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!
Pinch Me. A “PR Readers’ Choice Blog Award”?
The one thing I never expected when I started this blog was for it to be nominated in an awards program. Blogging, in and of itself, is an adventure for me, and while I’m thrilled with the warm reception “Waxing UnLyrical” has received, I’m also humbled by it. After all, I don’t blog as regularly as all the gurus tell you you should; so the very fact that anyone reads this blog is quite a thrill.
One of the great advantages about being active on Twitter is the excellent PR and communications practitioners I’ve met through it. More than that, it exposes me to excellent blogs and posts and is truly a great learning experience.
One of the said practitioners is Arik Hanson, APR; so I’m really flattered that this teeny tiny blog has been nominated in the “most thought-provoking” category (there are four) in the PR Readers’ Choice Blog Awards. Several of the blogs I read on a daily basis, and whose authors I admire greatly, made the grade as well, such as Danny Brown, Shannon Paul, Bill Sledzik and Ryan Stephens. If birds of a feather flock together, I’m in great company.
So to whoever nominated me, thank you. While I personally think hell will freeze over before I win, I’d be tickled if you’d scoot over and vote for me. And if you’d rather vote for someone else – that’s fine too. Just vote!
Home Is Where The Mouse Is… Maybe
A few days ago, Pew Research’s “Daily Number” was 38%: the percentage of Americans who, having lived in more than one place, don’t consider their current community home. Given that this is a country of immigrants, that isn’t surprising, and a feeling I (a naturalized American of East Indian origin) can relate to.
A couple of days later, we had a friend over for lunch. Canadian-born, he’s worked all over the world, including in several African countries, and now calls Liverpool, U.K., home. At one point he asked, “Where do you feel at home?” Initially, my answer was, “In this country, California” – because that’s where my husband is from, that was my first experience of the U.S., that’s where many of our good friends and family still live.
“Home” Is…
I kept thinking about that question, though. Where does one really feel at home? What is it that defines “home” from “away”? Can one feel at home in several places… or none?
… Where The Heart Is?
Pew’s report answers some of these questions, and the results aren’t surprising:
Among all respondents to the Pew Research Center survey, 57% say they have not lived in the U.S. outside their current state: 37% have never left their hometown and 20% have left their hometown (or native country) but not lived outside their current state.
The Pew survey finds that stayers overwhelmingly say they remain because of family ties and because their hometowns are good places to raise children. Their life circumstances match those explanations. Most stayers say at least half a dozen members of their extended families live within an hour’s drive; for 40%, more than 10 relatives live nearby. A majority of stayers also cite a feeling of belonging as a major reason for staying put.
(Emphasis mine).
Movers are far less likely to cite those kinds of ties. Fewer than four-in-ten say a major reason they moved to their current community has to do with family or child-rearing. Most movers have five or fewer extended-family members living within an hour’s drive of them, and 26% have none. The most popular reason that movers choose a new community, selected by a 44% plurality, is job or business opportunities, according to the Pew survey. About the same share of stayers (40%) cite job or business opportunities as a major reason for staying, but far more stayers choose reasons related to family and friends.
(Again, emphasis mine).
… Or Where The Mouse Is?
Where one feels at home certainly has to do with people and community – a sense of belonging. Which is why, as I continued to think about it, I realized that I feel at home in several places. This is not only due to the people I’ve met and relationships I’ve made, but because I stay connected to them through my mouse.
I keep up with them on Facebook and certainly via e-mail. And increasingly, my online home is Twitter, where I make new connections with fascinating people every day, taking offline relationships online and vice versa. Apparently there are quite a few people around the world who are interested in what I’m thinking about, in 140 characters or less, most of whom I’ve never met “IRL.”
That goes for me too. Because of the engagement I experience online, I’m fairly certain that should I experience another physical move, this community will help me root myself offline, to the point where I begin to feel at home – wherever I may be.
How Is This Relevant to PR?
One of the fundamentals of good PR is knowing your audience. And a key element of that is having an understanding of which media they consume, and which they don’t; where they like to get their information from. In other words – where they feel at home.
The media landscape is changing dramatically; today’s shuttering of the Rocky Mountain News has been drawing national attention. Will other traditional media stalwarts, such as the San Francisco Chronicle, follow suit? We’ll have to wait and see. What we know is that consumers have more choices than ever before, and the media outlets they call home – both traditional and “new” – are growing exponentially.
Let’s forget about the media for a second.
Consider the data from Pew’s Internet & American Life Project December 2008 survey:
Over half of the adult internet population is between 18 and 44 years old. But larger percentages of older generations are online now than in the past, and they are doing more activities online, according to surveys taken from 2006-2008.
Contrary to the image of Generation Y as the “Net Generation,” internet users in their 20s do not dominate every aspect of online life. Generation X is the most likely group to bank, shop, and look for health information online. Boomers are just as likely as Generation Y to make travel reservations online. And even Silent Generation internet users are competitive when it comes to email (although teens might point out that this is proof that email is for old people).
The Bottom Line
You may be an excellent PR professional who is not a Twitter devotee, Facebook junkie, or a fan of the countless online mechanisms that, for want of a better term, we call social media tools; and you are perfectly within your rights to remain so.
But as Internet users increasingly span generations, as millenials grow into their roles as business leaders and decision makers, I suspect you might be doing your employers or clients – and most of all yourself – a disservice if you don’t at least familiarize yourself with the online channels that help people meet, talk, work and grow – and where they feel at home.
Maybe, just maybe, home is where the mouse is.
What do you think? Where do you feel at home? Please share your thoughts and perspectives; I’d love to hear them.
Images: Pew Research Center
