One of the most interesting changes taking place as the PR industry evolves into an online discipline is the increased emphasis on measurement. In the old days of offline PR, little attention was paid to systematically analysing the relative success of campaigns, because measuring PR is hard to do. Measures that attempted to pin a quantifiable return on investment to PR activity, such as Advertising Value Equivalent were woolly at best.

But that’s all changing and it seems that PR isn’t getting a free ride any more. All of a sudden, acronyms like ROI and KPI are being applied to an industry that has long been used to justifying its budget with a ring-binder full of shiny, laminated press-clippings. There is now a far greater expectation that PR should provide hard evidence of its impact on the bottom line.

There are two things PR agencies can do about this:

• Keep banging on about how the qualitative nature of PR makes it impossible to measure in the same way as other disciplines

• Figure out how we can use all of these new metrics which are available in the online world to put together some kind of robust and repeatable framework for measuring the value of PR activity with some degree of consistency

You might like to take a guess at which of those approaches is likely to win the most new business.

Of course, there’s already a lot of healthy debate and discussion about PR measurement in the blogosphere, and it’s no surprise that a lot of the big names in PR have their own ideas about the most effective approach.

On the one hand, it’s good that there’s so much interest in solving the problem, but on the other hand, it looks unlikely that an industry-wide consensus will be reached any time soon. Obviously, everybody wants to implement a measurement standard that best represents their own strengths, and it doesn’t help that any discussion on the subject invariably gets sidetracked into an esoteric debate about the nature of influence.

Obviously there’s still a long way to go before this is anywhere close to being solved, but at least there now seems to be broad acceptance that rigorous measurement will be key to the PR industry’s future.

However the measurement debate unfolds, I think it’s absolutely key to ensure that the metrics used are properly aligned with the client’s business goals.  All too often, arbitrary KPIs are chosen simply to provide a tick-box for PR staff to show that they’ve done some work, with little consideration into how exactly they help the business achieve its ultimate aims. And that’s a far worse situation to be in than the old days where we relied solely on qualitative reporting, which at least had some kind of value.

There seems to be a lot of confusion about the purpose of online PR these days. Too many people think that the sole job of online PR is improve the client’s search engine optimisation and help drive traffic to their website. Granted, SEO and online PR do go hand in hand to a certain extent, but they are not the same thing and to think so is to underestimate the contribution that PR can make to your wider communications strategy.

Without wishing to understate the value of the discipline, SEO is essentially a technical exercise – it’s about figuring out how search engines work and determining the on and off-page measures most likely to put their clients at the top of the results for the most relevant search terms.

Online PR is, just like offline PR, largely about managing the client’s public reputation. A key part of this is building relationships with influencers, with the ultimate aim of gaining positive media coverage. Obviously, the coverage generated by online PR often features links to the client’s site from high profile blogs and online publications, which is undoubtedly great for SEO.

But the important point to remember is that the SEO benefit of the coverage is just a nice side effect of the PR activity, not its primary purpose. The point of building relationships with influencers is to get positive coverage for the client in relevant media, and the point of that, lest we forget, is to get the client’s message heard by the people that the client wants to reach.

SEO does not do this. SEO might help hook a business up with somebody who is actively searching for something that business offers, but SEO can’t tell people why that business’s products are better than their competitors, or whether that business has great customer service, or if that business has sound environmental policies. SEO certainly can’t help a business to communicate clearly and effectively with the public if it gets caught up in a crisis situation.

Most importantly of all, SEO does not facilitate dialogue between a business and its customers. Online PR can help you engage with your customers via the digital channels that they feel most comfortable with, enabling your business to build stronger relationships and earn greater loyalty.

So, while there is clearly an overlap between SEO and online PR, it’s important to understand that they are two distinct disciplines which require different skill-sets and deliver unique benefits. Organisations which don’t understand the difference between these tools are unlikely to be able to use them as effectively as their competitors.

Whilst reading the econsultancy.com online PR benchmarking report, it struck me that PRs and brand marketers were still talking a different language.

Clients wanting increased brand mentions online are met with agencies delivering blogger relations. Those asking for brand reach are offered optimised press releases.  A client wants outcomes: and the agency offers tactics. Well, nothing new there then!

The trouble is that this issue is completely exacerbated by the proliferation of social media jargon. Love or hate these new terms, agencies and clients alike are letting them fly from their collective lips: especially around the pitching table.

At the recent Utalk Marketing conference, presentations from different marketing agencies revealed the scale of the confusion within the industry. There is no common understanding between the different marketing professions. Just look at the PR and SEO industries where there is no agreement on the definition for online PR. No wonder clients get confused.

We might be using the words like ’social media’, ‘influentials’ or ‘conversations’, but we don’t always mean the same thing: several social media terms could now be classified as homonyms there are so many different meanings!

And the cloud of confusion is getting thicker. Every time a new tool, technology or platform rises in popularity it is accompanied by a raft of new buzzwords.

It occurred to me that no one had yet determined how much the social media jargon was impacting client marketers. What is the effect of having to learn a new lexicon of marketing and technology terms? How is social media literacy affecting the understanding of what a client wants? And most importantly, how is the confusion influencing budgets.

So we are doing some research with brands in the UK, to be published as a report (and shared socially of course).

I would like to include some comments and anecdotes from readers and fellow bloggers in the report (accredited of course). So if you have an opinion, or story to tell on the issues of social media jargon, please do share in comments or trackback posts (now I am using jargon!).

Do certain terms need clearer definitions, or should we be going back to basics and using the language of communications? Are there words that you think are commonly misunderstood or often misused?

Our intention is to put the best into the report with a link to your blog or website – and give you the first view of the report before we officially publish.

Let’s be honest about this, on the whole the PR industry is not welcome in social media. People consider their blogs, Facebook pages and Twitter streams to be their personal space, and they don’t want us oily spin-merchants barging in and shoving our brand messages up in their faces. Nobody likes getting cold-called when they’re at home, nobody likes clearing spam out of their inbox, and nobody likes it when a bunch of marketing suits crashes their social media party.

The PR industry has largely got itself to blame for this. We’ve not done a great job of protecting our own reputation and clearly differentiating professional, open and ethical communications from the kind of weasely propagandising that the public typically associates with the PR industry.

The irony is that while the general attitude seems to be that PR activity in social media is intrusive and undesirable, when we get it right people love us for it – as evidenced by this recent post at Mashable about brands successfully using Twitter.

The problem is that so many brands have blundered into the social media space, desperate to get a piece of the action, without really understanding what they’re doing and this has, understandably,  generated a huge amount of distrust and ill-will towards PR professionals. When somebody who’s never used Twitter or written a blog suddenly decides to incorporate social media into their PR strategy because they’ve heard a lot of buzz about it, you know that disaster and humiliation are just a few steps away.

Ultimately, people are happy to get involved in a dialogue with brands that they are interested in, and if the people managing a brand’s communications understand the right way to work with social media platforms, the outcome is positive for everybody involved. Consumers get to find out about stuff they’re interested in via the channels they prefer to use, brands get to create a valuable conversation with the kind of people they want to talk to.

Jumping blindly on the social media bandwagon out of a sense of obligation is counter-productive and will achieve precisely the opposite of what PR is supposed to do. Only by taking the time to understand how and why people use blogs, Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms can the PR industry hope to make a positive contribution and be welcomed by the audiences they’re trying to reach.

Just before Christmas, we experimented with some new brainstorming techniques across a number of clients. It got me thinking how there is a lot more to a creative brainstorm when you are planning for social media ideas.

Offline, a PR brainstorms rely upon understanding a client: its business or products, its audience, and its requirements. In addition, a good knowledge of what is newsworthy, the media and what is currently capturing the headlines is essential.

Of course, this knowledge is necessary for online PR brainstorms too, but you have to add to the mix with a more detailed understanding of social media.
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Sadly I missed being on Ian’s NMK panel for ‘Clients in the Wild’ as I just had over 200 staples taken out after an op. But it seems the discussion and subsequent blog by Will McInnes has created a stir – causing several blogging PRs some deeper introspection. Antony Mayfield summarises the issues up rather eloquently.

Like Antony , I too am an optimist. I also lived through the similar, if not so public, growing pains of the digital ad agency industry. Back in the 90s these start-ups and specialists departments were dismissed by the powerful TV ad world. And we all know how that has changed now. We now have a very different marketing landscape with digital taking the lead and the more handsome budgets.

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Daryl Wilcox has launched video on his site DWpub.com in series called ‘Experts in Communication’ . The whole thing kicks off with a two part video interview with Antony Mayfield explaining why he took his PR skills to a search company. Very insightful and I am full of admiration for how Antony shares his knowledge amongst his peers.

The video is rather nicely produced too. But the picture shown above is a screen grab as there is no way to scrape it onto my blog – a shame as it hardly encourages blog comments. Also, rather surprised that there is not a transcript to go with the video. That would gain a lot of SEO traction, but it is just a stand alone QuickTime video. Missing a trick?

A survey by Webitpr and noted on E-consultancy.com reveals that traditional PRs think that fellow practitioners are incapable of performing comprehensive online PR campaigns.Having spoken to many hard working, imaginative, and successful PRs over the years, it is clear that the PR industry is aware of the importance of online PR – certainly the survey results show that almost all respondents consider it essential. They see the benefits.

If we are to improve the situation, there are three core issues for agencies and in house to address:

• Investing time in research, development and play
• Open internet access and trust
• Budgets that reflect the importance of online

For agencies and in house alike, understanding online PR and social media is time consuming. You have to play in MySpace and Facebook, you need to invest in uploading SEO releases and measuring and testing everything. Allocating time to play and explore online is a must.

Everyone at IF has access to the whole internet and the opportunity to trial tools and explore new online properties. There is no monitoring, site bans or restrictions (I know of plenty of places where PRs can’t access the BBC online, let alone social networks). The truth is that if you set the right culture, you will benefit from this knowledge with great results and a deeper understanding of online than just learning out of a book or a training course.

With budgets for online activity still not comparable to traditional PR it is not surprising that many PRs don’t invest this time in R &D. Whilst clients and companies treat online as a trial and test, the investment of time is hard to justify. But budgets are growing and as CEOs understand the importance of online, they will allocate budgets that reflect this rather than just paying lip service to its value.  

Just gave this presentation at the Online Marketing Show. Not sure it makes a lot of sense without the banter over the top, but I thought I would share.

The slides really fall into four categories:

1. How brands are performing in social media
2. The changing landscape online
3. How you can trigger conversations by tapping into passions and interests and creating social currency
4. How Sony BRAVIA used this model to inspire postive discussion, raise search engine visibility and drive website visits

Our latest research looking at brand conversation in social media shows that techie companies, Google, Apple, Yahoo! and Microsoft, take the lead in terms of brand mentions in blogs, social networks and photo and video sharing sites.The study, launched at the Online Marketing Show examines the Interbrand Top 100 global brands and their voice in social media.

Here are the results for the top 25 most discussed brands.

 Technology leads the way, with Disney and Ford just squeezing in  the top 10. But split across the top 100 reveals that the industry sectors are quite evenly spread, with all of Intebrand’s top 100 brands getting a mention in social media.

Of course, this is just a snapshot and, before my friends at Onalytica and Market Sentinel rightly jump in, this research doesn’t take into account influence. Which we agree is essential. But the study does show that brands are being talked about and that is what we set out to confirm.

The full study will be available on the immediate future website on tomorrow or you can pop along to the OMS show at the Business Design Centre in London to get a free copy.

Technorati Tags: Google, Apple, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Interbrand Top 100 global brands, social media, Disney, Ford, Onalytica, Market Sentinel