Tag Archives: pr measurement

John Trader

What Will You Do in Your Next Term?

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What public ideas and strategies will you bring to the table in 2013
Flickr Image Courtesy of Vox Efx

Watching the presidential race unfold over the last year and a half has taught me that there were two sides of the fence you can be on when discussing the candidates and their plans for the future of our country:

A. You support one candidate, understand what their plan is, and offer your own opinions on what additional ways we can solve problems that face our country & communities

B. You support one candidate

If voting has taught me anything, it’s to pay attention what people are saying, internalize it, and then form my own opinion based on personal beliefs of what can and can’t work to improve our country. John Adams once said:

“Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.” Continue reading →

Rebecca Denison

Planning Must be as Detailed as Measurement Will Be

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You can measure nearly anything you wish so long as you plan properly in advance. It sounds simple, but it can be extremely tedious and detailed to ensure you will be able to measure exactly what you would like.

I recently participated in a Twitter campaign in which consumers were asked to publish a tweet with a hashtag in it. Those of us who did so were eligible to receive something free if we were in the right place at the right time. It was great! I got a good prize out of it. But there were steps along the way where I wondered if the team would be able to collect all of the data they might want. Continue reading →

Rebecca Denison

Seeing Through the Expected Results Weeds

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Think about the last report you wrote or read. What was it about? What was the biggest takeaway?

Now think about the data behind the report. Ideally that report told the same story as the data. It sounds like a no-brainer, but it’s surprising how many times I read reports that seem to totally miss the point.

I finally got to dig through Nielsen’s Social Media Report, and I was surprised to find that some of the biggest insights were not called out or highlighted in the report. Continue reading →

Rebecca Denison

Marketing Mixers May Need a Cooking Lesson

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Lately my boyfriend and I have been getting into cooking. Nothing terribly fancy just yet, but we’ve been cooking homemade meals every night for a couple months now.

Whenever we select a new recipe, I try to read a few reviews and get a sense of what worked and what didn’t from others. Maybe the peanut butter flavor was too overpowering. Sometimes others recommend cooking for a shorter period of time to prevent burning. And many times, I’m left on my own to guess what will taste best.

These recent experiments got me thinking about those of us in charge of building marketing mixes. For the vast majority of brands and companies, throwing all eggs into one basket is a bad idea. We know that, and we know that using just the right mix of channels and tactics is the key to success. Continue reading →

Rebecca Denison

PR Needs a Moneyball Makeover

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Even though The Lion King in 3D topped the box office this weekend, I raced to see the new Brad Pitt flick, Moneyball. I read the book on which the movie is based when I was in college just getting into PR and measurement. (If you haven’t yet read Michael Lewis’ book, Moneyball, I highly recommend it.)

In the movie, one baseball coach uses the power of statistics to build a record-breaking team after losing his three all-star players. The movie glosses over much of the nitty gritty math, but you walk away with the same overall message: numbers are powerful. Continue reading →

Rebecca Denison

5 Ways PR Measurement is like Predicting Who Will Win the NCAA

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With the college football season in full swing, I’m having a harder time focusing. After all, the college basketball season is only about one month away. There’s nothing I love more than college basketball, and there are surprising correlation between measurement and the NCAA, specifically predicting the outcome of that tournament in March. Continue reading →

John Trader

5 Ways Fitness Helps Sharpen My PR Saw

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There is a school of thought that striking a balance between professional life and extracurricular activities allows you to work towards a healthy body to facilitate a healthy mind.  Not an easy task as demands increase in our profession and we increasingly discover that in the fast paced world of PR, dedication, effort and real time expectations require us to seemingly be on the job 24/7.  Continue reading →

Rebecca Denison

Lazy Marketers and Faux Measurers Make Us All Better

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Hear me out. The other day, Jay Baer wrote a blog post that made my blood boil. Absolutely boil. I’m sure my eyes bugged out at my desk, and I think I may have cursed a few times while reading it.

But you know what? It made me think. Hard.  As did the comments, so read the conversation when you can.

While I get frustrated with tools like Klout claiming to be standard measure or metrics, what really frustrates me about these tools is they help lazy marketers be lazy. These tools builders know that busy marketers and other professionals using social media are looking for one-stop solutions, so they attempt to provide one. And once that tool is out there, there’s no stopping anyone from using it as they want, even if it seems ridiculous to most of us. Continue reading →

Rebecca Denison

Attribution: Measurement’s Only Unsolvable Problem

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Education. Time. Budget. Resources. Foresight. Successful measurement and analysis is prone to numerous roadblocks. (What did I miss?)

The big upside to the four problems I named: in an ideal situation these problems can be solved: Continue reading →

Rebecca Denison

Measurement Granularity Depends on your Goals

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Sometimes I find myself thinking (and talking) in circles about measurement. Often when I get going on a new project or concept, I find myself lost in the weeds and forgetting the big picture. This, of course, is a deadly measurement sin.

Where I most often get stuck is the nitty, gritty granular details of measurement. Do I want to look at tweets and retweets separately? Do I need to break sentiment out by channel or roll it up?

What I’m forgetting is that all metrics and measurements should tie back to a goal. If I need to slice and dice the data 100 different ways to show success, so be it. But if I’m just doing it because I can (and because it’s fun), it’s most often a waste of time. Continue reading →