The Measurement Standard: Blog Edition

Lisbon Preview: What to Expect at the 3rd Annual European Summit on Measurement

by Katie Delahaye Paine

A week from today I land in Lisbon for the 3rd Annual European Summit on Measurement. As a founder of the first Measurement Summit back in 2003 (which has now grown up to become the IPR Measurement Summit to be held this year in Philadelphia), I regard these European summits as grandchildren who were raised abroad. In many ways they resemble the first ones in content: High level discussions about what true Measurement Mavens are up to, combined with a lot of discussion on standards and methodology.

But these grandkids have some distinct differences that go far beyond the exotic accents of the delegates. 

In Europe, the overall approach to measurement is distinctly different:

• First of all, not all the media is instantly available online. A number of delegates represent traditional clipping firms that still spend their days physically “clipping” real newspapers and magazines.
• The dreaded Advertising Value Equivalency is even more entrenched overseas than it is is here in the U.S., so the debates are fiercer over that controversial topic.
• And finally, as anyone who has tried to do measurement in Europe can tell you, the whole issue of copyright is a dominant theme that is particularly perplexing to Americans, who seem to prefer to leave the issue up to Google and other aggregators.

With that background in mind, here’s what I’ll be reporting on from the Summit:

Setting Standards

I’ll be joining Tim Marklein of Weber Shandwick and Richard Bagnall of Metrica in a panel discussion on setting standards for social media. The goal is to fill in the details around Barcelona Principle #4, which says that social media can and should be measured. Topics for us to consider: 

• Social media measurement is a discipline, not a tool. There is no “single metric.”
• Organizations need clearly defined goals and outcomes for social media.
• Media content analysis should be supplemented by web and search analytics, sales and CRM data, survey data, and other methods.
• Evaluating quality and quantity is critical, just as it is with conventional media.
• Measurement must focus on conversation and communities, not just coverage.
• Understanding reach and influence is important, but existing sources are not accessible, transparent, or consistent enough to be reliable. Experimentation and testing are key to success.

(For more on this see “Social Media Measurement Workshop first step towards Global Standards” on the IPR’s website.)

What makes this process more complex is that a dozen other organizations—Including SNCR, WAA, IAB, and the ARF—are also attempting to define social media measurement standards. The result is a very confused marketplace. (See “The State of Standards: 7 Organizations Shaping the Future of Public Relations Measurement.”) Our talk will, we hope, begin a discussion that will be carried on at the IPR Measurement Summit this fall, and culminate in our Standards Conclave in October.

The Measurement Survey

Always a highlight of the conference are the results of the annual measurement survey. (Go take it right now if you haven’t yet.) The survey gathers opinions from communications professionals around the world on measurement and will form the basis for future work on standards and best practices. Communications bodies who are asking their members to take part in this survey include: PRSA, ICCO, IPR, the Council of Public Relations Firms, Public Relations Consultants Association of India, Middle East PR Association, Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA), and UK Public Relations Consultants Association (PRCA). So please go take the survey.

AVEs

It was that survey three years ago that gave us the distressing statistic that AVEs were in the top three of measurement tools. Recent reports indicate an improvement on that front: 

• More than four in ten (44%) believe that clients and PR consultancies have become more interested in developing programme measurement without AVEs since the Barcelona Principles were adopted in Spain in 2010.

Other recent results:

• 76% said clients were becoming more interested in linking media analysis metrics to business goals and business outcomes. 
• 50% of people taking part in the survey agreed that content licensing is having a real impact on their business. 

And of course the best part of the Summit will be the after-hours conversations. (To the right, that’s the ever-sedate Richard Bagnall and friend at the first European Summit in Berlin.)

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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.

European Measurement Summit Preview Interview With David Rockland: PR Media Blog

The 3rd European Summit on Measurement is coming up in two weeks in Lisbon. Last year, that conference produced the Barcelona Principles, the ground rules for the future development of measurement. (See “Everything You Need to Know About the Barcelona Summit 2010” for more coverage.)

In advance of this year’s conference, Jon Clements over at PR Media Blog has a quick interview with David Rockland, a Director at AMEC (The International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication), the organization that puts on the conference.

Check out Jon Clements’ post “PR measurement – Barcelona style…” and the interview here.

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IPR News: 2011 Measurement Summit; Bob Grupp Tags Off with Frank Oviatt, Rajul Jain Wins Ketchem Award

In news from the Institute for Public Relations:

-- Rajul Jain, a doctoral candidate at the University of Florida, is the 2011 Ketchum Excellence in Public Relations Research Award (KEPRRA) winner. Sponsored by Ketchum in cooperation with the Institute for Public Relations, the annual award includes a  $2,500 study grant and a paid eight-week internship at Ketchum in New York. Read more here...

-- Robert Grupp, who has served as IPR’s President and CEO for nearly two years, has decided to return to his consulting business. The IPR Board of Trustees named former President and CEO Frank Ovaitt to re-assume those roles which he held from 2004-2009, effective May 1, 2011. Read more here...

-- IPR and PRSA will co-sponsor the 9th Annual North American Summit on Public Relations Measurement, to be held in Philadelphia, September 18th - 20, 2011. Read more here...

-- Michelle Hinson, until recently the IPR’s Director of Development, has left to become Fundraising Manager at The Cade Museum for Innovation and Invention in Gainesville, FL.

--WTP

Six New Papers, Four Times Every Hour for Three Days—IPRRC Highlights Part 2: Public Relations Best Practices

This is the second part of an article on highlights from the 2011 IPRRC. Click here to read Part 1: IPRRC 2011 Highlights: Social Media, which includes an introduction.

by Katie Delahaye Paine

Despite the presence of at least one social media paper an hour at IPRRC 2011, there was a fair amount of discussion about PR best practices unrelated to social media.

Advice for Those Being Interviewed
Walton, Wakefield and Hubbard: The Point of No Return: Staying inside the Lines of Propriety and Civility in Media Situations 

As usual, the team from Brigham Young University raised the level of discussion on a variety of fronts. From Susan B. Walton, Robert Wakefield and Lincoln T. Hubbard, all of BYU, there was this advice on the factors that can impact the outcome of a media interview:

Six New Papers, Four Times Every Hour for Three Days—IPRRC 2011 Highlights, Part 1: Social Media

The 14th Annual International Public Relations Research Conference:
“Pushing the Envelope in Public Relations Theory and Research and Advancing Practice” Miami, March 9-12, 2011

This is the first part of a two-part article on highlights from the 2011 IPRRC. Click here to read Part 2: IPRRC 2011 Highlights: Public Relations Best Practices.

by Katie Delahaye Paine

With 108 papers in three days, there was no shortage of new information at this year’s totally awesome IPRRC conference in Miami. As usual, by the end of the sessions my brain was filled to capacity. Trying to boil it all down to a readable article has been like trying to explain the health care reform act in 140 characters.

I review some of the highlights in the article below, which includes papers about social media, and in the second half of this article, which concerns papers about public relations best practices. Tim Penning of Grand Valley State University gave a paper at this conference and has also done a great job of summarizing it.

Six New Papers, Four Times Every Hour for Three Days

For those of you who haven’t experienced an IPRRC, you need to understand that these events are like no others you’ve ever been to. It is truly a marketplace of ideas. Picture, if you will, a giant farmers’ market full of numerous booths, but instead of choosing between a variety of heirloom tomatoes and grass-fed beef, you are offered dozens of tantalizing ideas in dozens of shapes  and sizes.

The conference room is set up with six round tables and at each of those tables is a presenter. You are given a book that contains a listing of the six topics being presented that session. If you find one that is interesting, you go sit at the table where that presentation is taking place. The presenter has exactly seven minutes to present his/her ideas and you then have seven minutes to discuss it and ask questions. Then a bell rings, the presentation ends, and you move on to the next table.

This happens four times every hour for three days – for a total of 108 total presentations. Now granted, you can only hear four presentations an hour, so you’re guaranteed to miss at least a dozen or so. But if you were wondering why my report on this year’s conference is a bit dense. It’s because I OD’d on both the heirloom tomatoes and the grass-fed beef.

The photo above shows one of the typical roundtable presentations at the conference. The guy in blue is Tom Watson, the author of the “What Is ROI?” paper I talk about at the end of Part 2 of this article. You can see 260 more photos that I took at this flickr page. The full text of only some of the papers are now available, the rest will be soon on the IPR website.  You can download and read the full conference schedule and list of papers here.

People Collide, Media Merge, Standards Emerge?

The Paine of Measurement

This year’s theme for the European Summit on Measurement, “Digital and Traditional Media: Collision Course or a New Co-existence,”  is emblematic of what is so challenging in today’s communications environment. It demonstrates two faulty premises:

First, digital and traditional media have already collided. Most of my US clients have seen their media coverage flip recently—from 80% traditional 20% social and online, to 10% traditional and 90% social and online. That’s right: 90% of their coverage is now social and online.

And secondly, as far as coexistence goes, PR will be lucky if it gets even that. And this is because there are still too many PR managers and bosses who see social media as just a different form of the New York Times. And they attempt to use it and measure it as such. These PR dinosaurs are being pushed aside by a battalion of community managers, digital content creators, social media managers, marketers, and customer champions. To them, PR is relatively unimportant because PR is wasting its time thinking it can control this environment. (Of course, many PR people do actually understand that you gain more from listening and letting go than you ever will by attempting to control, see “Study: PR Gets Higher Marks Than Advertising for Social Media Use.”)

Global Standards, Six Different Ways

The folks in Lisbon have set an intriguing, if perhaps impossible, agenda: “Moving towards a global standard of social media measurement.” I wish them luck. I’m already working with six (yes, six) other groups to develop similar guidelines, and I know exactly how difficult setting standards can be. Each one of those groups has a different definition of standards:

• Within the IAB and WAA crowd the debate is whether we should be using “unique visitors” or “unique browsers” to quantify the “reach” of any given post.  (I go with unique browsers.) 
• Among a number of Linked-in groups the question of a social media equivalent of AVEs is still open for discussion. (Here’s a not-so-subtle hint about the answer: It’s not going to happen.) 
• Media content analyzers are debating: 
  • whether an item from a content farm should be included (it shouldn’t), and
  • whether a story that shows up twice in 72 hours is a duplicate (it is), and 
  • whether “balanced” should be a component of sentiment and if so would it be considered desirable or undesirable? (It should be and it is desirable.) 
• Within the Sentiment Analysis crowd the debate is around an acceptable standard of accuracy. 
• And for still other groups the question is, “What is a real definition of engagement or influence?”

I’ve been working on these sorts of things for the better part of the last two decades, and the one thing I’ve learned is that there is no “standard” metric. The best you can hope for is that everyone agrees to the measurement equivalent of “Brush Your Teeth Every Day,” “Be Nice to Your Mother,” and “Thou Shalt Not Kill.”  

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a big fan of standards. I was part of  the effort that created the Barcelona Principles. And while I may have once believed that they didn’t go far enough, I am now convinced that their adoption is a critical milestone in the history of public relations. 

We have to recognize that every group jumps into the standard-setting fray with a slightly different agenda:

• Monitoring companies want a standard that is easy to implement and is acceptable to clients.
• Agencies want a standard that will make them look good in the eyes of the client and is acceptable to the COO or whoever controls the budget.
• Web analytics managers want a standard that is easily repeatable and defensible to the marketing types.
• Marketing types want a standard that is easily understood by product managers.
• Meanwhile, the client just wants most of this stuff to go away and leave them alone. They want an easy answer. 

Unfortunately, like any situation where people’s views, opinions, and agendas are colliding, there is no easy answer.  If you take a strong stand, believe in your principles, and call for boycotts for those who don’t comply with your standards, then you draw the ire of those with other agendas. If you just go along with whatever the client wants, then you end up never changing anything because big client organizations are notoriously resistant to change. And if you go with the flow and hope it all comes out okay in the end, chances are it won’t.

As with any big overarching goal, it probably isn’t going to get solved in a day or two with one or two people and some grandstanding headlines.

The real work gets done in living rooms, conference rooms, board rooms, and back rooms, over months of listening, accepting, rejecting, and bargaining. In the end, the best we can hope for is that we will all at least agree to brush our teeth and not kill each other.

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.

Shonali Burke's Presentation "Measurement in the Age of Now"

Here's a slide show of Shonali Burke's presentation "Measurement in the Age of Now" given at PRSA's 2010 International Conference, 10/18/10. Thanks Shonali!

Measurement in the Age of Now

View more presentations from Shonali Burke.

Katie Paine's Recent Speaking Engagements

Katie Delahaye Paine is the Publisher of The Measurement Standard, CEO of KDPaine & Partners, and a very active speaker on public relations measurement and social media measurement. Transcripts and slides from her speaking engagements are posted at Katie Delahaye Paine’s Speech Archives at kdpaine.com. 

So that people can find these speeches more easily, we list the most recent ones here (each is also posted separately):...

IPR Measurement Summit 2010 Summary

Once again the IPR Measurement Summit was held in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and as always it was three days of the heaviest of measurement heavy hitters mingling to share theory and practice. Many great opportunities to learn and network. In the photo above, Bob Grupp, IPR President & CEO, addresses the lunch crowd before the announcement of the Jack Felton Golden Ruler Award.

The IPR has a new blog called IPR Measurement Social Hub that includes comprehensive summaries of all the sessions. Kudos to whoever wrote them (Margot, is that you?): they really are top-notch, play-by-play reports right from the conference sessions, and well worth browsing. Links to great photos, too.

--Bill Paarlberg Editor, The Measurement Standard
The Measurement Standard is a publication of KDPaine & Partners, a company that delivers custom research to measure brand image, public relationships, and engagement. 

IPR Measurement Summit 2010: Day One Workshops

The IPR Measurement Summit always starts off with a day of Introduction to Measurement Workshops (see the 2010 Summit schedule here). This year for the workshops, Don Stacks, Katie Paine, David Geddes, Brad Rawlins, Don Wright, Michelle Hinson, and David Dozier were featured speakers. Also, Jim and Lauri Grunig gave an ask-us-anything-you-want seminar that touched on education, social media, models of communication and crisis measurement. In the evening, a group of speakers and attendees braved the blustery weather to visit the Dolphin Striker pub. Photos below...

"Without a benchmark, forget it!" 
Dr. Don W. Stacks, Associate Dean for Research & Professor of Public Relations, School of Communication, University of Miami

 

"Social media is not about getting your feet wet, it's about solving problems... You want to be able to capture these amorphic things in clear charts and graphs, so that people will stop doing stupid things."
Katharine D. Paine, President & CEO, KDPaine & Partners

 

 "What people thank and say about you: That's always been my definition of reputation."
"The Disclosure Principle has a long history of value to relationships: If you can't disclose what you are doing to your spouse, then you shouldn't be doing it."
Dr. James E. Grunig, Professor Emeritus of Communication, University of Maryland, and Dr. Larissa A. Grunig, Professor Emeriti of Communication, University of Maryland 

 

At the Dolphin Striker, including Don Stacks, Frazer Likely, David Geddes, Don Wright, Shannon Bowen, Carolos Diaz, Christina Darnowski, Antonio Ortolani, Alex Sevigny, Diane Lennox, Phillipe Sadron and Andrew Laing.

--Bill Paarlberg Editor, The Measurement Standard
The Measurement Standard is a publication of KDPaine & Partners, a company that delivers custom research to measure brand image, public relationships, and engagement. 

 

 

The 20 Best Things To Do In Portsmouth, New Hampshire (When You're Not at the Measurement Summit)

(9/28/10 update) 

by Bill Paarlberg (with a tip of the fedora to assistant nightlife editors Lauri Grunig, Jeremy Willis, and Katie Delahaye Paine)

The Institute for Public Relations' Measurement Summit is jammed with interesting events and networking opportunities. But just outside the doors of the Sheraton Harborside Portsmouth lies beautiful downtown Portsmouth, New Hampshire. It's got all the food, drink, history, art, architecture and cheesy t-shirts you'd expect from a grubby seaport city repurposed as Ye Olde Tourist Haven.

Unless noted, everything listed here is within three or four blocks of the Sheraton, will accommodate a small crowd of 6 or 8, and welcomes your casual attire.

So if you are coming to the Measurement Summit, be prepared to give yourself and your nametag a break. Walk out the door and see the sights:

Sit and Watch People: There are plenty of benches and cafes all around Market Square, the center of downtown Portsmouth. Just walk two blocks into town on Market Street 'til you get to the big white church. The steeple was recently restored.

See the Tugboats: Portsmouth's iconic red tugs are docked at Ceres Street, which is between Market Street and the water. Just a block from the Sheraton. Plenty of eating and drinking establishments right there, too.

Drink Beer: Hoist a pint of local brew at The Brewery on Market Street. Best pub ambiance and darts are at local favorite The Press Room on Daniel Street.

Drink Martinis: Hippest small local bar is The Red Door. No sign outside, just a red door. Walk right in and up the stairs. It's on State Street, half a block from the elevator bridge, right next to Dos Amigos Burritos. If there are more than six of you it will be a bit crowded.

Drink Wine: Both The Oar House and The Dolphin Striker on Ceres Street have good wine lists, cozy piano bars and are close to the Sheraton. Small tables, candlelight. If there are more than four of you, well, you might not want to sit at a small table with candlelight anyway.

Eat Food (inexpensive): Dos Amigos on State Street, half a block from the elevator bridge. Great fish tacos. If you'd rather Italian, Rosa's is across the street. Note the art on the walls by famed local illustrator yours truly. Somewhat more expensive, but still moderately priced and just a block straight east of the Sheraton, is the Blue Mermaid. Recommended by Katie Paine.

Eat Food (very inexpensive): Gilley's Lunch Cart on Fleet Street next to the parking garage, open always. Listed in Guinness Book of World Records. If there are more than four of you, you might not even fit in there.

Eat Food (bizarrest decor): The Friendly Toast is a block and a half up Congress from the Square. Inexpensive food, large portions and priceless yardsale kitsch.

Eat Food (large groups): The Brewery on Market Street (local beer), Portsmouth Flatbread on Congress St. (organic pizza), or The Friendly Toast on Congress St. can easily accommodate groups of a dozen or more and are reasonably priced.

Eat Dinner, Under $100 for Two: The Green Monkey on Pleasant Street is a block and a half from Market Square (there are many other very good restaurants in town, too). Reservations suggested, and it can be a bit of a scene, so best not to dress like a research geek.

Eat and Drink on the Water Overlooking the Tugboats: The Ferry Landing on Ceres Street. The original waterfront deck, with some of the original local characters still at the bar, too. My highest recommendation.

Eat Lobster at a Working Lobster Pier: Chauncey Creek Lobster Pound on Chauncey Creek Road in Kittery Point, ME is about 7 miles up Rt. 103 along the coast through Kittery. A beautiful drive, great food. Bring your own alcohol. Kind of crowded since written up in Travel & Leisure, (damn it).

Hear Local Live Music (Irish): Irish pick-up band and sing along at The Press Room, Daniel Street on Friday early evening. My highest recommendation.

Hear Rowdier Local Live Music: Try upstairs at the Press Room on Daniel Street, and the Coat of Arms Pub on Fleet Street. These bars are all within two blocks of Market Square.

Shop Discount: The Kittery Outlet Malls are four miles up Rt. 1 in Kittery. Recommended by Lauri Grunig.

Buy the Best Local Souvenir for Under $17: Portsmouth, a book of photos and commentary by Nancy Grace Horton and Laura Pope. At RiverRun bookstore in Market Square next to the church. It's a local bestseller and the photographer is my significant other. Yes, I can get it signed for you.

Shop for Wine: Ceres Wine Merchants, on Ceres Street between the Sheraton and the tugboats. Loquacious and knowlegeable proprietor; chat for a minute or two and you might get free samples.

Shop for Quirky Local Products: The Odd Showroom on Market Street. Handmade and arty, no tacky souvenir crap.

Take the Most Beautiful Half Hour Drive: Drive the eight-mile loop down the riverfront through Strawbery Banke Museum and follow the water to Newcastle (where history buffs can visit Fort Constitution) past the restored grand hotel Wentworth-by-the-Sea (where massage buffs can get a massage, recommended by Katie Paine) and back through Rye. Stop at local fav The Ice House for ice cream. There's only one road, really, you can't get lost.

See-The-Sights-in-Under-an-Hour Walking Tour: (This little jaunt includes most of the local scenic high points, plus it will take you past many of the eating and drinking establishments listed above.) From the northeast corner of the Sheraton, head kitty-corner across Market Street to Ceres Street, and then up Ceres past the tugboats. Turn left and walk up Bow Street, across Daniel to State. Turn left and walk out into the middle of the Piscataqua River on Memorial Bridge. Enjoy the view, turn around and come back onto dry land. Just off the bridge, head left (east) along the edge of the river through Prescott Park, see if there are any flowers left. Then return back into downtown one block inland on Marcy Street where you'll pass the edge of Strawbery Banke historic area. When you reach State again, head west (away from the bridge) two blocks to Pleasant. Turn right there and in a block you will be in Market Square. Hang out for a while. To return to the Sheraton, proceed north out of the Square on Market.

Find Out What Else Is Going On: Pick up a copy of the free local weekly The Wire.

Bill Paarlberg, a Seacoast New Hampshire native, was once a Portsmouth magazine publisher and bon vivant. Now he writes about public relations and illustrates architecture.  www.paarlberg.com

Sign Up Now for the 8th Annual Institute for Public Relations Measurement Summit

Portsmouth, New Hampshire, October 6-8, 2010

It’s the annual convocation of the best and brightest for a public relations measurement and social media measurement conference that is the standard for all measurement conferences.

Now in its 8th year, the Measurement Summit is always packed with the heavy hitters of measurement theory and industry luminaries with tales of measurement success. It's the perfect conference for newbies, too, as it also includes a day of pre-conference Intro to Measurement workshops to quickly bring everyone up to speed.

This grandmother of all measurement conferences is built around numerous networking opportunities—including the famous Lobster Fest at Katie Delahaye Paine's house—and is located right in the picturesque downtown of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, one of New England’s most historic and fine-dining-friendly seaports.

And, of course, it's October so there are more pretty leaves than you can shake a ruler at.

Download this pdf for more information on the schedule, or visit www.instituteforpr.org to sign up today.

Video: Listening, Understanding and Predicting the Impacts of Social Media on Your Business

Here's a video of Katie Delahaye Paine (CEO of KDPaine & Partners and Publisher of The Measurement Standard) presenting at the May 2010 eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit. A big thanks to SAS who sponsored the session, co-presented with Katie, and made the video.

The Measurement Menaces of the Month: Barcelona Delegates Who Voted "Nay"

The attendees who voted against the principles refused to take a stand: They should all do us a favor and find other lines of work.

The Measurement Menace of the Month Award this time goes to the delegates in Barcelona (some 3-30%) who voted against the Barcelona Principles of Measurement. (You can read the final tallies of the votes at Katie Delahaye Paine's Measurement Blog. And you can read the Principles in this article in The Measurement Standard.)

I know that at least few delegates (including myself) voted against principle number 3 (that rejects AVEs) because we felt that the actual wording didn’t go far enough. But for the others, I just don't understand it: How can you be interested enough in measurement to attend an international summit to set standards -- and then reject the standards?  

This was an historic opportunity to take a stand against stupid, inaccurate and antiquated beliefs that have haunted our profession for years. Those attendees who voted against the principles refused to take that stand. They should all do us a favor and find other lines of work. --KDP

The Measurement Mavens of the Month: The Delegates at the Barcelona Summit 2010

Barry Leggetter, Executive Director of AMEC,
 leads a session at the Barcelona Summit.

The Barcelona Summit delegates have passed the first global standards for public relations measurement! They are to be congratulated for taking a stand and putting a stake in the ground for good, honest, transparent and reliable research. This month in The Measurement Standard you can read all kinds of coverage of the Barcelona Summit. But the important thing to take away is that at last the movers and shakers of the public relations measurement community have made some progress on standards. 

Yes, it took way too long and way too many conferences. And yes, the "principles" are pretty much no-brainers for anyone who does respectable research. But it’s got to be some kind of minor miracle that PR professionals -- who, let's face it, make their livings by trying to influence other people's opinions -- managed to agree on something.

So here's a toast to the delegates at the Barcelona Summit: You are our Measurement Mavens of the Month.

The Barcelona Principles Checklist

 

The magnificent seven will rock your measurement world. Maybe.

by Katie Delahaye Paine

Editor's note: Welcome to our Barcelona Summit coverage:

• For an overview of the Summit, and links to other articles, blogs and photos, see Everything You Need to Know about the Barcelona Summit. 
• For a discussion of what the Barcelona Principles mean for the measurement industry and how you can spread their acceptance, read 5 Things You Should Do With the 7 Barcelona Principles of Public Relations Measurement. 
• For a discussion of the next steps after Barcelona, read Barcelona Was a Great First Step: Here Are 5 More Issues to Tackle.

To help you improve your public relations and social media measurement programs, we've put together a practical program-improvement checklist based on the Barcelona principles.

First, let's start with the principles. Here they are:

1. Goal setting and measurement are fundamental aspects of any PR programmes.
2. Media measurement requires quantity and quality – cuttings in themselves are not enough.
3. Advertising Value Equivalents (AVEs) do not measure the value of PR and do not inform future activity.
4. Social media can and should be measured.
5. Measuring outcomes is preferred to measuring media results.
6. Business results can and should be measured where possible.
7. Transparency and Replicability are paramount to sound measurement.

We'd love to tell you that these magnificent seven Barcelona principles will rock your measurement world. But it’s not that easy. As in so many measurement things, it depends on what you’re doing for measurement. 

Do you now depend on a clip book or AVEs to measure print? And you say you don't know social media from a hole in the ground? Well then, the principles mean it’s extinction for you, my dinosaur friend. (See, for instance, "General Sentiment Tars BP With AVE Scare-Wash.")

But for most of us, the principles are Measurement 101. Common sense. If you've been doing decent, diligent measurement, then you probably don't need no stinking Principles to tell you what's up.

Still, it can't hurt look over your programs with an eye to the practical and see if you can improve. Here's your Checklist.

1. Are you currently using AVEs?

• If Yes: Stop using AVEs and do some homework to find alternatives. Then go on to #2.
• If No: Go on to #2.

2. Now make a list of your organization’s goals and the goals for your particular job or department.

3. Make a list of the business goals for your communications programs and for your measurement programs.

4. List all the ways you are currently measuring your PR efforts and the metrics you use. For each one ask the following questions:

• Does this measure what matters to our business? (That means the outcomes not the outputs.)
  • If Yes: What business goal does the metric relate to or contribute to?
  • If No: Drop it or make it relate.
• Do I understand how the metric is developed? Is the vendor or methodology I am using transparent? If someone repeats the calculation/evaluation will I get the same response?
  • If Yes: What business goal does the metric relate to or contribute to?
  • If No: Drop it or make it relate.
• If you’re using a vendor, do they provide details of how the coding or metric is produced?
  • If Yes: What business goal does the metric relate to or contribute to?
  • If No: Drop it or make it relate.
• Is the measure accurate? Does it reflect the known reality?
  • If Yes: What business goal does the metric relate to or contribute to?
  • If No: Drop it or make it relate.
• If I were the CFO, would I have confidence in this metric? Would I value it or believe it was credible?
  • If Yes: What business goal does the metric relate to or contribute to?
  • If No: Drop it or make it relate.
• Have you taken into account your social media efforts? Are they accurately reflected in these metrics?
• Do your metrics provide context and a benchmark? Is competitive activity accurately reflect in the results?
• Do your metrics help you achieve your goals? Do they provide sufficient detail often enough so you know you’re moving in the right direction and have the resources necessary to achieve your goals?
• What conclusions can be drawn from your data? Can you glean insight from it? If No, then you need different data.

5. Now go to the next PRSA, IABC or other industry meeting and spread the word about these new standards.

Photo from Katie Delahaye Paine's Flickr set.

Everything You Need to Know About the Barcelona Summit 2010

  

Editor's note: Welcome to our Barcelona Summit coverage. This article is a general survey of the Summit and what people have been writing about it. Also read our other three articles about the Summit:

• For a practical guide to improving your public relations and social media measurement based on the Barcelona principles, see The Barcelona Principles Checklist. 
• For a discussion of what the Barcelona Principles mean for the measurement industry and how you can spread their acceptance, read 5 Things You Should Do With the 7 Barcelona Principles of Public Relations Measurement. 
• For a discussion of the next steps after Barcelona, read Barcelona Was a Great First Step: Here Are 5 More Issues to Tackle.

A couple hundred public relations measurement professionals met at the 2nd European Summit on Measurement in Barcelona last week to agree on the first global standards for public relations measurement. Sponsor AMEC (The International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication) has posted this summary:

BARCELONA DECLARATION CREATED

The "Barcelona Declaration of Research Principles" to achieve a global standard for the measurement of communications programmes has been created at the 2nd European Summit on Measurement.

The Declaration was created by delegates from 33 countries meeting in Barcelona, after the leaders of five global PR and measurement and evaluation bodies and 200 delegates voted overwhelmingly to adopt seven key principles. The ‘Barcelona Declaration of Research Principles' are:

1. Goal setting and measurement are fundamental aspects of any PR programmes.

2. Media measurement requires quantity and quality – cuttings in themselves are not enough.

3. Advertising Value Equivalents (AVEs) do not measure the value of PR and do not inform future activity.

4. Social media can and should be measured.

5. Measuring outcomes is preferred to measuring media results.

6. Business results can and should be measured where possible.

7. Transparency and Replicability are paramount to sound measurement.

AMEC brought five global organisations together for the Declaration debate. They were: The Global Alliance, IPR Measurement Commission, AMEC, PRSA and ICCO.

The Summit was organized by the Association for the Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC) and the Institute for Public Relations.

You can get full copies of what was passed in Barcelona on the AMEC or IPR websites. To comment on the Principles, write to barryleggetter@amecorg.com or david.rockland@ketchum.com.

 Our publisher, Katie Delahaye Paine, was there. You can read Katie's live blogging report from the Barcelona Summit here on her PR Measurement Blog. She also posted the final tallies for the votes on the Barcelona Principles. She notes that these standards were a long time coming: "It was October of 1995 when what is now the IPR Measurement Commission first met. Then in November of the same year there was the first ever European standards meeting."

As you may know, Katie is very big on relationships as the foundation of successful public relations, and (with myself as editor) has written a book on measuring relationships in PR: Measuring Public Relationships. So it was with some understandable disappointment that she reported from the Summit that: "Not a word in the principles or any of the presentations about measuring relationships. Nothing about measuring trust, or commitment or satisfaction or any of it." As she is fond of saying: "Sometimes you're not wrong, just ahead of the times."

 And, speaking of relationships, note that Paul Holmes, editor and publisher of The Holmes Report, has posted his report from Barcelona, and includes a strong plug for relationships as the foundation of public relations measurement: "I believe the best measure of success is the impact a campaign has on relationships." Hear, hear.

 Metricsman Don Bartholomew has interviewed the leaders of the Summit: Barry Leggetter (Executive Director of AMEC), Pauline Draper-Watts, (Chairperson of the Institute for Public Relations, Commission for Public Relations Measurement and Evaluation), and David Rockland, (PhD, Partner/CEO, Ketchum Pleon Change and Managing Director, Global Research). 

 The IPR has extensive coverage and discussion of the Summit and its principles.

Jay O'Connor reports in CIPR's President's Blog "Barcelona Principles - the end of AVE?" on the CIPR blog, "the standout headline from the principles is that "AVEs are not the value of public relations" - a strong statement that participants hope will allow the PR profession to move forward and to develop more sophisticated techniques that measure organisational impact." Also included are a couple of audio interviews with Katie Paine and AMEC's Executive Director Barry Leggetter.

 Philip Sheldrake, chair of CIPR's measurement group, posted on the Summit here.

Another good summary of the Summit comes from Ben Smith at the PRmoment blog: "The AMEC Principles of PR Evaluation" and "The Future for Media Evaluation."

 Richard Houghton has posted his thoughts at the PRCA blog.

 The Holmes Report has a post on the Summit.

 Cision Wire has a report on the Summit.

See also PRWeek's report "First Global Standard Of Proving Value Of PR Created At European Summit On Measurement." And their article "Charter Sets 'Global Standard' For Calculating Value Of PR At European Measurement Summit."

 See 214 photos from the Summit on Katie Paine's Flickr set. One of them is at the top of this post.

To see 457 photos from the Summit on Gabriel Cazado's web site, visit this page and use the password "summit2010". They are without captions, but, if you travel in measurement circles you'll recognize a few people.

5 Things You Should Do With the 7 Barcelona Principles of Public Relations Measurement

 "We haven't raised the bar, we've raised the floor."

by Katie Delahaye Paine

Editor's note: Welcome to our Barcelona Summit coverage:

• For an overview of the Summit, and links to other articles, blogs and photos, see Everything You Need to Know about the Barcelona Summit. 

• For a practical guide to improving your public relations and social media measurement based on the Barcelona principles, see The Barcelona Principles Checklist. 
  •  
• For a discussion of the next steps after Barcelona, read Barcelona Was a Great First Step: Here Are 5 More Issues to Tackle.

At the recent Barcelona Summit, AMEC, IPR and CIPR presented seven basic principles of measurement. 200 or so delegates voted to approve them:

1. Goal setting and measurement are fundamental aspects of any PR programmes.
2. Media measurement requires quantity and quality – cuttings in themselves are not enough.
3. Advertising Value Equivalents (AVEs) do not measure the value of PR and do not inform future activity.
4. Social media can and should be measured.
5. Measuring outcomes is preferred to measuring media results.
6. Business results can and should be measured where possible.
7. Transparency and Replicability are paramount to sound measurement.

So what? What does this have to do with me?

It’s a valid question. Many of these principles were probably, for readers of The Measurement Standard, clearly in the “duh!” category. One of my Twitter followers said “Great, it takes that much effort to do something we all learned at university.” He has a point, (although I for one, never studied PR research in college – it wasn’t even offered).

These principles are not a call to arms, and will hardly start a revolution, but they do create a benchmark. They tell the world that if you are a PR professional trying to measure results, this is where you have to start.

AVEs: Dead Again

Without a doubt the most controversial principle -- and the one that should start at least a few skirmishes if not a revolution -- is #3. It drives a wooden stake into the undead heart of Advertising Value Equivalency. And the fact that it passed at all (the vote was by no means unanimous, see the voting tallies here) is a sign of how far we’ve come in just a year. Remember that last June at the Berlin AMEC conference the vast majority of the crowd cheerfully raised its hands when asked if they provided AVEs for their clients. (Read what I had to say about that here and especially here.) This year, most of the same providers are no doubt still offering what I refer to as “the cocaine” of our industry. But at least they admit that it is a flawed metric and want to see it killed off. (Here is a flamboyant reason to say goodbye to AVEs: "General Sentiment Tars BP With AVE Scare-Wash.")

Outcomes over Outputs

The other significant element to the principles is that they make very clear that PR measurement is not just about counting clips. The fact that they clearly state that measuring outcomes is preferred over outputs is significant, because it may mean the beginning of some very significant changes for the people who attended, many of whom make a living selling clips. Not that people will ever stop wanting to know what the media in all its forms says about them, but it means that, increasingly, media analysis will be integrated with web analytics, CRM and Marketing Mix Modeling in order to quantify the value of a public relations effort.

Of Course We Can Measure Social Media

I was also happy to notice that the principles reiterate my assertion that “YES WE CAN Measure Social Media.” The silly notion that just because a conversation happens in a space that's different from what we’re used to makes it somehow “unmeasurable” has always been one of the more ridiculous myths of our time. Since the percentage of coverage appearing in “traditional” media (as opposed to online and social) has dropped from 95% to about 9% in the last three years, we need to change how we define media.

So here are five things you should do with these principles:

1. Read and think about them. Read the coverage on the IPR website and join the discussion. You can get full copies of what was passed in Barcelona at the AMEC or IPR websites. To comment on the Principles, write to barryleggetter@amecorg.com or david.rockland@ketchum.com.
2. If you are a member of an organization not represented in Barcelona, contact your organization’s leadership and get them to sign on to the principles – conspicuously absent were IABC, SNCR, IPRA, AEJMC. If you are a member, we need you on board.
3. Stop using AVEs. Explain to your AVE addicted clients and bosses that the all the major industry leaders have pledged to stop using them. So should you.
4. Don’t work with vendors who don’t adhere to these principles.
5. Spread the word amongst your colleagues about The Barcelona Principles and urge them to endorse them.

Continue the Discussion

Most importantly, these principles aren’t the end of this discussion. As someone said in Barcelona, "We haven’t raised the bar, we’ve raised the floor." (If anyone reading this knows who the person is who said this, please tell Katie so we can properly credit them.) The principles are a place to start, a platform from which we can have more discussions about the right ways and the wrong ways to measure PR.

Photo at top from Katie Delahaye Paine's Flickr set.

Wikipedia Presence of the Top Ten Fortune 500 Companies

“Greedy conglomerates” and “slave labor”: You better check your Wiki!

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

Summary: The authors tracked the Wikipedia entries of the top 10 Fortune 500 companies between 2006 and 2010. Results show that both negativity and length of articles is increasing, and that the main focus of articles is changing. Advice is given on how to handle Wikipedia.

Note: For more coverage of this research, see Katie Delahaye Paine's PR Measurement Blog.

Are you really checking what’s written on social media about you? We hope you do. How would you feel reading this about your company?

Hating Wal-Mart permits a person "to feel better about themselves" for three main reasons: They "don't run a greedy international conglomerate", they aren't Wal-Mart workers, widely considered "low-skilled, minimum wage drones", and they aren't Wal-Mart customers, thought of as "toothless, welfare-getting hillbillies."

Or this?

ExxonMobil used disinformation tactics similar to those used by the tobacco industry in its denials of the link between lung cancer and smoking, saying that the company used "many of the same organizations and personnel to cloud the scientific understanding of climate change and delay action on the issue.” These charges are consistent with a purported 1998 internal ExxonMobil strategy memo.

Or how about this?

Other accusations were that the company collaborated with the German Nazi regime and relied on Germany. The German Ford company used slave labor in Cologne between 1941 and 1945 and it had produced military vehicles such as jeeps, planes, and ships used by a fascist regime.

Okay, you get the point. There is a lot of criticism of corporate America out there. But what’s remarkable about these three excerpts is that they are not from anti-corporate hate sites, somewhere on the Web. They are part of encyclopedia entries on these companies.

They are part of Wikipedia (as of April 2, 2010).

Wikipedia? That’s not what comes to mind when we talk about social media. Facebook, Twitter, okay. But Wikipedia? You probably think about that unreliable website with all these hoaxes. Well, that was a couple of years ago. Today, Wikipedia has greatly improved its editing process and, thereby, its credibility. Most importantly: It is moving up on all popular search engines. If you google “Wal-Mart,” “Exxon Mobil,” or “Ford,” the Wikipedia entries on these companies will rank somewhere between 4th and 6th, right behind the official corporate websites. This means the “greedy international conglomerate,” the “disinformation tactics,” and the “slave labor in Cologne” are only a click away.

You might ask: Who uses Wikipedia? Well, many people do. You have probably caught yourself using it. Between March 2009 and February of this year, 1.4 million people visited the Wikipedia entry on Wal-Mart alone. And anybody can contribute to it. Your neighbor can be as much of an expert on your company and your organization as you can. All it takes is good referencing material that can be found anywhere on the Web.

The Wikipedia Presence of the Top Ten Fortune 500 Companies

Our research tracked the Wikipedia entries of the top 10 Fortune 500 companies between 2006 and 2010. We analyzed each sentence to determine its tonality (negative, positive, neutral) and predominant topics.

We found that:

• Negativity is increasing greatly over time. While only 17.5% of the sentences for the 10 companies were framed negatively in 2006, the number rose to 24.6% this year. Still, almost two-thirds of the sentences are framed neutral, as is characteristic for an encyclopedia. But, as any public relations practitioner knows, the negativity is what sticks in people’s minds.
• Length of entries has increased greatly as well, from an average of 91 sentences in 2006 to 166 this year. This means that not only the percentage of negative content has increased, but also the total number of negative sentences.
• Some of the negative content is “outsourced” from the main entries. For example, there are links to additional Wikipedia sites like “Criticism of Wal-Mart,” where much more negativity can be found. The main entry just displays a summary of the criticism.
• The focus of articles has shifted. A remarkable finding of our study was that the main focus in 2006 was on company information and history, but this year shifted to company information, legal concerns, scandals,and performance. Not surprisingly, sentences on legal concerns and scandals were the greatest contributors to negativity in the overall entries. With a stronger focus on these issues, overall negativity increased.

So, what can you do about it?

The worst thing you can do is to erase all negativity in your company’s entry. This is not how Wikipedia works. The community of editors and administrators will reverse the erasing within minutes. And you will have a major controversy on your hands, because they will be outraged at your actions.

The smartest move is to add your viewpoint to the content that already exists on Wikipedia. The more you can reference your viewpoint, the better. Link to a company statement, a speech that someone in your company has given, or a newspaper article that was published on the topic. Today, referencing in the form of good old footnotes determines what is considered reliable on Wikipedia. This makes it difficult for you, as the critics of your company will try to reference all criticism. On the other hand, it also makes it difficult for your critics to erase your point of view, if it is referenced well.

Wikipedia is a community. Decisions are made by the collective. There is nothing wrong with you taking an active stand in shaping your company's image on Wikipedia. But you should play by the rules. Act openly from your office computer and try to persuade the community of your views. Do not hire someone unrelated to the company to “fix” the Wikipedia entry. Microsoft tried that a few years ago and received a lot of bad press when it became public. Most of the Wikipedia editors and administrators are not on a crusade against your company. They just want to see some backup for the information that you are contributing.

We will present the complete results of our study in October at the PRSA 2010 International Conference in Washington, D.C. Hope to see you there.

Marcia W. DiStaso is an assistant professor of public relations at Pennsylvania State University. Her research focuses on investor relations and the impact of social media on the public relations profession.

Marcus Messner is an assistant professor of mass communications at Virginia Commonwealth University. His research focus is on the adoption and use of social media.

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

  (Don Stacks and his progeny at the 2010 IPRRC)

Academic research on social media from the 2010 International Public Relations Research Conference.

by Katie Delahaye Paine

A number of incredibly interesting papers on social media were delivered at last month’s IPRRC. I’ve already written about Marcia DeStaso’s and Marcus Messner’s Wikipedia research, and on the role of social media in a crisis. Here are some other highlights:

1.      The Tweet Life of Big Companies

Dardirek Ekachai and Amanda Stagemean at Marquette University examined how three Fortune 100 companies—Ford, Home Depot and State Farm—use Twitter to build relationships with customers.They chose those companies based on their high Klout and Tweetlevel scores for engagement. They examined tweets sent between January and February 2010 to evaluate the extent to which the messages built trust, satisfaction, and commitment. 

They classified each tweet as one of a particular type (retweets, replay, or status update) and also by category (customer service, announcement, tips, conversation, or other). They also content-analyzed the tweet for the type of message (question, response, reach out, follow up, appreciation, compliment, information, seek participation or other). Further they recorded if it contained links, pictures, video hashtags or emoticons.

In total, they collected some 625 tweets, of which 507 were replies or addressed to another twitter user. Just 13% were general status updates and surprisingly only 6% were retweets.

Half were general conversations, of the rest, customer service represented 23.9%, while announcements (what I consider "random acts of yelling") represented 20.7%. All three companies devoted more than 80% of their tweets to responding to or addressing customers.

Home Depot was more likely to offer customer service tweets (50%), while State Farm was more conversational (65%). Ford was more likely to issue information and was also more likely to to have conversation on miscellaneous topics. Home Depot tweeted more about products and services, and followed up on progress to make sure problems were resolved. It also asked question more than Ford and State Farm. State Farm was more likely to express apprecation and complements.

While this data provides interesting benchmarks for corporations, it isn't extensive enough to answer my burning questions about relationships: How did their scores on trust, commitment, and satisfaction change over time? Perhaps they'll get to that next year.

2.       Mommy Bloggers and the FTC

Kelli Burns of the University of South Florida chose to study the reaction of mommy bloggers to the new FTC guidelines requiring them to disclose payments for their blogging.

She content-analyzed 15 of Nielsen’s Power Mom 50 and found that it wasn’t that big a deal. Only 5 of the bloggers specifically discussed it at all on their blogs and reactions were decidedly mixed. While some considered it a positive change, others felt they were too extremed providede. Most were already following the guidelines.

Bruns also examined the extent to which the mommy bloggers disclosed their payments. More than half the bloggers studied provided a blanket disclaimer on their blogs. And, in a warning to PR folks, the general feeling towards being pitched was decidedly chilly. They were pretty clear about responding to personal relationships, not blind pitches.

3.      The USO’s First Year in Social Media

Finally, (if I may toot my own KDPaine & Partners horn a bit), our client Mark Phillips of the USO presented his findings on the impact of his year-old social media program. Our research showed a marked increase in the number of blog postings and tweets expressing support for the USO, beginning in March of 2009. As it turns out, that was when he hired his social media manager!

  
  

He also was able to demonstrate the interconnection of traditional and social communications by tracking traffic and fans to USO’s Facebook page. When they launched a “Support the USO Friday” Twitter meme, it immediately spiked Facebook traffic to its highest level all year. He also showed that responses to fundraising emails boosted traffic to his Facebook page, reinforcing our belief that social media should always be considered just one part of your communications effort.