MeasurePR: The Barcelona Edition

We had a great #measurePR chat today. Katie Paine, who helped me kick off this series, came back after a while, and it was great to have her talk about the Barcelona Principles, social media ROI “calculators” and the like.

If you’re wondering what the Barcelona Principles are, here’s what Don Bartholomew has to say about them:

“…The Second European Summit on Measurement held last week in Barcelona has come and gone, but its impact may be felt for some time to come.  The Summit was organized by the International Association for the Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC) and the Institute for Public Relations.

The most notable outcome of the Summit was the creation of the ‘Barcelona Declaration of Research Principles’.  The Principles were debated and voted upon by about 200 delegates representing 33 countries and five global PR and measurement organizations (AMEC, IPR, PRSA, ICCO, The Global Alliance).  David Rockland, Ph.D. chaired the debate.

Here are the ‘Barcelona Declaration of Research Principles’:

1. Goal setting and measurement are fundamental aspects of any PR programs.
2. Media measurement requires quantity and quality – cuttings in themselves are not enough.
3. Advertising Value Equivalents (AVEs) do not measure the value of PR and do not inform future activity.
4. Social media can and should be measured.
5. Measuring outcomes is preferred to measuring media results.
6. Business results can and should be measured where possible.
7. Transparency and Replicability are paramount to sound measurement.”

If you believe in good PR measurement, then the concept of focusing on outcomes is not new to you; nor is the acknowledgment that AVE is a pretty cruddy substitute for good measurement.

What’s really impressive about this is that 200 delegates representing 33 countries and five global organizations came to this conclusion (IABC seems to have been noticeably lacking).

Wow.

That’s a pretty impressive start; now we have to see if everyone is going to walk the talk and implement them.

Katie talked about how PR professionals can start living by the Principles (I feel like going down on my knees every time I type that) in their day-to-day practice of our profession, and much more.

She also gave us a link to a nifty spreadsheet she uses to calculate the ROI of conferences and speaking engagements, so check it out (remember, one size doesn’t fit all; if you like the concept, adapt it for your own needs).

And we had some laughs as well, though we managed to keep Sean Williams from burning a hole in his laptop at the mention of the “theater of the absurd in social media metrics.”

Check out the entire transcript of MeasurePR: the Barcelona Edition here, and don’t forget to join me in a couple of weeks when Johna Burke will be the guest on #measurePR – and yes, I will be bringing it to you all the way from Alaska.

So please do save the date: July 20, 12-1 pm ET, join on Twitter using #measurePR. If you like, you can RSVP here.

Posts you should read, bookmark and save in your time capsule:

• Katie’s Barcelona Principles checklist
• Neil Malcolm on why AVE’s the “dodo” of PR measurement
• The above-referenced posts by Sean Williams on social media metrics and Don Bartholomew on the Barcelona Principles, respectively.

Image: Wolfgang Staudt, Creative Commons

Filed under Communication, MeasurePR, Measurement, Public Relations | Tags: #measurepr, ave, barcelona principles, don bartholomew, katie, neil malcolm, PR measurement, research, sean williams | Comments (7)

Internal Doesn’t Mean Unseen: Sean Williams on #measurePR

How’s this for going back in time in the age of now?

My second guest on #measurePR (all the way back in February) was the inimitable Sean Williams.

If you’re a measurement geek and don’t know him… you should. Not only does he have one of the brightest minds in our field, he has one of the brightest minds, period. I was lucky that Sean was willing to take some time out of his day to sit in on the chat when it was just a couple of weeks old, and he shared his thoughts on measurement, PR and ROI.

Since Sean teaches on Tuesdays and was  held up joining the chat, we chatted among ourselves for a bit, and shared our pet measurement peeves. Not surprisingly, the continued use of AVE, lack of benchmarking and “quantity v. quality” were common causes of angst.

Because it’s been a while since this specific chat took place and I didn’t grab screen-shots of the tweets immediately after, I can’t show them to you (if you know, and can show me, how to do that, I’ll be indebted to you forever). But here are some of the interesting/noteworthy points raised during the chat:

1. Lindsay Allen, on the value of proprietary formulas such as Cision’s “publicity value: “… they… wouldn’t/couldn’t tell us much about how it’s calculated since the formula is proprietary.” To which Sean replied that it needed academic review (which, IMHO, all formulas – btw, does anyone use ‘formulae‘ any more? – should be).

Sean went a step further to say his biggest pet peeve was proprietary methods, of which he wants one, so he can make money (don’t we all?!), but he’d want it independently reviewed for accuracy and value.

Rebecca Denison, whom I’ve profiled before, perceptively pondered whether folks sign on for a proprietary formula because it’s better than nothing and they’re under pressure to do so.

2. I asked Sean for his take on the difference between AVE and “weighted media cost,” to which he posited an extremely diplomatic answer. For what it’s worth, I think highly of the folks who authored this paper, but am still making my mind up about the measure.

To learn more about WMC, I suggest you read this paper on the Institute of Public Relations’ site, Katie Paine’s opinion (y’all know she’s my guru, right?), and Sean’s own musings on the subject.

3. Sean reminded everyone to do something so simple it’s unbelievable that most don’t: Set Measurable Objectives.

The second #measurePR chat transcript is yours for the asking.

Do have a read through when you’re at a loose end (or, as I like to say, in your copious free time). I think you’ll enjoy it.

What I can share, though, is a video of Sean talking about measuring internal communication, which I grabbed when I was in Cleveland a few weeks ago speaking to IABC/Cleveland (which rocks and you should join, if you’re in the area, btw).

And if you’re interested in internal communication, you should follow #icchat, which Sean hosts along with Susan Cellura. How’s that for a bonus?

Enjoy! And do join us from 12-1 pm ET tomorrow when we’ll be chatting with Chuck Hemann on measuring social media.

Image: Adam Groffman, Creative Commons

Filed under Communication | Tags: #icchat, #measurepr, ad value equivalency, ave, IPR, PR measurement, sean williams, weighted media cost | Comments (2)

Sun, Sand and… Measurement

In a few days I’ll be Westward-bound; one of several hundred (or is it thousand?) PR and communication professionals converging on San Diego for PRSA’s 2009 International Conference (that’s me on Coronado Beach a couple years ago). My first experience of PRSA’s annual shindig was last year, when I was lucky enough to co-present with Katie Paine on measurement in Detroit.

The entire experience was a blast, and it will also live forever in my memory because that’s where I first met the beauteous and brilliant Shannon Paul and Lauren Vargas, caught up with the dynamite Kami Watson Huyse, first encountered Jason Falls, and was dissed (and defended, thank you Kami!) at my first tweetup. Ah, the good old days.

This year I’m lucky enough to have been selected by PRSA as a solo speaker and will be presenting on measurement on November 9 (here’s an interview I did to promo it a while back). If you’re attending the conference, do come by.

But more than plug my session, I want to pick your brains.

See, the thing is, my take on measurement is very simple (and yes, has been strongly influenced by the afore-referenced Sashet, the Measurement Goddess, aka Katie Paine).

You start at the end – what are your measurable objectives? And by “measurable,” I mean quantifiable and time-bound, not “increase buzz” or some crap like that.

You focus on what outcomes you’d like to achieve, not just outputs (like media impressions) and, if possible (because usually this takes some budget dollars), outtakes as well. A lot has been written about these recently, but I believe in going to the source, so here’s a great dictionary from the Institute for Public Relations (you should bookmark this).

And then you map out your strategy and tactics, track everything along the way, and then analyze the results of your program, based on what you were trying to achieve in the first place.

I like to use a couple of case studies, showing how this has been done both with “traditional” and social media, sometimes on a very tiny budget.

I show how, at my last job, we patiently tracked our communications against organizational key performance indicators, and how we were able to calculate – using a formula that was given to us by the equivalent of the marketing department – the value we added to the organization’s bottom line.

And I will tell you to stay away from ad value equivalency or AVE, which I hear IPR’s Measurement Commission recently voted down as a no-no when it comes to PR measurement.

My presentation’s probably not going to be earth-shattering for anyone (and I kinda hope it won’t, because the measurement debate’s been going on long enough).

What I hope it will be is engaging, and show practitioners who might be overwhelmed by all the jargon out there that measurement is not necessarily tough, mind-blowingly expensive, or tedious… and how to get started, or get back on the right track.

Looking for the Wisdom of Crowds

Here’s my question to you: are there any other questions you think I need to address? What else can I add to my presentation so that attendees can walk away with tips and ideas they can really use?

I can’t promise I can answer all of them, but I’ll try; if I can’t, I’ll try to find resources who can. Or, do you have tips I can include?

The bottom line is, I want the presentation to be about you, not me. So I’m asking you to help me deliver the content that will be most useful to you. I’m sure I can go it myself, but it’ll be so much more fun this way.

I’d very much appreciate your thoughts and feedback; just send me a tweet, or leave a comment below. I promise to give credit where credit’s due, and will be uploading it to SlideShare so that you can all see it.

Thank you!

Filed under Communication, Measurement, Speaking | Tags: ave, IPR, jason falls, kami huyse, katie paine, lauren vargas, Measurement, Public Relations, Shannon Paul | Comments (14)