We finally have it. A way for public relations professionals to not only prove qualitative metrics, but quantitative metrics as well. We chatted last week about basic reporting templates, which goes hand in hand with what you need to measure and best practices.
Social media has opened up a door for those in the PR world to prove value and worth to the C-Suite – when normally, it’s the first department to be cut when budgets are tight.
Traditionally, PR professionals focus on “impressions” which can be inaccurate when reporting to clients. Impressions are based on the opportunity to see, not the actual number of people who are reading and absorbing. Many use multipliers to define pass-along readership, but it varies by brand and agency. It’s dubious at best.
Brand and reputation are now up there with media relations since social has been on the scene. So how can you begin to break it down? Every agency and brand are specific to a few things: agency dynamic, brand objectives/goals and client expectations. There isn’t a magic button to tell you what to report in.
We now have online discussion, social media discussion and anything a consumer might say about your brand offline. The last one can be based on in-store promotions, WOM opinion or when experience is related. Makes it a bit tough, right?
There are four areas you can focus on, then make specific and applicable to your clients and/or brand through an analytics approach:
Presentation: What type of exposure has your content and message gained? Is it more so than competition?
Engagement: How are people interacting with the content? What platforms are they identifying with? Who is interacting?
Influencer: How has presentation and engagement altered perceptions and attitudes? Is it positive, negative or neutral? What’s the sentiment? What degree of influencer is this?
End Result: As a result of approach and campaign execution, what has your target demographic done? How did they respond?
What areas would you add? What questions would you focus on? What type of metrics is your C-Suite requesting? Let’s discuss in the comments section.
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