Posts Tagged ‘communication messages’

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Measurement Crucial to PR’s Business Value

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

My learned Australian colleague Geoff Barbaro waxes rant in a post from 17 May (US time), where he inveighs against measurement.  Perhaps not the concept, as much as the practice. He asks:

Do you measure how you look after your family? Do you count the meals, the trips to school, the time spent with children to evaluate effectiveness? When you buy that great new dress or suit that you love, did you then sit down and work through complex metrics to measure what you did?

So why do you think it’s different in business? I’ll tell you why, it’s because you don’t trust people to do the job you employed them to do. You don’t believe they are motivated and care about their work, so you can only make sure they are working by measuring what they do, and then argue that this is the motivational tool. Measuring because “we do what we measure” is a failure of leadership, a failure of motivation, a failure of selection, a failure to define values, a failure of engagement and a failure of communication.

Sorry, Geoff, but this is fuzzy-headed thinking about a vital enhancement to the profession of Public Relations.

I started a comment on Geoff’s blog (a fine and interesting read, btw), but found that it was all too likely that I’d hijack it. And that’s not right. So, here is my reply to Geoff’s shot across the bow. Man the torpedos!

========================

Oh, my. Nothing like an existential rant to get one’s blood up, eh Geoff?

Let’s start by differentiating terms. Measurement isn’t gotcha. It’s not “check-up-on-the-poor-employees.” Neither is it merely about outputs or activities, at least not when it’s strategic.

We in PR have long been the only department in a firm that can say to the C-suite, “trust me” and get away with it. The question on the CEO (and CFO, especially) mind these days, however, is, “What business value do I get for my investment in PR?”

We can take a SWAG (stupid, wild-assed guess) at the answer, but then we sound like witless weasels (um, we build reputation and protect…uh, no, uh, we get media coverage…no, uh, we help the organization communicate effectively, wait, ummmm.)

The fact is that most of us don’t have a clue what the quantifiable business value of PR is, and that’s why PRSA has commissioned a task force to work on that very question. It’s also one of the driving forces in modern PR. It’s created an industry specialty that people are finding value in, even though there is much sophistry and bad measurement out there.

In modern business, every department must contribute to the bottom line. So, direct sales and the support for sales is a winner, as is direct effort to improve efficiency, save money, etc. There’s also credible research about the effect on brand awareness, attitude and disposition of various PR activity. On the internal side, engagement metrics, and employee knowledge and behavioral metrics lend credence to a communicator’s value.

The trick is to a) Measure what matters; and b) Link communication outputs to business outcomes. This is, indeed, a hairy process, filled with risks — bad math the most prevalent, if you ask me.  Correlation is not causation, but frequently it’s a pretty good stand-in for it, if your math is good.  We mustn’t give up on the goal of establishing impact metrics and ROI just because it’s so much easier if we don’t!

I don’t know, Geoff, if I agree that “what gets measured gets done,” but I’m sure that if you can’t measure it you can’t manage it.

Cheers,

Sean

@commammo

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Posted in Measurement, Public Relations, Strategy | 7 Comments »

Big Banks Get Whipped: 2008 News Coverage

Monday, April 26th, 2010

Think back two years. The financial crisis hit its gallop around this time in 2008, when the U.S. government sold Bear Stearns to JP Morgan Chase before its wrecked hull could breach and take the global economy down to Davy Jones’ Locker.  But that was just the beginning of a wicked huge bear market brought on by inflated real estate prices, preposterous mortgage loans, complicated and unregulated investment vehicles, and a collapse in confidence by everyone from global investors to your local school custodian.

Those of us who watched from a courtside seat (and wished we were in the bleachers, one bank CEO said) remember it all too well.

That’s why I thought twice about hearing University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill’s David Remund, a doctoral student, present his paper, “Crisis of Confidence: News Coverage of America’s Largest Banks During the 2008 Financial Crisis” at the 13th Annual International PR Research Conference.

Remund did a content analysis of news releases and national and local newspaper coverage of the 10 largest American banks for the second half of 2008, looking for some kind of systemic understanding about how these banks used crisis communication techniques to spray some pain-killer on the daily parade of negative information marching down Main Street.

Two crisis communication theories applied: Image Restoration Theory, which holds that if you’re at fault, you admit it and share the steps you’re taking to address the situation and prevent it from recurring. Situational Crisis Communications Theory says that you need to show concern for people who’ve been hurt by your crisis. Remund’s hypotheses offered that banks that acknowledged the financial crisis and showed concern for consumers in their media relations efforts would enjoy a higher proportion of confidence-building news coverage as a results.

Whoops. Remund’s findings were the exact opposite, with neither hypothesis supported.

Instead, the media pretty much held that banks’ actions contributed to the financial crisis, and the quietest banks got the greater proportion of positive coverage.  So, what happened?

As I wrote in my own research covering one company, the crisis had so many contributing factors, was so broad and so extensive that we got to the point where facts and data simply didn’t matter. It was a mob, running headlong down the street screaming, “Run! Run!” Everybody had to run, even as they asked what what happening. Secondly, Remund’s research drew from a rather small batch of news outlets and from only the largest banks.

Finally, by the third quarter of 2008, the news media wasn’t about to trust pretty much anything that banks had to say. Washington Mutual raised capital and swore up and down that it was solvent, even as its capital dwindled away toward federal seizure. Lehman Brothers didn’t think it had any problems in the summer and was dead by September. IndyMac, Countrywide, Wachovia, National City… all positioned themselves as in good shape — but what else could they say?

We PR people are always recommending the most transparent approach — the article of crisis communication faith seems to be , “Tell it first, tell it fast and tell it all.” Aside from a recent study, all the literature calls for that type of approach.  I believe it’s far more situational — once you’re in a systemic crisis that reaches past you and your world, your ability to affect its course gets a lot more difficult. Sometimes, you just have to wait it out.

The Remund study reveals more about the limits of crisis communication, than about bank public relations in a crisis.

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Posted in Media Relations, News Analysis, Public Relations, Strategy | 5 Comments »

Transparency: Always Best?

Monday, April 12th, 2010

It’s become almost a cliche. The conventional wisdom is that organizational communication requires “transparency through every aspect of corporate communications,” as Brigham Young University’s Dr. Brad Rawlins wrote in 2008. Openness, authenticity, successes and failures, ongoing discussion and abandoning the drive to maintain a perfect corporate image.  Dr. Brad’s colleagues at BYU, Dr. Rob Wakefield and Susan Walton looked into this assumption and found it wanting, according to their presentation at the 13th International Public Relations Research Conference in Miami in March.

Rob and Susan argue that there are two flaws in the practice of transparency that need to be clarified, as per the summary of their paper:

  1. Transparency often is interpreted as being completely open at all times — but there are times when it is in the best legal and moral interest of entities to not disclose, and in these times this is the most ethical stance for both organizations and their stakeholders; and
  2. Entities increasingly are self-proclaiming “transparent” communication, when investigation reveals that the claims are smokescreens to deflect actual lack of openness and honesty.

The authors conducted a series of interviews with seven senior level PR execs or consultants who work with PR leaders around the U.S., asking when, specifically, transparency is needed and good for organizations and society; when it’s better to not disclose information; and in what situations does transparency actually harm stakeholders?

I can’t do justice to Rob and Susan’s thinking in such a brief post, but in short, they learned enough to come up with an alternative to transparency — not a new theory, they hasten to say, but a different perspective: Translucency.

Something translucent lets in light, and one can see the rough outline of things, but those things aren’t entirely visible. Rob and Susan say there are four key considerations under which translucency can and should occur:

  1. Translucency is a commitment to communication to your stakeholders — not an advance commitment to what that communication will contain.
  2. Translucency occurs when credibility as already been established.
  3. Translucency might be most effective when there is reason to believe that an organization’s arguments and data are rock-solid, but not persuasive.
  4. Translucency is most effective when and organization already has put in place a process and structure for bringing greater light of information through the glass.

No one seems to want to admit that there really is a thing called “too much information.” Rob and Susan do a fine job offering a possible filter to address that problem.

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Posted in Internal Communications, Measurement, News Analysis, Public Relations, Strategy | 1 Comment »

Survey: Internal Comm Effectiveness ‘Important Concern,’ But…

Thursday, April 1st, 2010

Researchers Dr. Juan Meng of the University of Dayton (Ohio) and Dr. Bruce K. Berger of the University of Alabama cut to the chase in their research presentation at the Institute for PR International PR Research Conference. Their first finding? “Though communication effectiveness has been an important concern for organizational leaders, the assessment of communication effectiveness has not been widely applied by using business outcome metrics in organizations.” Sigh.

Meng and Berger used both the results from the 2007-2008 IABC Research Foundation/Watson Wyatt international survey of senior communicators, and a series of in-depth interviews with 13 IABC Gold Quill winners to look for process links between internal communication effectiveness and organizational financial performance.

For me, this represents a sort of Holy Grail: we internal comms experts know that our work is impactful, but have lacked the hard evidence of causality that we perceive the C-suite respects and demands. I was disappointed, yet again, though that first finding is by no means the only one.  In brief, the other five are:

  • Measuring internal comm effectiveness should be standard operating practice.
  • There’s lots of measurement going on, evaluating awareness/understanding; engagement; job performance; employee behavior, and improvement in overall business performance.
  • Everyone has good reasons why measurement isn’t as robust as it should be, and they’re the usual culprits — lack of time/money/staff and the pain of finding actual cause-and-effect toward business results.
  • The measurement approaches used are employee surveys, employee participation in communication activities and manager surveys.
  • Four valuable purposes for internal communication: Explaining/Promoting programs and policies; educating about culture and values; providing information about performance and financial objectives, and helping employees understand the business.

At Goodyear, we made great progress toward true outcome measurement for internal communications, but didn’t quite get there. We did establish a strong link between employee knowledge/comprehension, intranet use and managerial behavior, but never got the chance to take everything to the organizational performance level.

At National City Corporation (the regional bank), our focus from the first day I arrived was on external measurement, for a variety of reasons. But the internal side wasn’t ignored — we were a Gallup Q12 company, and despite the wretched economic conditions and horrific, calamitous financial performance of the company, we still topped 94% participation in the Q12.  Right until the last moment, we were using Q12 results in our planning process, as well as beginning to use editorial content more strategically. But, again, we weren’t reaching the business outcomes level of measurement.

Here’s a quote from one of Meng & Berger’s in-depth interviews:

I think the biggest challenge in measurement continues to be convincing clients to spend, not so much the money, but to spend the time. As the industry develops, I don’t have a hard time in convincing them about the validity of measurement, but they are reluctant to actually take the time away from business to actually administer surveys or focus groups or some other measurement tools.

Looks like we have to continue making those tools easier to use and more valuable, even as we continue to scale the mountain tops for the Holy Grail.

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Posted in Internal Communications, Measurement, Research, Strategy | 1 Comment »

In praise of persistence

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

Calvin Coolidge said it best:

Press on- nothing can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.

Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.

Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.

Perseverance and determination alone are omnipotent.

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Posted in Communication Skills, Internal Communications, Social Media, Strategy | Comments Off

Hooked on PR Research

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

One of the great professional pleasures of my life involves an academic conference filled to the brim with fascinating public relations research. It’s the International PR Research Conference put on by the Institute for Public Relations, and I’ve attended four of the past five years. That it’s held early in March in Miami, Fla., has NOTHING to do with it!

OK, well, it has a little bit to do with it.  The tropical breezes feel especially fine in the icy wake of February in Cleveland, and there is terrific food, shopping, pleasant walks and an excellent pool. But, other than that, it’s all business for three days.

I’ve had the good fortune to present at IPRRC twice; the first time, 2008, I presented a paper with my research pal Dr. Julie O’Neil of Texas Christian University that covered one large company’s internal communication program, focusing especially on the measurement of the work. It won an award, of which I am very proud indeed – the Jackson-Sharpe Award for research by an academic and a practitioner (I’m not the academic, or wasn’t…).

This year, I presented a work in progress, an exploratory study of corporate blogs and Twitter activities, with an eye on whether they’re demonstrating James Grunig’s Excellence Theory – are they conversations? – or other PR theories.

The idea is to see what actually IS in this space for 18 companies – the work is ongoing (frantically; the final paper is due May 1), and I was able to share a few key findings.

  1. There’s a lot of using social media as a broadcasting tool – no two-way, no evidence of symmetry (mutual change) – and persuasion, therefore, still rules.
  2. There are a couple of firms that are doing yeoman’s work and engaging in conversations – there are also seven or eight companies who’ve abandoned their blogs since December 2009.
  3. One industrial giant, interestingly, has subject matter experts blog and then engage engineers and customers in a discussion about improving the product – this is a rarity.
  4. Twitter as link-bait is quite in evidence.
  5. The Cluetrain may have left the station, but it’s creeping along a siding, not hurtling on a MagLev track.

This is hardly conclusive or particularly scientific – that’s why we call the paper exploratory. Dr. O’Neil and I have more work to do this coming month, but this paper is intended to be the first of three. Next step is a qualitative discussion with some of the people behind social media at our subject companies, followed (we hope) by a quantitative survey of users of corporate blogs and their associated Twitterverse (we’ll see; that’s going to take some cash…).

In the meanwhile, stay tuned over the next few days as I recount some of the work that impressed me the most at IPRRC this year.  Once our paper is done, we’ll share.

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Posted in Public Relations, Research | 4 Comments »

4 Steps to Improved Manager Communications

Friday, February 12th, 2010

Every manager encounters a thousand communication opportunities every day.  It’s a metaphorical statement, but you catch the drift. A thousand chances to add value; a thousand chances to screw something up. The best of them, the leaders, know what to do with those opportunities, and fortunately, it’s not a secret.

Oh, sure, there are “naturals” out there — those gifted souls whose kind and gentle nature makes them magnets for great teams and whose command of language makes them a joy to work for. But most managers aren’t naturals when it comes to communication. They need to be carefully taught.

In my work with literally thousands of managers over the years (quite shocking to have totaled them up last year…), they seem to have two big problems in communicating with their teams.

1. They think more about what they need to say than what they need to listen to, and
2. They fail to consider the audience before deciding on messages, or methods to communicate.

Some of the issue is simple education — many people become managers because of technical expertise. They’re great engineers, accountants or public relations people who get promoted. They don’t have formal training that helps them be effective managers, let alone effective communicators. They often think communication is someone else’s job, except for operational and policy matters.

Yet, they’re often harsh critics of their own bosses — middle managers seldom feel like they know what they need to know. That takes its toll, as resentment builds. Managers feel like they’re going into battle with an unloaded weapon. Pass these four methods along to fill that gap, and use them yourself!

  1. Think critically about audiences. In this case, the more specifically, the better. It’s not just “employees” — there are groups of employees with differing needs, experiences and objectives that must be considered. Apply the same discipline to the leaders above your level.  An exhaustive listing of these potential groupings will help give a firm foundation to your communication plans.
  2. Consider communication objectives in the context of business objectives. Managers should be specific about what they want employees to think, feel or do as a result of communicating with them.  Again, go through the same exercise with your own management in mind. Keep your objectives organized by audience so you can make all communications work toward those goals.
  3. Evaluate messages. Messaging isn’t limited only to information flowing from you to subordinates. Boil down and simplify to be sure your language fits precisely the objectives for your audiences. As Strunk and White wrote, “Make every word tell.” Your employees, and your boss, will thank you for taking the extra time to do so.
  4. Finally, you’re ready to consider HOW to communicate. Methods can vary from hot (face to face discussion) to cool (email, telephone) to cold (memo, letter, statement).  As you think about the first three items on this list, fit the method to the context. Think of this less from your own preferences, and more from those of your audience, given the objectives you have for them. It’s the essence of receiver-focused communication.

If there were a #5, it would read: “Start now.”

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Posted in Communication Skills, Internal Communications, Measurement, Strategy | 1 Comment »

The Measurement Debate Continues

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

The estimable Shonali Burke has started a fortnightly Twitter chat — #MeasurePR — that begun 2 February, with the equally estimable Katie Paine as first guest. I caught only the last half, which featured good discussion and the usual paroxysm over advertising value equivalency. AVE is bete noir for @KDPaine and @Shonali, who both are categorical in their condemnation of the practice. A couple of participants, however, say that there still is demand on the part of clients for AVE.

The Institute for PR Measurement Commission condemned AVE last fall, AMEC (the professional organization for media evaluation firms) has declared its intent to find a logical replacement, and a recent paper offered Weighted Media Cost as an element worthy of inclusion in measurement programming. Where does this leave us?

I have no stake in this game. My personal belief is that AVEs are bad science, but I’m also sensitive to the need to help clients. AVE is easy for a client to grasp — “if we paid for the space our story ran in, it would have cost us X.”  Katie points out that doctors won’t prescribe a medicine if it’s not right for the patient. AVE isn’t life and death — but what do we do after we’ve explained the drawbacks and negatives and the client still wants it?

I can’t help but put myself in that situation — young company, trying to latch on with a client. Do I tell the client “No. I won’t do AVE” and risk having him/her say, “Well then, I’ll go find someone who will!” ?

#MeasurePR had much more great content than this AVE nonsense, and I really do wish we could collectively move on. I’m done writing about the debate, at least for now.

Looking for a quick way to improve measurement?

Start setting objectives and measuring your attainment of them. Stop worrying about generating lots of eyeballs and do some audience research to reach the right ones. Start looking for correlations between your various communication outputs (and outtakes) and business metrics, such as revenue, cost savings, cost avoidance, time saved, help desk traffic, speed of benefits enrollment, travel system savings, expense systems savings, etc…

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Posted in Measurement, News Analysis, Public Relations, Social Media, Strategy | 8 Comments »

Effective Messaging is Not Passe

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

As much as many of our social media mavens would like to have it so, the concept of messaging isn’t going away for some time. The methods of delivery are definitely changing, but in public relations, we still have to reach people.

There’s a fashionable trend denouncing “talking at customers” as opposed to “having a conversation.” the trend is going on15 years old, at least. Social media’s recent sprouting of new tools (kind of like a Swiss Army Knife) has made me ponder whether the inexorable decline of mainstream media would lead, finally, to a lack of organizational interest in messaging.

If so, that’s bad news for the PR industry, as Marc Hausman (@StrategicGuy) wrote today.

But I still believe that as long as organizations have objectives, they’ll need messages: crafted, interesting, tailored to audience, pithy, memorable, descriptive, fascinating, thought-provoking and even wise. For that, they’ll continue to need lowly, ink-stained (er, pixel-stained?) wretches who understand the transformative power of words.

A friend once wrote that words are powerful, they create reality. Motivation, excitement, laughter, sadness — in our Western culture, we depend greatly on words.

This becomes even more important in the social media age, when everyone is a publisher, and it’s up to the individual to glean the seeds from the dirt and chaff.  There still needs to be an organizational voice carrying consistent, clear messages to stakeholders. It may be one of many (and it should be), but it needs to exist.

Marc is right — if PR firms rely totally on media relations for their enterprise, they are doomed. Or, at least, they’ll be a lot smaller than they are now. Of course, social media doesn’t scale very well — cultivating a relationship with a blogger takes as much effort as doing so with a magazine editor or a reporter — but the number of people reached is typically much lower.

Now, before the “it’s not about eyeballs” people light torches and scream for my head, let me say that until we better understand the communities we might want to reach in social media, we’re stuck with the lack of scalability complaint.  It holds us back from helping organizations see the benefits to them of social media engagement.

Once we can get a better read on the characteristics of communities, we can make the scale work — it’s not much different than looking to reach readers of a given magazine. But, we need independent data on the communities and a clear understanding of what we can expect, whether we are selling directly to them, or merely engaging them for reputation purposes.

As astonishing as the advances in technology have been over the past five years, we still have audiences and we need words to help us reach, influence, reward and interact with them. We still have objectives to attain and a business to run. And messages aren’t going away just because the means of delivering them is.

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Posted in Public Relations, Research, Social Media, Strategy | 4 Comments »

Amanda Chapel is Still Relevant, and Important

Monday, January 4th, 2010

Mark W. Schaefer’s {Grow} blog carries an interview with Web. 2.o critic Amanda Chapel this week that asks whether the acerbic commenter is still relevant.  I believe Amanda remains most relevant. The rivers of Kool-Aid flowing in social media need to be dammed (and damned) and few of us consistently do so.

I’m grateful that Amanda included me in her list of “critical thinkers” along with Kent State prof Bill Sledzik, Ike Pigott, Joel Postman and Mark; that’s high praise from an important voice.

Look, I’m a committed capitalist, so I don’t begrudge anyone from making money, in particular, people who are early adopters and make the personal investment needed to stay just ahead of the crest of a wave. A bunch of people have done so, and are making a terrific living at it.

Some of those people don’t have anything but an expertise at sales and a gift for jargon to qualify them, and that’s a big problem in social media. Consider that we don’t even have licensing for mainstream PR and marketing — and think about how much really bad advice organizations get from those professions.”

At least in PR and Marketing there are longstanding professional associations with codes of ethics, increasingly strong academic and theoretical foundations, and a body of research-based knowledge (Cutlip, Center, Broom, 10th ed., p 120) that qualify us as members of a profession. This is despite our many weaknesses, including the presence of our own charletons.

Social media isn’t even there yet, and it needs to get there soon in order to separate the wheat from the chaff. Despite worthy efforts from Institute for PR Measurement Commission colleagues Katie Paine, Don Bartholomew and a few others, we’re still working on how best to measure social media effectiveness beyond output metrics.

We need Amanda to continue to call out snake oil salespeople, foggy logic, asinine commentary and the real danger of a lost of authoritative, professional conduct in such a fast growing area of communication practice. That she does so with wit, style and occasional vulgarity keeps the stew from being too bland.

So, count on me not only to declare Amanda relevant, but for vote #3 for the return of Strumpette — 140 characters at a time isn’t enough space.

As for “her” anonymity — I have been of two minds about it, both “yea” and “nay,” especially following my rather “eventful” introduction to Amanda last year. But in the end, I don’t think it affects credibility at all and it offers the freedom to focus on the message rather than its sender.

Finally, skepticism is not negativity, as I asserted last June. We surely are not lemmings, powerless in the thrall of the “wisdom” of the crowds, are we?

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Posted in News Analysis, Public Relations, Strategy | 3 Comments »

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