Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Measurement In PR - Some Lessons Learnt From #measurePR


Few weeks back I joined a Bi-weekly chat on twitter about measuring PR (#measurePR) and I take this opportunity to thank @Shonali to introduce it to me. I’d also like to thank the few guests who I could connect with through this chat including @alanchumley, @kdpaine and @prtini who brought to the table few very interesting insights on measurement.

#measurePR helped me understand how important it is to measure your campaigns time-to-time. It also taught me the different ways to measure online/offline campaigns, the tools which can help an individual/company measure their activity in much better and quicker way.

While I understood that a sustainable practice to measure PR was the key to success, it was interesting to learn that successful measurement is about measuring the outcomes and not just the outputs. It doesn’t ends there. It is very important to analyze, implement and keep improving in order to achieve goals.

Through this chat I gathered that measurement is not just about collecting stacks of clips and showing it to the client. While the “n” number of clips might sound exciting to share with the client, but if at the end of the day, it doesn’t add value to the client’s business, it is a sheer waste. Hence, I reiterate the fact that measurement is not about stacks of clips.

Digital PR is a next step in the PR eco-system. Having said that, while the number of likes on facebook or followers on twitter is also taken as a means to measurement, at the same time it is also important to engage the target audience through such a platform to achieve better results.

These were few things I learnt through this chat and if you are reading this post, I shall see you at the next #measurePR chat on March 6th , 2012; 10:30 PM IST!

Till then, stay tuned and share your thoughts below…

5 comments:

  1. I'm glad you brought this up. Let's accept the fact that clients very result oriented.

    As far as the measurement tools are concerned, depending on what and through which platform(s) are your client reaching out to their TA;in response getting those leads for their business, would matter to them.

    For instance, some B2B clients consider Digital PR as a strong branding tool but is not considered as the best way to reach out to their TA.

    As you have stated earlier, "n" number of clips wouldn't matter unless it's coverage without a Key Message.

    Hope to get some more insights of various cases of the tools deployed on the digital front.

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  2. Thanks Manav, for sharing your thoughts. Completely agree with your point and yes of course it will be interesting to figure out the tools deployed on the digital front for measurement. Will share that with you!

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  3. Ancita, I head CARMA International in India, one of the world's foremost media content analysis companies. I was delighted to read your post and glad to see that an Indian PR professional is propagating the importance of media measurement. In fact I was recently in HK attending AMEC's first Summit on PR Measurement in Asia and discussing some of the challenges facing our industry with my peers. As aptly put the PR industry needs to move away from output to outcome measurement.

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  4. Hi Neelima, thanks for stopping by. I'm glad we echo the same sentiments. As it happens, not too many PR professionals yet understand this concept closely enough and are far away on putting to use these ideas for their clients. It would be a pleasure to meet you in person and speak more on this topic.

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  5. Thanks Rhea for sharing your views and I completely agree with you how happy the PR agency is to get the stack of coverage clips and showcase to the client. It's about time that they should realise the power of social and go digital in their approach. Will surely keep you posted on the tools to measure the social media campaigns as well.

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