| July
6
MEASUREMENT
MISTAKES
 How
To Really Mess Up Your PR Measurement Program
Ten
fatal PR research mistakes and how to avoid them.
Despite
the best laid plans, public relations measurement programs can sometimes
go
awry. Unforeseen problems and errors can creep in and
part of your job is to figure out how to get the job done anyway. But there
are certain errors your program just won't survive. Some mistakes will
leave
you with no options but to learn an expensive lesson and to start over.
Here's ten fatal research errors that now you
won't have to learn about the hard way (and, yes, these will be
on the exam)...
July
5
CAN
THIS REPUTATION BE SAVED?
 Unmade
In China
Brand
China's reputation has cracked and may stay broken for a while.
A
recent series of disastrous revelations--including slave
labor, contaminated pet
food, seafood and toothpaste,
salmonella in spices and poor
quality tires--have seriously damaged China's reputation.
We doubt that it will improve any time soon because of how
China has responded, mostly with denials, limited facts and
inaction...
July
5
THE
MEASUREMENT MAVEN AND MENACE OF THE MONTH AWARDS
The Maven:
 Michael
Hakkert
Senior
Director of Corporate Communications, Juniper Networks, Inc.
Michael
Hakkert has been using PR measurement to make better decisions for
more than a decade now. First at Cisco and now at Juniper
Networks,
Hakkert has always demanded the highest quality objective research... The
Menace:
 Companies
That Do Fake Social Media Measurement
This
month our Menace Award goes out to all the upstart wannabes who
have jumped on the social media measurement bandwagon, but who
have little insight or experience to offer. I'm not going to
name names, but there are a host of new players claiming to measure
social media, when in fact all they are really doing is monitoring
and categorizing the news and producing some sexy charts. Measurement
means more than just data, it means applying insight and experience
to the right data...
July
1
MEASUREMENT
TIP OF THE MONTH
Using
Ad Data To Estimate PR's Contribution to Sales
If
your consumer company or organization has an ongoing ad budget,
you can probably figure out how much media exposure is necessary
to generate a certain number of sales or responses. Use
that ad-related information on your PR impressions and you'll get
a crude estimate of PR's contribution to sales...
June
30
MEASUREMENT
STRATEGY
 How
To Measure PR's Impact on Travel and Tourism
Your six-step passport to success.
The
good news about travel and tourism PR is that it is highly measurable.
The bad news is that almost everyone does it wrong.... June
29
JIM
MACNAMARA'S "MEASURING UP"
 Two
Keys to Better Sponsorship Measurement
Be clear on your objectives, and measure
outputs, outtakes and outcomes.
Sponsorships
are deserving of particular measurement attention as
many involve large budgets, often in the millions of dollars. Added
to cash contributions is expenditure on support materials and often
large amounts of staff time. In fact, some sponsorship experts recommend
multiplying the cash outlay for sponsorships by two to calculate
the total cost
to a sponsor. So how
should we measure sponsorships? Like other corporate and marketing
communications, the number
one measurement rule applies: Set clear objectives and measure against
them...
May
31
THE
PAINE OF MEASUREMENT
 Why
Measure Eyeballs When You Can Measure Friends?
The
latest
news is the work the IAB is doing to make the "numbers" agree
between the two leading eyeball counters comScore and Nielsen//NetRatings.
By the time they get those
guys to agree, the concept of counting eyeballs will be obsolete. Whether
it's on LinkedIn, MyRagan, Twitter or MySpace,
the new measure of success is popularity...
May
31
MEASUREMENT
TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES
 Your
Quick and Easy Guide to Measuring
Social Media...
...including three critical
questions, 12 typical answers and 17 metrics you can use to
gauge your success.
We've
made it easy for you to get started measuring social media. Just
choose from the multiple choice answers below
and use the metric(s) listed. And what if you
don't know how to actually gather the data for those metrics? Well,
first look through The Measurement
Standard back issues to
see what you can find. Then, if that doesn't help, write
to Katie Paine and ask her how to do it...
May
31
ASK DR. PAINE
Four
Quick Questions On Measuring Social Media:
Digg, RSS, Twitter and
Second Life
 - How
do I measure Digg and other
aggregators?
- How
do I measure RSS
feeds?
- Do
I need to pay attention to Twitter?
- Do
I need an island in Second
Life?
May
9
CAN
THIS REPUTATION BE SAVED?
 The
Public Relations Profession
Always look on the bright
side.
Here
at The Measurement Standard we often ask whether or
not PR's reputation can be saved. After all, what better PR measurement
than the reputation of the profession itself? Almost invariably
our answer is a definitive "Maybe." Today, the answer
is still the same, but even more definitively...
May
20
JENNY
SCHADE'S MAKING IT COUNT
 The
Lure of Being "Just a Little Bit Bad"
How to Avoid the Seven Deadly Sins of Research
The
research business can be precarious at times. Studies have to be
completed at
breakneck speed, clients push for particular outcomes and trendy colleagues
promote the latest fads. Or perhaps it's difficult to muster enthusiasm
for yet another presentation. In
such situations, it is critical to avoid the lure of being "just
a little bit bad" and conducting mediocre research. Following
are Jenny Schade's Seven Deadly Sins of Research...
May
9
THE
MEASUREMENT MAVEN OF THE MONTH
 Mazen
Nahawi
Mazen
Nahawi,
Managing
Director, Media Watch ME, is
a former PR pro turned measurement guru in the Middle East. Frustrated
with the lack of measurement tools, Nahawi created Media
Watch ME in 2001.
He has since gone on to create a PR newsletter for the Middle East,
PR 360, to spread the word about measurement, ethics in PR and other
urgent topics of the day. His
latest coup was the first ever Middle Eastern Measurement Summit...
May
9
THE
MEASUREMENT MENACES OF THE MONTH
and
For
years we've heard about
how Nielsen//NetRatings and comScore provide
the most reliable audience
figures for websites and
online media.
Today we find out courtesy
of Interactive Advertising
Bureau that their
methodologies are out of
date and their numbers
do not reflect reality...
The Measurement
Standard publishes articles on public relations measurement, public relations
research, public relations effectiveness and related topics.
|
|
 Great
Minds on Measurement
 "The
only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my
measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old
measurements and expect me to fit them."
-George
Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
From
Our Blog Edition:
July
11:
Is
Anyone Measuring Wikipedia?
The other day I was reading The
New York Times about Wikipedia, and was
astounded to learn -- among other cool things -- about how much
traffic the site gets: one out of every 200 page views on the Internet.
It's got to be the biggest social media site, right?
And so I was wondering if anybody was measuring it, maybe keeping an
eye on it for their clients or themselves... Read
more on this in The Measurement Standard: Blog Edition.
June
23:
Jeremiah Owyang on How To Measure Your Social Media Program
Our Measurement Standard articles and
blog posts on social media measurement have been some of our most popular,
so it's obvious that readers are
eager to learn more. If you are one of those readers, then don't miss
Jeremiah
Owyang's bang-up little piece on the topic.
June
8:
The Blog Divide:
Just how far away is the blogosphere from everywhere else?
And how could we measure the distance?
This
morning, Katie Paine wrote me that she's noticed a Blog Divide between people
who read blogs and people who don't. She's not the first to come up
with this idea: Matthew Stibbe mentioned
it over a year ago (in a slightly
different context, but close enough). And probably there have been others who
wrote about this, but that Google couldn't find. There, see what I mean? If
the mention had been in print, Google wouldn't know about it. Separate worlds,
I'm telling you... Read
more on this in The Measurement Standard: Blog Edition.
May
31:
Variability of Human Judgements Illustrated by US Immigration Courts:
Does your media analysis vendor do intercoder reliability assessment?
Today's NYTimes has an
article about the huge disparities in U.S. immigration
courts, with some surprising data on how widely asylum decisions vary between
court locations and between judges within the same court.
We mention this here as a warning to those who do PR measurement and depend on
human judgements for their data or analysis... Read
more on this in The Measurement Standard: Blog Edition.
May
17:
Trying To Get Pregnant? Conception Date Affects Baby's Future Academic
Achievement
Hey, I know we're mostly about PR measurement here, but I couldn't
resist passing on this intriguing research result: "Conception
date affects baby's future academic achievement."
May
17:
Cliche Finder:
Your
Platitudes On A Platter
We can't resist measurement that evaluates one's own writing. In case
you haven't run across this fun and useful banality banishment tool,
take a quick look at Cliche Finder. Just copy in your copy and, quicker
than you can spell "hackneyed," your trite text is revealed! Read
more on this in The Measurement Standard: Blog Edition.
Measurement
Blog Action To Check
In On:
To find
recent blog mentions of "PR measurement," go
to technorati.com.
Hey, we've done it for you already, just
click here!
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.
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