The Measurement Standard: Blog Edition

Write Better By Using Stories Wisely

Daphne Gray-Grant's Rapid Writing

Once upon a time, a man who now is a naturalist at the Grand Canyon was a nine-year-old boy. He was fascinated by bugs and rocks but not too interested in sports. His parents, however, had been schooled by his older, athletic brother and therefore insisted that the nerdy, recalcitrant boy join the local baseball team.

The boy did as he was told and immediately, the other kids stuck him in right field where, as they put it, "he couldn't do any harm." In fact, they even said to him, "don't catch the ball if it comes your way," because they didn't want him messing things up. So he sat on the grass and looked at the bugs and rocks.

Video: A Few Measurement Tips From Katie Paine

Here's a video from IABC Calgary, in which Katie Paine provides some measurement tips. (It takes a minute to get to Ms. Paine's advice, and, yes, that background music is a bit much.) --WTP

Social Media Apps To Airbrush Away Your Useless Boring Existence

On social media, nobody knows your whole life is a dog. That's becoming more true every day, with new apps to not just super-model your appearance, but airbrush the rest of your boring life as well. This article in Marketing explains how companies like Instasham and CouchCachet provide you with the life your feeble self can only dream of. From CouchCachet’s mission statement: "Start living the life you have always wanted without ever leaving the house." 

This brings a whole new twist to social media measurement. If I've tweaked Twitter to tell the world I'm drinking Dogfish Head 90-Minute IPA, but my real beer of choice is Bud Lite, then isn't that going to skew the research on beer consumption? (Actually, I'm a big fan of Torpedo, which brings on the massive hops but leaves me some change for Beer Nuts. Also, most any of the gruits from Earth Eagle Brewings.) --WTP (thanks to ThoughtPick for the image)

SEO Best Practices For PR

Go read this nice little post by Carrie Morgan at Ragan's PR Daily: "3 Best Practices Of SEO For PR." If you are in PR, then you know you are in the business of getting things noticed online. These tips will help with some good basic advice. --WTP (thanks to Atwoodz for the image)

Best and Worst Times To Post To Social Networks

Here's a very informative infographic from Business Insider to help you plan your social media posting times. Click on it to see it HUGE. --WTP

Gini Dietrich on How to Measure PR

Go read this great article by Gini Dietrich at Spin Sucks: "How to Measure PR: Use These Tools." It includes an inspirational little case study of a content marketing program with the goal of getting people to a free trial. The nice point she makes is that once you settle on what to measure:

"...we know exactly how many people we need to get to the free trial landing page – through content – in order to get them to take it and then what kinds of content – through email – we need to send them so they’ll convert to a customer. It becomes science and math, combined with art, and it works really, really well."

Go read read it right now.

Life After Death By PowerPoint 2010

Expanded version of Don McMillan's 2008 YouTube hit "Life After Death by PowerPoint":

Your Resume and Interview Don't Count: New Data On How To Predict A Good Employee

Yesterday, I posted about how being well connected leads to more and better employment. Today, here's a very different side of the job hunt story.

You think that good employees are a product of a good school, good grades, and months of training? Think again, says this article in Business Insider. New ways of gathering data and assessing employees has lead to new knowledge about what makes a good employee. Old school job-search staples like resumes and interviews are being replaced by online data, analytics, and the Moneyball approach to hiring.

The most valuable innate quality in an employee? "Over and over again, the people who perform best are the ones who don't need to be told what to do, the ones that love challenges, seek information on their own, and quickly adapt." --Bill Paarlberg, editor (Thanks to Innovation Box for the image.)

Social Media Effectiveness and Black Unemployment

We like to think of social media as a tool to "bring people together" to accomplish mutually beneficial goals. But it's also clear that social media is a tool with which we gain advantage over other people. This can be especially valuable when finding a job.

More social media connections means more favoritism in determining who gets a job and who doesn't.

3 Types of Rarely Retweeted Tweets

From ragan.com comes this post on what to avoid if you want to have your tweets retweeted. Tactics that will improve your retweet exposure include avoiding truncated Facebook tweets, too many hashtags, and poor grammar and spelling.

Personally, I am so glad to hear that some people are turned off by poor English usage. Of course, I am an editor, so there you go.  (Thanks to MIT Technology Review for the image.) -- WTP

Tools to Track Success on Instagram

Four tools to track Instagram success are briefly mentioned in this post from PRDaily. It's intriguing that one of them, SimplyMeasured, provides "free" analytics, but you must share a tweet to promote the company. What an interesting way to get payment for a service. (The post and the image originally appeared on WaxingUnlyrical.com) -- WTP

The Measurement Geeks of the Month: PR News' 2013 Measurement Hall of Fame Inductees

On May 15th, PR News will induct six longtime public relations measurement heavy hitters into its Measurement Hall of Fame at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Congrats!

• James Fetig, recently retired chief, external relations, for the Corporation for National and Community Service
• Diane Lennox, PR services manager for SAS
• David Michaelson, managing director for Teneo Strategy
• Katie Paine, chief marketing officer, News Group, and chairman & founder, Salience/KDPaine & Partners
• Mark Weiner, CEO of PRIME Research
• Donald K. Wright, Harold Burson Professor and Chair in Public Relations, Boston University’s College of Communication.

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The Measurement Menace of the Month: Anyone Claiming to Have a Universal Measure of Social Media

Definition of a Menace:

Any vendor or agency claiming to have a “universal measure” of anything having to do with social media.

The latest examples of this type of villain are Starcom MediaVest Group and ShareThis, who earlier this week announced that they've used the magic of algorithms to blend two proprietary indices into a “universal measure of social activity on the web.”

Thomas Herndon Is The Measurement Maven of the Month

by Katie Delahaye Paine

Thomas Herndon is the UMass graduate student who found a spreadsheet error and thereby rocked the foundations of today's economic austerity movement. In recognition of his devotion to the data, his Excel skills, and the importance of his findings, we present him with our Measurement Maven of the Month Award.

The "So What?" Rule: Put Your Big Girl Panties On and Deal With It

The Paine of Measurement

Anyone who has heard me speak has heard about the So What Rule Of Measurement. It states that whenever you're presented with results—and especially if they are in the form of a flashy chart—you have to ask “So What?” three times.

Suppose your agency comes in with a pretty pie chart that shows you got 20 trillion YouTube views. “So what?” What do 20 trillion impressions get you?

Beth Kanter on Measuring Nonprofit Social Networks

The amazingly energetic and prolific Beth Kanter has a recent post on how to measure your social media network. Lots on network mapping and social network analysis for Twitter.

Beth is the go-to guru for nonprofit networking. She is author (with co-author Alison Fine) of "The Networked Nonprofit," which introduced the powerful idea that nonprofits can increase their effectiveness by using social media to expand their supporters. This concept was taken a step further in "Measuring the Networked Nonprofit" which she co-authored with Katie Paine. --WTP

Tracking What Matters: A New Mindset for Evaluating Travel PR

Here's a great little article on evaluating travel public relations and social media, by Vicky Hastings at MediaPost. It includes a review of the Barcelona Principles, social media amplification of editorial coverage, and, of course, saying No to AVEs and multipliers. --WTP
(Thanks to Desiree Van de Vlekkert for the vintage travel poster.)

Way Above Standard Fare: Two IPRRC Papers That Concern Measurement Standards-setting

When Research and Standards Collide

A good turnout at IPRRC 2013

by Katie Delahaye Paine

There were two papers at IPRRC 2013—one by Marianne Eisenmann and Julie O'Neal, and one by Sean Williams—that have significant impact on the Conclave's pursuit of public relations and social media measurement standards.

On Your Phone Camera, Nobody Knows You're A Dog

Remember "On the Internet nobody knows you're a dog?" Well now it's true for your phone photos, too.

Pixtr is a phone camera app that automatically adjusts eyes, nose, jawline, complexion, etc. to make people look more attractive in photos. I think I'm gonna take some photos of myself right away. --WTP

Interview Series: 12 PR Measurement Thought Leaders Speak Out

Jim Grunig's interview was just published

communicationcontrolling.de, a joint project between the German Public Relations Association and Leipzig University, will post a series of interviews with 12 public relations measurement thought leaders. The interviews will be published in English and German, one every two weeks over the next several months.

Just posted is the first interview with Jim Grunig.

The interviewees will be: