October 16, 2011, Durham, NH —For the first time in history, representatives from more than a dozen associations and representing nearly 40,000 individual members will meet next week in Durham, NH to discuss progress towards establishing social media measurement standards. They will be joined by research providers, advertisers and communications agencies at the first “Social Media Measurement Standards Conclave” at the home of Katie Delahaye Paine, CEO of KDPaine & Partners on October 24th& 25th. The goal of the meeting is to share programs and progress that the participating organizations are making towards standards for measuring social media. A major outcome of the Conclave is expected to be detailed documentation of what is currently underway, and what work still need to be done.
“After witnessing first hand all the client confusion, then getting multiple press releases from multiple groups announcing the latest social media measurement standards, it occurred to me that many of these organizations have never even met or talked to each other,” explained Paine. “I had this On Golden Pond moment of wondering why we couldn’t 'all just get along.' So I offered to feed them lobster, wine (and perhaps some presidential candidate spotting) if they’d come to New Hampshire and talk to one another. It worked,” Paine explained.
The Conclave follows the formation by the Institute for Public Relations (IPR) the Council of Public Relations Firms (CPRF) and the Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC), of a committee to work on social media measurement standards for earned media. As of this writing, confirmed participants in “The Conclave” will include representatives from AMEC, CPRF, IPR, The International Association of Business Communicators, (IABC), Public Relations Society of Ameri THE ca (PRSA), Society for New Communications Research (SNCR) , Web Analytics Association (WAA), Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) as well as Procter & Gamble, SAS and Thomson Reuters.
“The participation around this table of trade and industry associations as well as advertisers, agencies and research providers indicates both the pressing need for social media standards and the willingness and interests of different groups to come together to share what they are doing,” said Paine.
About KDPaine & Partners
KDPaine & Partners is a New Hampshire-based consultancy that provides plans, products, and services that help PR, public affairs, and marketing professionals measure their success and make better, more informed decisions for their organizations. For more information about KDPaine & Partners, go to http://www.kdpaine.com.
Paige Wesley is the vice president of marketing and communications for the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) and oversees IABC's multi-media efforts and communications with professional business communicators. Paige's 30 years in marketing and communications has been focused primarily in the professional membership arena, working for both global and north american membership associations, including the San Francisco Symphony, Florist Transworld Delivery (FTD), the American Speech-Language Hearing Association and the National Association of State Universities. While employed at IABC for the past 18 months, Paige has implemented a social media measurement program using such measurement tools as Radien 6 and Marketwire/Sysomos, Google Analytics and others. Paige has recently undertaken a communications audit for IABC with the goal of creating an association wide effort toward streamlining key messaging and applying strategic measurement across all communications.
Awhile back I wrote a blog post about all the various groups that are working on "Social Media Standards" and invited people to join in a conclave in New Hampshire in October and promised to fuel the discussion with plenty of good wine and lobsters. A number of you have responded and now it is time to formalize the agenda and details.
The conclave is open to representatives of any organization that is active in setting industry standards and that has a committee or initiative involved in setting social media measurement standards. We have confirmed participation by representatives from WAA, SNCR, IPR, IABC, CIPR, and CPRF. We are also inviting representatives from the client side who have already made progress in establishing standards for the industry including firms such as Procter & Gamble and Coca Cola. We will need to finalize the attendee list by September 15.