Nov 2
MEASUREMENT CASE STUDY
The ASPCA Uses Web Traffic
to Connect Press Coverage and Donations
Shonali Burke, Vice President, Media & Communications at the ASPCA, is a true measurement maven. (In fact, we chose her for our Measurement Maven of the Month Award in August of 2006.) She loves data and uses it wisely to make better decisions. In short, she's the perfect client. And when the perfect client also has terrific results, it's a story worth sharing...

Nov 1
THE PAINE OF MEASUREMENT
Make Good Choices
No one says you have to measure every public relations medium on the planet.
When my cousin Caleb was into his "terrible twos" and heading for trouble, his father, who stands an imposing 6 feet 3 inches tall, would look down at him and say in his deep baritone: "CALEB, MAKE GOOD CHOICES." Invariably, Caleb would stop what he was doing, think for a minute, and then modify his behavior accordingly. Oh, that public relations people had such good survival skills. Sadly, they tend to keep doing the bad stuff rather than embracing the good. Four years ago, a member of the audience at a conference on new media raised his hand and said, "l don't have time to deal with all this on-line stuff, I'm too busy as it is." I wonder how many public relations people in the 30's and 40's said the same thing about radio and television...

Nov 1
CAN THIS REPUTATION BE SAVED?
Ellen DeGeneres
Still in the doghouse?
It all started so simply. Who'd a thunk that adopting a cute puppy from a local shelter could potentially destroy a reputation and a career? But naturally, it's a bit more complicated. When Ellen DeGeneres' significant other Portia de Rossi adopted a Brussels Griffon mix terrier from Mutts and Moms, a nonprofit rescue organization, she signed all the standard paperwork. She should have read it a bit more closely...

Nov 1
MEASURING ENGAGEMENT
Three Approaches to Measuring Customer Engagement
Whether you're considering engagement with your blog, your brand, or as the result of a relationship, there are ways to measure it.
There's been a lot of talk of late about measuring customer engagement, most of which is music to my ears. The less we focus on HITS (How Idiots Track Success) and the more we focus on the customer, the better we can all do our jobs. Measuring engagement necessitates following the actions and desires of the customer. It doesn't matter what media he or she consumes, it matters what they do with the information once they've gotten it...

Oct 31
EDUCATING THE PUBLIC RELATIONS MEASUREMENT MAVENS OF TOMORROW
KDPaine & Partners' DIY Dashboard Gift
Helps Students Learn Measurement
Research program moves undergrad public relations students from the classroom to the field.
by Peter Kowalski, KDPaine & Partners. Students at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication are learning about public relations measurement in a new program that is one of the first of its kind. Led by assistant professor Craig Carroll, almost 100 introductory PR students have been tasked with the design and execution of measurement programs for eighteen non-profit organizations. The projects use media measurement technology provided by CustomScoop and KDPaine & Partners in a $500,000 gift in kind to the school that help students collect, analyze and report on press coverage...

Oct 25
JIM MACNAMARA'S MEASURING UP
Media Analysis Shows Companies Need to Set
and Achieve Measurable Climate Change Goals
Environmental performance will be a key driver of reputation.
A major new study of public debate and discussion on energy completed by my company, Media Monitors – CARMA Asia Pacific, presents some important warnings and advice for companies, organizations and governments and concludes that environmental performance is likely to increasingly be a key driver of reputation. We used content analysis to examine statements and commentary by organizations, spokespersons and consumers in leading mainstream media and blogs in Australia and major Asian countries including China, Hong Kong and Singapore...

Oct 1
RELATIONSHIP MEASUREMENT TECHNIQUES
New Book on How to Measure Relationships
Now in Final Proofing and Available for Download at No Charge
"Measuring Public Relationships" by Katie Delahaye Paine is a practical guide to hands-on public relations measurement.
As public relations professionals realize, PR measurement is a multi-disciplinary combination of communications, research and statistical methods, social psychology, and office politics. Katie Paine's new book adds the study of human relationships to the mix—a theme that’s always been present, but that is now far more accessible thanks to the recent development of practical survey techniques for measuring relationships. Katie's book is now almost ready to be printed, and interested readers can download it as a pdf file here.

Sept 21
PUBLIC RELATIONS MEASUREMENT CONFERENCE
Measurement Summit Preview
Must-see highlights of the conference,
plus, the best things to do in Portsmouth while you are there.
For the fifth fall in a row, the crème de la crème of the research, measurement and corporate communications community will be in Portsmouth NH, for the IPR's annual Summit on Measurement. We started this event as The Summit on the Future of Measurement five years ago with the idea of bringing all the measurement mavens together to find out what the future looked like. We turned it over to the IPR in 2004 and it just keeps getting better and better every year. Here are some highlights, you can find the complete agenda here. And if you'd like to start planning your extra-curricular activities, see Bill Paarlberg's list of the best non-Summit things to do...

Sept 21
TRUST AND TRANSPARENCY MEASUREMENT
Trust and Transparency Go Hand In Hand
Brad Rawlins' research shows that doing things right
isn't nearly as important as doing the right thing.
In a recent presentation at the Universidad Del Norte in Barranquilla Colombia, Dr. Rawlins outlined his findings. The overall results of the study demonstrate that transparency and trust are highly correlated, and, "one could conclude that as organizations become more transparent they will also become more trusted." Although the study was limited to employees, the results are strong enough to imply that the correlation between trust and transparency will hold for other stakeholder groups as well...

Sept 21
RELATIONSHIP MEASUREMENT CASE STUDY
Relationships Audit Reveals Precise Public Relations Weaknesses
"The client even applauded at the end of our presentation!"
by Forrest W. Anderson Until I tried it, I dismissed the idea of measuring relationships. However, I've changed my thinking since using these measures in a communications audit led by Paul Raab at Denver-based Linhart Public Relations. The relationship measures gave us unexpected insights that led to solid business and communications recommendations. The client, the National Governing Board (NGB) for a U.S. Olympic sport, even applauded at the end of our presentation! They tell us they refer to it and use it every day -- the COO actually cuts and pastes our recommendations when assigning communications tasks to staff!

Sept 21
THE MEASUREMENT MAVEN AND MENACE OF THE MONTH AWARDS
The Maven:
Brad Rawlins
Associate Department Chair, Brigham Young University
You know how they say that dogs and their owners start to look like each other after they've spent a long time together? I think that might have happened to Brad Rawlins. Not that I know what his dog looks like, but he does spend most of his time researching trust and transparency, and he looks like such a nice guy....

The Menace:
Don't get me wrong, comScore does a lot of things right, and in the past we've even nominated them for our Maven of the Month. But their latest black box introduction of the "comScore Conversational Media report" does far more harm than good...

Sept 18
THE PAINE OF MEASUREMENT
The Old Bottom Line Collides with the New Public Relations
New public relations research -- old corporate mindset.
PR people in board rooms all over are headed for a confrontation that makes recent skirmishes between presidential candidates look like scuffles in the proverbial sandbox. For years, the vast majority of organizations have been driven by a single bottom line, profit. This was relatively easy to calculate. You added up what it cost to make something, plus a bit extra for administration and overhead, then subtracted that from what you charged the customer and you had your bottom line. But life in the 21st Century is anything but simple. Recent research has demonstrated that the old bottom line is not the whole story...

Sept 10
JENNY SCHADE'S MAKING IT COUNT
Seven Steps to Ignite Employee Engagement
How to overcome data doom and gloom.
It was a dark and stormy day at the retail giant's corporate headquarters. I walked into my client's office and sensed despair. Her desk was piled high with reams of survey data, benchmark comparisons, and ominous-looking charts. "The employee survey results are in," she said glumly. "Engagement is really low – we're below the benchmark on almost every key measure. Now what do we do? It's my job to fix this!"

© 2007 KDPaine & Partners LLC, all rights reserved. Read the Masthead. Meet our Advisory Board. Look here for reprint information.

The Measurement Standard publishes articles on public relations measurement, public relations research, public relations effectiveness and related topics.

Great Minds on Measurement
"I know the price of success: dedication, hard work, and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen."
---Frank Lloyd Wright

KDPaine's Speaking Schedule
(see this page for the most up-to-date list):
-- 11/27: RG Marketing - Ragan Webinar Program: Measurement on the Cheap

KDPaine & Partners News
(see this page for the most up-to-date list)
-- KDPaine&Partners announces DIY Dashboard 3.0, more here.
-- KDPaine & Partners are winners of PR News' Platinum PR Award 2007, Research & Measurement category, more here.
-- KDPaine & Partners and CustomScoop are giving the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication database access, design capabilities and data valued at $500,000, more here.

Measurement Tip of the Month
About Coding Articles
Remember that communications professionals do not read the media like normal human beings: We are far too quick to spot a key message and are much more sensitive to reporters' opinions. Ideally, you should find a member of your target audience to analyze the media. If you're selling networks, get a network manager. If you're selling video games, find a teenager. Or, if your volume of coverage justifies it, you can use one of half a dozen automated content analysis programs such as those from Cymfony or Biz360. --From Katie Delahaye Paine's soon-to-be published book "Measuring Public Relationships." You can download a preview copy here now.

From Our Blog Edition:

Oct 22: NYTimes Article on Web Stats: Is Web Measurement Technology Stymied by Human Beings Just Being Human?
Don't miss this NYTimes article that nicely sums up the on-going Web visitor counting controversy (at least from the public's view). Makes me wonder about the reputation of public relations and of public relations measurement: Here we are congratulating ourselves on being able to measure relationships, and being able to measure trust and transparency and various other esoteric things, but we can't nail down something simple like measurement for Web visits. What's the problem? Read more here.

Oct 7: Speaking of Social Media Measurement, Jeremiah Owyang Rates His Top Five Posts
If the Social Media Measurement panel at last week's Summit got you all excited about the topic, then you will enjoy Jeremiah Owyang's approach for rating his own top five posts over the last half year.

Oct 7: Social Media Measurement, Blogging and Ego: I Think I'll Blog About What I Think About That
Thursday afternoon at the IPR Summit on Measurement there was a panel discussion entitled "How to Measure the Impact of Blogs and Other Consumer-Generated Media." Near the end of this I stood up and asked a question. The session was almost at a close, and the panel could respond only briefly on the topic. I made a point of talking to each of the panelists afterward. Our talks brought out some great points about social media measurement, blogging and ego... Read more here.

Oct 5: Photos from the 2007 IPR Summit On Measurement

Sept 24: Your Personal Wire Service Based on Your Phone Conversation?
There's an interesting article in the NY Times this morning about Pudding Media, a company that plans an Internet phone phone service that would listen in to your conversation and deliver targeted advertisements to your computer while you talk. Seems like someone could easily do a similar thing with press releases... Read more here.

Sept 17: NY Times Article on Research Difficulties
In yesterday's NY Times Magazine there's a great article by Gary Taubes on the difficulties of doing epidemiology and medical research that will interest anyone doing public relations measurement or empirical research in general... Read more here.

Check In On Measurement Blogs:
It's easy to use Technorati to search for recent blog posts on topics that interest you. We've done it with the links below (but you can enter any search string you like when you are there):
-- PR Measurement
-- Public Relations Measurement
-- Social Media Measurement

Our Back Issues are now organized by subject matter, take a look at this list:

You will need a subscription to read most of them.

You know you need to measure your results, but chances are there's never been enough money in your budget for evaluation. Until now.
KDPaine & Partners' new Do-It-Yourself Dashboard system combines a Web-based application with professional consulting to enable PR professionals to customize their own PR dashboards. Look here for more information.