What Counts as a Media "Hit"? -- The New PR Measurement Standards

(This post is an excerpt from an earlier Measurement Standard post "The State of Measurement Standards January 2013: It’s a Bridge, it’s a Bridge!" It is provided here to provide a quick way for readers to find standards on what items should be included in analyses. See the earlier post for more background, detail, and standards.)

The Coalition has released two standards-setting papers for the PR industry. The first, “Proposed Interim Standards for Metrics in Traditional Media Analysis," by Marianne Eisenmann, offers recommendations for how to calculate some of the most commonly debated data points in traditional media analysis. 

The paper proposes standard definitions for assessing the quality of media coverage including visuals, placement, prominence, message penetration, and spokesperson effectiveness. And it reiterates that AVEs should not be used as a measure of media.

Items for Analysis: What Counts as a Media "Hit"? 

A story counts only if it has passed through some form of “editorial filter,” i.e., a person has made a decision to run or not run the story. An item is:

• An article in print media (e.g., The New York Times).
• Newswire stories from organizations such as Dow Jones, Reuters, and AP. If the wire story is updated multiple times in one day, only count the story once in a 24-hour period using the latest, most updated version.
• An article in the online version of print media (e.g. nytimes.com).
• An article in an online publication (huffingtonpost.com).
• A broadcast segment (TV or radio). In the case of a broadcast segment that repeats during the day, each segment should be counted as an item because audiences change during the day. For example, a story broadcast at 1:00 PM, 2:00 PM, and 6:00 PM on cable TV news counts as three items.
• A news item on the website of a broadcast channel or station.
• A blog post (e.g. ,WSJ Health blog, GigaOm.com, etc.).
• An analyst report.
• A microblog post, e.g., a Tweet.
• A post to a forum or discussion group.
• A video segment on YouTube or other video sharing sites.
• A photo on a photo sharing site.
• A comment on a blog post, online news story, or other online item.
• Reprints or syndication: Each appearance counts as a hit because they appear in unique, individual media titles with different readerships.
• Company bylined features count as an article.

What does not count?

• Press release pickups generated through "controlled vehicles," such as posting a story on PR Newswire or Business Newswire
• Pay per post items
• Paid bloggers
• Public broadcast underwriting

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Please note: We encourage you to comment on these developing standards. However, we suggest you go to the IPR site and read the entire paper first, then post your comment there.

 

Comments

[Hhawk]

The document states, "OTS must be specific to a particular channel. I completely agree with that.

The document further in the same paragraph states, “For Facebook it is the number of fans to a page."

In shortly engagement will increase OTS beyond the number of fans by drawing from the Friends of Fans “network. Further, paid promotion on Facebook will greatly increase the OTS and provide (beyond the paid OTS) a natural organic viral spread of the message which is 100% EARNED; thus the OTS shouldn't be limited to just the number of Fans.

Here are my thoughts in more detail.

Limiting OTS (on facebook) to fans of a page is fundamentally flawed, albeit easy to compute. There are several reasons why this is flawed, but primarily three major considerations which impact OTS on Facebook. The first issue is the percent/dollar value (if any) of paid promotion. The second reason is the impact of EdgeRank. Thirdly, there is the complex relationship on Facebook of engagement, EdgeRank and OTS

This third issue is highly complex. A fan page with 5700 fans may have a "friends of fan" network of more than 1.6 million people. Depending on if, how or when promotion is paid for and depending on who and how fans engage with the page depends on how many people EdgeRank will allow to see the post. If we are looking for a true baseline of OTS and need a simple easy to compute number the Friends of Fans is far more accurate, although harder to achieve.

The point is just because a page has a 1 Million Fans doesn't mean there is 1 Million OTS; it could be far higher (because of high engagement and the Friends of Fans “network” or lower (because of low engagement and Edgerank). To be fair no matter how good the engagement EdgeRank is always going to limit OTS.

Understanding that PR measurement is trying to measure Earned media, we have to understand that Facebook is an amalgamation of Earned, Owned, Paid media, and as in the real world each of these influences each other.

Facebook breaks out impressions, reach, and many other metrics on a post by post basis. It is my belief that an easy to compute but complex ratio of these metrics including the number of people in the Friends of Fans “network” would yield a far more accurate measurement of OTS on Facebook fan page.

Assuming that a page has at least the average PTAT ratio of 2%, implying a basis level of engagement; the true OTS for a post is in far excess the total number of Fans, even though EdgeRank may simultaneously prevent many of the fans from seeing the post.

PS
I have clients with PTAT that range from 10-50%

PPS
Paid promotion on Facebook will greatly increase the OTS and provide (beyond the paid OTS) a natural organic viral spread of the message which is EARNED; that needs to be measured.

[Bill Paarlberg]

HHawk: Thanks for your comment. I encourage you to post your comment on the IPR site, with all the other comments on that paper: http://tinyurl.com/73apvpp .

Bill Paarlberg, editor