September is Measurement Month.
The Barcelona Principles of Measurement for PR clearly indicate that we need new PR measurement tactics to show results. Although reach and impressions are important – the customer journey does start with awareness – we have to move beyond those initial numbers and look for behaviors in our audiences that happen as a result of the reach.
This is not to suggest that traditional media is no longer important to PR – it’s a vital part of building awareness and interest. Just recognize that most media now gets found and consumed either on search engines or social platforms.
According to the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism’s Digital News Report 2017, 51% of those surveyed in the U.S. now get news from social media. That’s a 5% increase from the 2016 report and that figure is double what it was in 2013. And more than 60 percent of this news consumption is done on mobile devices. If your audience is primarily Millennials or Gen x, that figure jumps up considerably.
ONLINE NEWSROOM
This month PR Week featured a story about how the Cleveland Clinic started their new approach to measurement by upgrading their newsroom. That’s a very smart move.
We will increasingly use the newsroom to tell our “Cleveland Clinic story” in more innovative ways, measure its effectiveness, track user growth, and make adjustments as needed.
Check out the PR Measurement Guide for more on what to meaure and how to measure it.
SOCIAL MEDIA MEASUREMENT
If so much media is being found and shared on social media, how do we track and measure the reach and effectiveness of our work? It’s not enough to simply take the circulation numbers and website visitors of that media outlet. We need to track how much traction we get from the media directly, as well as from social media. And we need to know what they do after they get to the newsroom, blog or website.
Our custom Google Analytics PR Dashboard can help you get started. It can show you where you’re getting social activity geographically, the traffic you get from each platform, and the top landing pages they’re visiting. If you set goals for your content, you can see which social media platforms perform best.
WHY MEASURE DIFFERENTLY?
Data can give you insights that greatly enhances your ability to establish the right PR strategy to achieve the best outcomes, says Cleveland Clinic. And since we are now supposed to be measuring outcomes, data is the way to go.
If you are not already focusing on outcomes, setting goals for all content and tracking the results of your work, now is the time to start. Try the PR Dashboard – it’s free.
If you need help with measurement, setting goals or using the Dashboard, register for the course that will be available October 15, 2017
