The Measurement Standard: Blog Edition

The Presidential Candidates on YouTube: Your Interactive Dashboard

 

In this week's The Week magazine, there is a note: "YouTube videos mentioning Barack Obama or John McCain were viewed 2.3 billion times, according to media measurement firm TubeMogul."

Regular readers of The Measurement Standard will recall that KDPaine & Partners has been conducting an ongoing study of the YouTube presence of the presidential hopefuls since January, 2007. This research has been tracking the views and ratings of all YouTube videos that mention a candidate's name and "New Hampshire" in the title, description or tags. (KDP&P is located in New Hampshire, and the Live Free Or Die state is very proud of its first-in-the-nation presidential primary.) You can read our earlier, pre-primary, article about these results here in TMS, and a follow-up post here, in Katie Paine's blog.

KDPaine & Partners maintains an online interactive dashboard of this data, which anybody can use (URL: http://www.diydashboard.com, User: youtube, Password: kdpaine). I encourage you to head on over there and mess around with the data. Help yourself to a few charts. 

Here, for instance, is a chart from that dashboard showing total views per candidate from Jan 1, 2007 to Election Day, 2008 (click on the chart to see it bigger):

As you may recall (and as this chart demonstrates) New Hampshire was strongly enamored of Ron Paul; the popularity of his videos during the primary was so great that it shows up here as if he was a major contender in the entire race.

If we look at the data for just the three months before the election, the ghost of Ron Paul still lingers, but it is clear how the overall landscape changed later in the race (Sarah Palin was not included in this study.) Click on the chart to see it bigger:

--Bill Paarlberg

If Liberal and Conservative Brains Work Differently, What Does That Mean for PR Measurement?

 

It has always amazed me that there are two large groups of US voters, who, after reading more or less the same information about candidates or issues, can come away with two quite different interpretations and opinions. Recent research has shed some light on this Liberal/Conservative split: it is starting to become clear that this division is not just a matter of background or upbringing, it is, at least in part, a result of fundamental differences between how people understand the world, and how their brains work.

For example, in today's NYTimes, the article "Basics | Obama and McCain Walk Into a Bar ..." relates the results of research that implies that Conservatives have more of a sense of humor than Liberals, and that they tend to be happier. 

There is much more work to be done on this topic, of course, but it is not too early to speculate that Conservatives and Liberals have brains that function differently at some basic level, a level that affects their understand of all sorts of information and media. 

What might this mean for public relations measurement? Well, consider the possibility that Liberals and Conservatives might understand a press release, or a news article, or a blog post, in two very different ways. If their response to corporate news is as varied as their response to political news, then measurement will have to allow for this, or be very inaccurate. As I have said before, measurement needs to take into account what goes on inside people's heads, not just the messages they are presented with. --Bill Paarlberg, TMS Editor

The Measurement Summit, Part 1: Shel Israel

(See Part 2 of this series, on Jim Macnamara, here.)

Each year, in the day or two before IPR's annual Summit on Measurement, KDPaine & Partners hosts a User Group Meeting to help its clients do better dashboard measurement. The special guest this year was Shel Israel, blogger, social media expert, and co-author (with Robert Scoble) of Naked Conversations. I met the User Group crew at Katie's house, and we sat and talked over drinks and dinner. (Also present was Jim Macnamara, with whom I had a talk over some beers, but that's a different post.) Shel Israel is an interesting guy.

Shel is, of course, all about the conversation. He spoke some about the new book he is working on, "Twitterville," and waxed enthusiastic about the special way that Twitter allows people to communicate, and how this will become a valuable business tool. His premise, as I understand it, is that the brevity and immediacy of Twitter allow a special and valuable sort of communication. Whereas email and blog posts sometimes suffer from the formal demands of writing, Twitter allows and demands that people communicate on a somewhat different and -- in many cases -- more effective fashion. For more of what Shel thinks about Twitter, see his blog, especially here.

Another thing I noticed about Shel is that he is not just enthusiastic about social media, but he's optimistic, too. For him, it's not just that social media is the center of the universe, it's the center of a benevolent universe. As you probably know, Shel spends a lot of time interviewing people, and he's run into more than his share of difficult people and situations. (I guess that's probably one thing that makes interviews interesting.) But he's not the kind of guy who makes conversational hay out of unpleasantness; he'd rather focus on what's positive.

There was an excellent example last night when the conversation turned to politics. For most of us in this part of the world, the run-up to the coming US election has got us a bit run down, and many of us are only too happy to complain about this or that aspect of the candidates or the coverage. But not Shel. In fact, he not only predicts that social media will play an even bigger and more crucial role in coming elections, but he's excited about the potential for social media to radically change US politics for the better by saving a big part of all those millions of dollars now spent on campaigns. Pleasant enthusiasm about politics is the sign of a true optimist. --Bill Paarlberg

The NYTimes Measures the Words They Used at the Conventions

In today's New York Times there is an interesting graphic comparison of the frequency of words used by speakers at the recent American political conventions. (You will need to subscribe.)

Speeches are an interesting sort of public relations output; we can measure the words used, but speech can be so much more expressive than the printed word.

Some of the results we probably would have expected, for instance that the Democrats used the word "change" three times as much as the Republicans did, and that the Republicans used the word "god" twice as much as the Democrats. Or that Democrats (eager to focus on the issues) used "jobs," "economy," and "healthcare" twice as much as the Republicans, and that the Republicans (more eager, perhaps, to focus on the candidates than the issues) used "character" six times as much as the Democrats, and "vice president" twice as much.

Other results are more difficult to interpret. For instance, the Democrats used their opponent's name three times as much as the Republicans used their opponent's name. Interesting stuff.

We asked Peter Kowalski, KDPaine and Partners' Director of Research Strategy, for his comments:

[This kind of research] does bring to the surface different attempts at agenda setting, and efforts in framing the election / providing orienting cues to the public about how to think about the party/ election.

How is this applicable to interested, savvy PR people? If you work for a non-profit, analysis of this type can help to identify how your opponents have framed their side of the debate in the past, in order to better plan effective countermeasures and to test effective message strategies.

If you work for a business, analysis of competitor press releases, analyst quotes, and industry coverage can help to provide some competitive intelligence, and perhaps predict how the public will think about an industry in otherwise uncertain times.

Outside of formative research, this sort of word or phrase counting can be used in an evaluative sense when one is trying to shift how the media frames an issue, the attributes of an issue, or how a product, brand or company is defined (e.g. when Facebook made the shift from a site for college students to a social utility for everyone).

There is definitely some cool work that employs this. What's most important, from a research perspective, is to define well in advance what conclusions can be drawn from this data. For example, from this work we can't understand how each side is framing our current economic issues, or their solutions. All we know is that they are mentioning the economy.

Thank you, Peter. --WTP

How Public Relations Measurement Can Win the War on Terror

It's not a new thing to talk about the war on terror as a war in the media for mindshare. But I've never seen it stated as explicitly as in the article "Marketing Osama" which appeared in a recent issue of The Week, and which was reprinted from a story by John Cook originally published in Radar. The point there is that Brand USA and Brand Osama are fighting it out in the media, and this marketing/PR battle is the important front in the war.

Public relations measurement evaluates exactly the sort of metrics that define the strategy that al Qaida has been using to enlarge its support: media impressions, media content, key messages, contributions and new members. Public relations should be not only measuring the war on terror, but, by virtue of tracking the most important metrics, should be defining the war on terror too. (See "Knowing the Enemy: Can social scientists redefine the "war on terror"?")

One of the more interesting aspects of the war on terror is that there is, (so far, that I know of) no way to know if we are winning or losing, or how we will ever know if we do win or lose. And that's where public relations measurement comes in: If we can use public relations metrics to define progress in the war, we can use them to define success and failure. Public relations measurement can win the war on terror by defining when the war will be over.

And here's how we do it: Let's say that al Qaida's media and marketing efforts now generate X impressions of their key messages each year, which in turn result in Y dollars of contributions and Z new members. We gather and track this data for the last ten or twenty years, and correlate it against terrorist activity of all sorts. (Yeah, it's a big job.) We then will understand what level of exposure to key messages (or Osama bin Laden videos) is required to generate what levels of recruits. Or to generate one new suicide bomber.

Then we define success in terms of the metrics. So, we could define "winning the war on terror" as when al-Qaida's impressions, contributions and recruits are dropping. And then we define victory as the point at which these metric fall low enough so that al Qaida can no longer function effectively. If Osama bin Laden doesn't get his message out, or if no one believes it enough to do anything, then we've won. --Bill Paarlberg

How to Measure Relationships with Voters, Legislators and Other Political Constituencies

by Katie Delahaye Paine

Ah Springtime! When a young man's thoughts turn to love, or basketball, or, if you live in New Hampshire, politics. Given that New Hampshire has the third largest legislative body in the English speaking world (after the British Parliament and the US Congress), and that once a year in March a million or so average citizens get together in town meetings to determine the fate of the state, you can understand why the term "March Madness" takes on a whole new meeting up in these parts.

When measuring relationships with voters, as with any measurement program, the type of system you put in place depends on your objectives and your role. Below is a list of tools you need for each type of program. One important point first...

Timing is more critical than usual
Because the length and success of voter measurement programs are so strictly defined by the election cycle, you can't afford to waste time or opportunities. Probably the most important element in any political measurement program is to have the data on hand when you need it. And you need it whenever there's a decision to be made about how much money to spend or what tactics to use. You don't need it after the votes have been counted.

Measuring PR Efforts on Behalf of a Candidate

My company, KDPaine & Partners, measured political PR for one of the country's best political PR pros, Doug Hattaway, former spokesperson for Al Gore and Tom Daschle. Doug was working on Chellie Pingree's effort to unseat Susan Collins as Senator from Maine. What Doug needed was a measurement system that would tell him which tactics were working or not working in a campaign. The challenge was to do it fast enough so the data would be useful, and cheap enough so the campaign could afford it.

The good news about working with political campaigns is that volunteers are generally plentiful, and in this case the volunteers were charged with collecting the clips from the local publications. If you don't have volunteers to do the clipping, you need to hire a local clipping company or someone like Bacons or Burrelle's to collect the clips for you. Small-town newspapers are just too important to miss. Electronic data aggregators like Nexis and Factiva do not work on local or statewide campaigns; they do a terrible job collecting clips from anything smaller than the Boston Globe. Even Cyberalert and Custom Scoop miss far too many of the small town weeklies.

One we had the clips about both Pingree and Collins in hand, we began to analyze them for positioning on key issues, tone of coverage, type of article, subject of the article and who was quoted. We compiled them monthly and issued a report that included charts like this (click the charts to see them bigger):

 

 

 

 

We could quickly identify the tactics that were most successful. For example, a visit by Hilary Clinton in support of Pingree was far more successful in garnering visibility for Pingree than any other action. However, Pingree's visit to Washington in support of her health care reform legislation, while it didn't get anywhere near the visibility, was more successful in positioning her as "the health care candidate."

The analysis also revealed weaknesses in Pingree's campaign and strengths in Collins' campaign. While Pingree was almost entirely focused on her health care message, Collins was making points with the voters on the environment and campaign finance reform.

Additionally, the research enabled the campaign to track the correlation between visibility and contributions. By tracking Pingree's share of exposure over time against the contributions over time, the campaign could determine the level of additional exposure necessary to generate the requisite contributions.

In the end, the earned media that was generated by Hattaway's PR efforts narrowed incumbent Collins' lead substantially.

Measuring Lobbying Efforts

We ran into a government relations person for a major organization who wanted to know how to measure the impact of his efforts. He was trying to get a bill passed that would be highly advantageous to his company. We began to design his "dashboard," and asked him what success meant. He got as far as "If the bill passes, I'm successful." We pointed out that if the bill failed it would be too late to do anything about it.

So what he really needed was to monitor the tone of conversation around the bill in question so that he could tweak his PR program according to its progress. We recommended that he establish a system that gives him feedback all along the way.

There are several ways to do that. The easiest method is to track who is saying what to the media or in local speeches about the bill. Are key influentials supporting it or trashing it? Or is no one talking about it at all? More important to track, however, is the bill's progress through the legislative process. Is it being heard, tabled, or moved? Who are the cosigners to the bill and are they actively promoting it? Is the opposition gaining or weakening? What do bloggers say? What's being discussed in news groups? Are there any list serves you need to track?

Some of these data points can be gathered via media analysis, others should be part of your regular legislative tracking process. Still others may require a poll of the constituency to determine the level of support, and the perceptions of the voters and/or legislators.

If at all possible, a once-a-year survey of your key legislators is recommended to test and evaluate the health of the relationship between your organization and the elected or appointed officials you are striving to measure.

 

Measuring your Relationship with Publics, Both Active and In-Active

Your constituencies come in several forms, from students to senior citizens. You should measure relationships with as many different stakeholders or constituencies groups as you can afford. It may be useful to segment the different publics by gender, age, length of time in the area and political leanings so you can identify any pockets of opportunities or threat within the community.

Clearly active stakeholders who are most likely to protest, boycott or otherwise cause trouble are the most important to understand. However, inactive stakeholders that are clueless about your programs and therefore don't care and won't get engaged can be just as dangerous.

We recommend using the Grunig relationship model to test your relationships and in particular the level of trust that each public feels towards you. Trust is a key component of success in any political campaign. If it's not there, or if it is recently lost, you will have a significantly harder time achieving success. Alternatively, if your constituents trust you, as do those of Alan Greenspan or John McCain, you have a lot more leeway with those publics. Therefore it is critical to establish a benchmark level of trust to begin with. Subsequently you should conduct regular trust/relationship measurement studies to gauge the level of trust and engagement over time. Conduct these studies as often as possible so you can tie any changes in the trust and relationship scores to actual actions you may have taken.

The Ultimate Measure: Votes

There's a ton of great data in any set of election results. The challenge is to use it to make more informed decisions. When I ran for town council here in Durham five years ago, I knew that my efforts to go door-to-door in specific communities paid off since the number of votes I received from those communities far exceeded my expectations. I also knew that my signage (bright purple and white with the slogan "No Paine, No Gain") was successful since I had the highest name recognition, and ultimately the highest vote count of all the candidates.

In larger elections, there's far more granular data to be gathered, and much of it is readily available online. Using this data you can frequently identify the specific areas or pockets or demographics you've targeted and thus measure your success in getting those groups to vote and/or vote your program or candidate.