Posts Tagged ‘Blog’
Friday, December 4th, 2009
The ever-excellent Don Bartholomew, MetricsMan, provides an overview of some of the Twitter applications that purport to measure “influence.” He says:
Influence is contextual not absolute. An individual may have the ability to influence certain people in specific subject areas. Authority and trust are important constituent elements of influence. Do they have the authority to speak within a particular area and are their words and deeds trusted? The notion of coming up with an influence score without context is inherently flawed. It might be interesting, but it is not actionable.
Read the post, especially if you use Twitter, but even if you don’t, much of the content can be easily extrapolated to other forms of social media. A fair number of social media “experts” are bottling measurement snake oil these days, and the rigorous concepts Don discusses are the antidote for such chicanery.
Tags: Blog, communication, communication experts, communication methods, discuss, effective communication, measurement, Public Relations, Research, Social Media, Twitter
Posted in Measurement, News Analysis, Research, Social Media, Strategy | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
One smart PR pro told me years ago that even the best road map is useless without a destination. Because so many communicators are struggling to understand the role of strategy in a world of fascinating tactics, it can seem like the universe is throwing map after map to us, shouting “you need this right now!”
When I step back from “being strategic” (quite a trick for someone once called, with some derision, “strategy boy”) it is no exaggeration to say, echoing the travel metaphor, that the best strategy is useless without an objective.
Strategic objectives need three things: 1) a benchmark. You need to look back to see where you’ve been. 2) A target. You need to look ahead and see where you’re going. 3) A time period. You need to articulate how long it’s going to take to get from where you were/are to where you want to be. If you’re missing any of those things, chances are good that you don’t have a strategic objective.
The trick is, too often, we set objectives with no clear understanding of where we are, let alone where we were. That’s where research comes in. It’s right out of PR 101 — start with research before you launch a campaign — and we find lots of reason not to do the research. Sometimes it’s related to cost, sometimes to our own skillsets. We like to think of ourselves as creative geniuses, unencumbered by such trivialities. This attitude is especially prevalent in media relations, where our relationships and seat-of-the-pants skills can mean so much in a crisis; when things go right in our activities, that can reinforce the perception that PR is art, rather than science.
Of course, our “gut” is merely the application of our accumulation of experience, both in terms of time and in terms of education. We think we know what our employees, or our customers, for example, know/think/feel about our organization, when we could remove any uncertainty with some simple research.
But, I digress — the objective-setting process is even more important when considering social media. Too many organizations are jumping in without a clear idea of what they want to accomplish. More on this topic to follow.
What about your communication planning process? Does it start with objectives?
Tags: @commammo, Blog, Communication AMMO, communication experts, communication messages, communication methods, communication vehicles, effective communication, employee, engage, evaluation, internal communication, measurement, PR measurement, Public Relations, reputation management, Research, ROI, Social Media
Posted in Measurement, Public Relations, Social Media, Strategy | 2 Comments »
Monday, November 23rd, 2009
The continuing debate over advertising value equivalency reached the pages of the New York Times 22 Nov., with a “Soapbox” piece saying Hollywood studios are cutting ad budgets and using public relations as an alternative. One anecdote:
Disney recently went so far as to develop a computer program to help it determine how much monetary value was coming from such publicity efforts. It can quickly plug in data — “Access Hollywood” had a 30-second interview with a star of “The Middle,” a new ABC comedy — and the program spits out what that same 30 seconds would cost to buy.
AVEs are a sore spot in PR circles these days. KD Paine, measurement maven extraordinaire, has campaigned against them for years as bogus figures that don’t quantify the value of media hits. The Institute for PR Measurement Commission (of which I am a member) officially condemned the practice in October, and PRSA has formed a blue-ribbon panel to address measurement generally — looking to a world without AVEs.
I believe there are certain circumstances where AVEs are useful — product publicity, for one, where features and benefits are the subject. But AVEs need to be net of cost, be based on actual charges, not simply “book rate,” and the publication has to be targeted to the specific business need. My example is Goodyear, the tire company. If they get a product review in Road and Track, it’s going to be relevant to their audience, include features and benefits, and in nearly all cases quite similar to an advertisement. What’s unaccounted for is the reader’s perception of value — AVEs are limited by an inability to include the weight of third party independence.
Look, notwithstanding this last paragraph, AVE is a bad metric 90 percent of the time, and there are other ways of evaluating media coverage that are better.
So, why does it appear that so many firms are stuck on this difficult metric? Well, AVEs are simple to understand. Here’s what it would have cost us to buy this time or this space — that’s a lot easier to grasp for a lot of people. There also is the pressure on PR agencies levered by their clients — “I understand you don’t like AVE, but I have to have a dollar figure to tell my CEO, so if you don’t give it to me, I’ll find someone who will.”
Still, I wish that more companies would stop using AVE. Oh, and that more people would understand that PR isn’t limited to publicity and press agentry. Perhaps the best reason not to use AVE is that it doesn’t measure the reputation work that represents most of what PR work is in business these days. For every stunt PR trick, there are months of quiet conversations with centers of influence, months of work on helping employees better understand their industries and organizations, and programs designed to help people grasp the significance of a company’s role in the community. There is more to our profession than being a low-cost replacement for marketing.
Tags: @commammo, Blog, Communication AMMO, communication experts, communication methods, communication vehicles, discuss, effective communication, evaluation, measurement, PR measurement, Public Relations, reputation management, ROI
Posted in Measurement, Public Relations, Research, Social Media, Strategy | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009
Several good ones:
Rich Becker — great discussion in the comments on social media concepts…
Brian Solis — Do we need to redefine “influencers?”
Chuck Hemann — What impact on social media use/adoption does organizational culture have ?
Paul Seaman — The Excellence theory says PR is about fostering relationships. Paul disagrees.
Tags: @commammo, Blog, Communication AMMO, communication experts, communication messages, communication methods, communication vehicles, effective communication, engage, evaluation, internal communication, measurement, PR measurement, Public Relations, reputation management, ROI, Social Media, transparency, Twitter
Posted in News Analysis, Public Relations, Strategy | 1 Comment »
Thursday, October 29th, 2009
“The Wall Street Journal” closes its Boston bureau. “Forbes” lays off a couple dozen this week, with rumors flying of more to come. “The New York Times” is looking for 100 buyout exits. Conde Nast shutters “Gourmet” magazine, and “Cookie,” “Elegant Bride” and “Modern Bride.” It’s a lousy time to be a journalist, eh? But what about being the PR people who pitch these pubs?
With advertising spending falling (or at least reclassifying from print to broadcast and Web), “getting media attention” in the right segments continues to be a critical element of PR activity. But the burgeoning social media market is threatening to change that calculus, if you believe the doyennes of blogs, Twitter and similar platforms. And why wouldn’t it? If we were pitching Modern Bride before, why can’t we pitch Classic Bride, Becoming Mrs. Jones, or The Broke-Ass Bride?
Does a company that makes bride dresses, or wedding catering, or domestic partnership photography have the time necessary to build relationships in social media? Or do they just need a quick ad with a special phone number that offers 20 percent off, a mention in a popular blog?
How many of us will the new behemoth integrated agencies need to help facilitate these processes? Who’s going to pay us to tell them to talk to a bride blogger in Madison, Wisc.?
This is only part of the puzzle — I have written before about the lack of independent and authoritative content in new media. Unless many of us suddenly become willing to pay a subscription fee for such content, it’s going to go away. Perhaps crowds really are wise, and not mobs. Perhaps over time, Wikipedia is more accurate than the Encyclopedia Brittanica, notwithstanding being horrifically inaccurate at the moment we need factual information, or openly manipulated.
Any of us who care about this topic will need to develop our own ability to engage in social media, build our reputation for accuracy and probity, and somehow compete with the fakers, liars, and spammers. That’s not an easy task.
Tags: @commammo, Blog, communication experts, communication messages, communication methods, communication vehicles, effective communication, evaluation, Journalism, measurement, Media Relations, PR, PR measurement, Social Media, Twitter
Posted in Measurement, Media Relations, News Analysis, Public Relations, Strategy | 5 Comments »
Friday, October 23rd, 2009
Make a note. It takes practice to handle two conferences in five days’ time. Of course, maybe my energy level would have been higher if I’d been speaking at them instead of attending one (live-Tweeting my way through a couple of days), and introducing speakers and serving as sponsorship chair at the other. Anyone who knows me will aver that I’m a fairly well-smoked ham, so being at the center of attention is exciting for me, rather than exhausting.
But the stress of pressing the flesh, talking to new people, and simultaneously trying to stay engaged in a sudden spate of potential business opportunities turned out to be rather a bit tiring. I also wondered whether the evil humours surrounding new friend Richard Bagnall and his lovely friend Marian might have attempted to seize me, but as it turns out, a couple o’nights of good sleep returned me to fit-as-a-fiddle status. Just ask my students if I lacked energy 22 October in class… Hah!
But now, devoid of excuses, I’m faced again with the ever-growing list of things to do, with ideas for a paper roaming in my head along with the still-warm and previously mentioned business opportunities. Oh, and I do need still to write a final exam and figure out what I need to do when I teach “Face to Face Tactics” at Kent State in the next semester. I also had slowed the pace of my blogging, owing to the madcap hilarity of the past couple of weeks, but accelerated the Twitter-ing at #iprms09. The social media experiment continues.
So it seems that indeed, I’m finding a bit of normalcy amid the falling leaves and gathering chill. Providence willing, I’ll soon have a fall more complicated — this time by billable hours.
Tags: @commammo, Blog, Communication AMMO, communication experts, communication messages, communication methods, communication vehicles, conference, effective communication, LinkedIn, measurement, PR measurement, Public Relations, reputation management, Research, Social Media, Twitter
Posted in Measurement, News Analysis, Research, Strategy | 1 Comment »
Monday, September 21st, 2009
Mark W. Schaefer writes a great blog, and today there is a terrific discussion there regarding the echo chamber surrounding social media’s expert class, the Chris Brogan, Brian Solis, Julien Smith, Beth Harte, Amber Naslund slate. Namely, Mark observes that we are lacking strong dissenting voices.
Obviously, there are a few people out there who are refusing to drink the social media Kool-Aid — @amandachapel the most notable. My own experience with social media as a user is putting me in the class of skeptics, not outright refuseniks, but I have been asking about the value of social media in PR and bemoaning the lack of objective, independent research to evaluate the often breathless claims of its moral superiority.
At the [grow] blog, commenter @tamadear offers this important proviso:
Nobody responds well to “You’re wrong; I’m right” dissent, to those who dwell on our weaknesses. It makes us defensive and unwilling to listen.
This is very true, and is why in virtually all of my consulting (both inside and outside organizations) I always assume that I may be wrong and use language accordingly. There are far too many pronouncements, baseless and unresearched, in all of public relations, but especially in social media. I have used the term “self-described experts” many times because I have no visibility into the qualifications of the speaker (or writer). Many of them could be literally anyone, and will even call out their lack of qualifications as a benefit of working with them. From Drudge’s refusal to be called a journalist, to Chris Brogan’s declaration that he is not in public relations, I’m often left wondering why I am supposed to regard these people as authorities.
With a tip of the cap to @amandachapel, it’s “caveat emptor” in the world of communication these days — there is big money to be made (a worthy effort that I share the desire to attain) and precious little objective information to help the consumer evaluate claims. There are also few best practices that include true outcome measurement of the sort Olivier Blanchard describes in his excellent slide show, “The definitive social media ROI presentation.” My only beef with the esteemed BrandBuilder is that such end-state ROI calculations performed without care lead to assuming that correlation equals causation. We would love to see revenue increase and expenses go down concurrent with our social media campaign, but what percentage of the improvement is due to social media and how much due to other factors, including simple continuous improvement?
This is the point of the dissent discussion — for every Olivier and Mark there are five people claiming that the action of participating in social media IS the return on investment. That’s just not going to fly, and the more the experts try to convince people otherwise, the worse off we all are. The “conversation” MAY be important — it always has been prior to all of this Web. 2.0 stuff — but aside from questionable research by the people poised to benefit the most from its findings, there simply isn’t much data at this point to declare the social media discussion closed.
What’s your view?
Tags: @amandachapel, @markwschaefer, @thebrandbuilder, Blog, communication, Communication AMMO, communication experts, communication vehicles, Cost cutting, discuss, effective communication, engage, evaluation, measurement, PR measurement, Public Relations, reputation management, Research, ROI, Social Media, Talk, Twitter
Posted in Media Relations, News Analysis, Public Relations, Social Media, Strategy | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, September 16th, 2009
Barron’s this week says that “Digital media and subscription TV are likely to see sizable gains in ad spending as a recovery gains…” A graphic shows that adverts on mobile phones and handhelds are estimated to increase by 33% from 2008-2013, Internet ads will rise more than 10% and pay TV ads by more than 7% during the period. Of course, another chart shows a “U-Shaped” curve for that spending increase, flat through next year. They don’t talk about any of the newest ad ideas though, showing that the social media revolution is still at the fringe of business consciousness regarding driving sales behavior.
Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal talked about the use of Twitter in crisis situations, sharing stories from wine guy Gary Vaynerchuk (@corkd), who got hacked by unsavory characters, and Scott Townsend from a Bartlesville, Okla.-based uniform company who tweeted after an ice storm, and a few others. I can see the application for this type of activity clearly — and I know that my Web traffic increases when I Tweet — so sharing news is great, provided you’re followed. I’ve gotten the most benefit from Twitter to simply meet people and see what others say during Twitter meetings, such as #prstudchat and #icchat. Whether this is building sufficient awareness to help me generate business, I have no clue! Heaven knows I spent enough time Twitter-ing today.
Tuesday at Kent State, the class I’m teaching got into the community theory of PR being advanced by Dr. Dean Kruckeberg of University of Northern Iowa. Fascinating discussion ensued as we investigated the implications of the theory, which holds that organizations are part of society and therefore owe society as a member of its community. I’m too new to this academic stuff, but this challenges me — I tend to be a garden variety capitalist, believing that a company’s only logical responsibility is to its owners, its purpose to make money lawfully. I need to think about this a while…
Tags: @commammo, Blog, communication, Communication AMMO, communication experts, communication messages, communication vehicles, effective communication, employee, evaluation, Facebook, internal communication, Journalism, measurement, PR measurement, Public Relations, reputation management, Social Media, Twitter
Posted in News Analysis, Public Relations, Social Media, Strategy | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, September 9th, 2009
Following a long weekend of being unplugged in the lush green hills of Pennsylvania, I came home with real work to do — an excellent lunch with a colleague, a great meeting with a prospective client and then teaching the third day of class at Kent State. The rest of the week includes a client meeting, a group meeting with another prospective client and the arrival of a friend from out of town, plus a panel discussion with PRSA Akron and teaching. When exactly do I have time to blog or tweet?
I confess that I am wondering about the value of social media — it requires a significant time commitment (especially if one wants to be helpful by finding interesting posts and tweeting them out rather than just trumpeting one’s latest personal ruminations.) I know that this same question, from the reader’s perspective, is being asked in companies all around the country (at least…) I see great value in establishing connections, using the social media tools as a part of an overall outreach strategy, but thus far I’m not certain of the marketing value, perhaps because it’s been such a short time since I launched Communication AMMO.
There is no doubt that making personal connections with prospective clients will require employing other tools — I’ll attend the Institute for PR Summit on Measurement next month, as well as the IABC Heritage Region Conference here in Cleveland in hopes of broadening my business network. But with most of my Twitter followers being consultants and providers, and my blog readers coming mostly from my existing network, the need to expand beyond social media is readily apparent. Where are the clients? Are they not using these tools?
What’s your view?
Tags: @commammo, Blog, communication, Communication AMMO, communication experts, communication messages, communication vehicles, effective communication, employee, evaluation, Facebook, internal communication, Journalism, measurement, PR measurement, Public Relations, reputation management, Social Media, Twitter
Posted in Social Media, Strategy | 6 Comments »
Thursday, August 27th, 2009
Forrest Anderson, ace researcher and stakeholder relationship expert, writes in a recent blog post that organizations need to ensure they have clear strategic objectives in place before launching a social media campaign. Otherwise, he says, “social media is a tactic in search of a strategy.”
Forrest is a founding member of and a colleague on the Institute for PR Measurement Commission, so evaluating the effectiveness of PR campaigns is part of his business foundation. His statement brings to mind a similar sentiment I read just yesterday from Terry Morawski, who blogs at TMo’s Garage:
Companies used to desperately need a web site, but they weren’t sure why. Today, companies want a social media presence, but they aren’t sure why.
Strategy answers the why!
Social media has been an experiment for me these past few months, and one thing I have gained is access to new thinking, new perspectives and new people. Twitter helped me discover professional colleagues I didn’t know existed. My blog has been a source of fascinating idea exchange. But I still am not sure whether these personal satisfactions are helping my nascent business.
One reason for that is likely that I haven’t established key performance indicators — specific objectives against which to evaluate my social media activities.
Looks like I’ve got some work to do.
Tags: @commammo, @forrestanderson, @michelleipr, @morate, Blog, Communication AMMO, communication experts, communication methods, communication vehicles, effective communication, Forrest Anderson, measurement, objectives, PR measurement, Public Relations, reputation management, Social Media, strategy, Terry Morawski, TMo's Garage, Twitter
Posted in News Analysis, Social Media, Strategy | Comments Off
