Comments on: Hammer Says “Analytics Time”

By: One To Watch Out For: Rebecca Denison | Waxing UnLyrical

One To Watch Out For: Rebecca Denison | Waxing UnLyrical — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:08:38 +0000

[...] from Rebecca on some pretty cool blogs, including those of Lauren Fernandez, Mark Schaefer and Heather Whaling. Oh, and on her own as well (highly [...]

By: Eric Schwartzman

Eric Schwartzman — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 06:59:46 +0000

Heather, No argument. I never said AVEs would emerge as an accepted standard, just that Mark made a pretty argument for them, and frankly, it's the first good argument for them I've heard, that's all.

By: heatherwhaling

heatherwhaling — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 22:33:14 +0000

Eric, thanks for sharing. I'll be sure to check out PRSA's suggestions. Keeping in mind that I haven't listened to the podcast, AVE seems like such an inexact science — I find it hard to believe that it will emerge out of this as the accepted standard. I know firms who take the rate, inflate it, add “dollars” for front page placement vs. interior pages, etc. There's an awful lot of number fudging that occurs. That said, I'm interested to hear his arguments. So, thanks again for reading and sharing!

By: Chuck Hemann

Chuck Hemann — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 22:30:20 +0000

Mary – I think separating social and traditional media measurement is the way to go. There's some overlap, for sure, but I don't care (necessarily) about eyeballs in social media. To some degree, traditional media still cares. There's no real “engagement” metric for traditional media, but that's a critical part of the social media equation.

We'll see where the commission ends, but at the moment all we can say is that the right people are behind it.

By: Chuck Hemann

Chuck Hemann — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 22:27:35 +0000

Hi, Eric – Mark does make some valid points when it comes to AVE's, but quite frankly, the measurement industry is really against him in that regard. I would assume that AVEs will not be part of the recommendations going forward, but thats just my assumption.

By: Eric Schwartzman

Eric Schwartzman — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 21:52:54 +0000

It is possible, and it is happening. PRSA sponsored a measurement working group to but together an "elevator pitch" deck to help public relations practitioners communicate the value of PR through number. You can access a link to it in the show note of a podcast I just uploaded with Mark Weiner of PRIME Research, who was a member of the working group. Interestingly enough, Mark makes a pretty argument for the pros of advertising value equivalency, which I had thought was a complete joke, until I heard him explain why they work for some people. Social media measurement is the next frontier, but the questions remains, how do you possibly listen to a veritable avalanche of social media in real time without artificial intelligence?

By: Mike Schaffer

Mike Schaffer — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:00:26 +0000

First and foremost, kudos to incorporation Hammer into a blog post! I've done some work with him over the years and he is a really good guy.

I think the best way to measure social media results is to work backwards. What is your goal, short term and long term? If you achieved that goal or those goals, then it was successful.

Is it awareness, chatter, sales, page hits, attendance?

When it comes to valuing the hits, that will honestly be difficult. Value in traditional media is based on various formulas - all of which include impressions. Should we ask bloggers what their average weekly pageviews? Is something on TMZ more valuable than MSNBC?

What I'm getting at is the weight of each hit. Daily newspaper is worth more than weekly newspaper. How does that translate into the Internet world?

Perhaps there should be an independent panel that assigns "grades" to all websites, and that grade is what's used to calculate value. As sites gain traction, they move up a grade, thus, making their content more valuable.

By: heatherwhaling

heatherwhaling — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:38:22 +0000

Hopefully, PRSA will ban on ad equivalency reports

To answer your question about whether we need separate standards for online and off: I'm not actually sure. I probably need to spend more time thinking this over, but how one measures grassroots efforts, traditional media outreach, community relations, etc is probably very different than how one would measure outcomes generated by participating in social media.

Additionally, social media is more than a PR tool. For example, I'm not sure that PR-oriented metrics would help Dell — or a local coffee shop — measure customer service delivered online. As such, should social media measurement be broader than PR measurement? I need to think about that one.

By: seanwilliams

seanwilliams — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:29:26 +0000

And, Mary, the Institute for PR Measurement Commission (of which I am a member) has been on the vanguard of this issue for some time. Several Commission members are part of PRSA's effort — very encouraging!

By: marydemingbarber

marydemingbarber — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:51:03 +0000

Heather, I think this is a good discussion but also want to be sure folks realize that PRSA has a group that's working to generate some measurement standards that I believe will also include measurement of social media. The group who's working on the project certainly includes some of the measurement gurus in our industry. My thought is that we need to agree on public relations measurement with social media guidelines included as a component within those. I'm not sure we need a separate set of guidelines for social media but I could be wrong. Thoughts?

Information about PRSA's initiative: http://media.prsa.org/article_display.cfm?artic...