom research to measure brand image, public relationships, and engagement. Katie Paine is a dynamic and experienced speaker on public relations and social media measurement. Click here for the schedule of Katie’s upcoming speaking engagements.