I’ve been thinking a lot about measurement lately. More specifically, I’ve been reflecting on the role of online measurement and its relationship to PR in today’s increasingly connected world. As traditional custodians of a brand’s reputation, how can the PR community best deliver meaningful measurement today, and what are the pitfalls to avoid?

We need to think carefully about what we measure, why we measure and how we do it. And in the rush to use all the exciting new online measurement tools available to us, I’m not convinced that this is happening.

A long-term commitment

It is important to maintain a long-term strategic perspective with any brand’s reputation … and hand in hand with that, goes measurement. There’s definitely a case for ongoing monitoring and measurement rather than simply measuring one-off (often short-term) projects. I guess this is part of the ‘commit, don’t campaign’ philosophy.

Every day, increasingly sophisticated measurement tools emerge (both free and paid-for), offering increasingly detailed analysis of online reputation.

This sounds like a godsend for PR, where the ability to measure quickly and cost-effectively has been a challenge for many years.

I may get criticized for saying so, but I think the PR industry as a whole still struggles to demonstrate ROI in a consistent, sustained and credible way. And perhaps we are too obsessed with the concept of ROI … maybe what we ought to be talking about is ‘Return on Insight’ rather than investment.

I don’t mean to imply that the PR community does not have very sophisticated, well-proven tools for measuring the impact of campaigns on a company’s reputation. We do, and a good campaign or plan always includes specific measures relating to everything from message consistency to brand perception. But undertaking this kind of measurement costs money.

The danger lies in the fact that, one way or another, what we measure will influence business decisions in some way. So we’d better make sure we are actually measuring the things that matter.

Engagement, not eyeballs

More often than not, we’re asked to provide the readership and the advertising value equivalent of the coverage our activity has generated. I suspect there are three main reasons for this:

1. These are ‘tangible’ figures that are easy to track
2. They are often big numbers that can be used to impress colleagues and managers, and
3. They provide a stake in the ground for very little cost.

But in a PR context, these measurement criteria are fairly meaningless because they ignore the value that on-message, third-party endorsement of a brand really carries.

And if these metrics are somewhat dubious for traditional media, they really lose meaning in social media where engagement, not eyeballs, is what matters. The ability to gain genuine insight cannot be underestimated … and it certainly cannot be measured by readership and AVE alone.

In my experience, PR agencies and in-house experts are seeing the online measurement opportunity for everything it has to offer. But in the rush to measure, we mustn’t lose sight of the bigger picture.

Measurement can offer powerful insight. It can help us evaluate existing strategies or programmes. It can head off consumer issues and it can also uncover fresh insights or opportunities. If it is doing any of these things, it’s probably worth doing.

But when it comes to social media campaigns, we still need to ask ourselves the tough questions:

1. How much of the target audience is genuinely engaging online? Knowing this will help proportion the activity and measurement appropriately.

2. How does online activity and brand presence relate to offline activity? In order to be effective, the two should be fully intertwined.

3. How willing and able is the company to react quickly and transparently to online activity? Beware the danger of ‘putting yourself out there’ if you do not have the capacity to engage in real time.

Identify what really matters

In the rush to measure and justify, it’s easy to neglect the strategic thinking that is needed to guide communications over the longer term. There is always the danger of creating campaigns that look outstanding from a measurement perspective but, when one digs a little deeper, have no discernable impact on the growth of the brand or its reputation among the people that really matter.

So how do we ensure we use the amazing tools available to us in a planned and effective way?

I believe the PR community needs to work hand-in-hand with measurement specialists. It’s up to us as PR experts to communicate exactly what our clients’ goals are, and determine the key measurement criteria that support the company’s overall objectives.

Traditionally, one of the best forms of PR measurement has been perception audits – measuring the perception of a sample of your core audience before and after a campaign. These can still be effective, but the traditional blocks still exist. Perception audits can be expensive. In many cases, given the choice between paying for measurement or allocating more budget to generating results, the latter will usually win.

According to a MarketSphere survey earlier this year of 600 marketing professionals, 30% had nothing allocated to measurement.

So from a practical perspective, where do we start? Identifying the top three criteria – the things that are genuinely important to the company – is a giant first step.

When it comes to quantifying any data, think about measuring authority, and looking at correlations to key criteria. It might be exciting to see a 200% spike in visitors to your website as a result of a great article in The Economist, but is it the people you are trying to reach, and are they taking the action you would like them to?

Creating something like a dashboard will help the entire communications team to understand priorities and critical numbers. And continuing to measure things like key messages and competitive positioning is always a good idea.

Although we measure activity for every client we work with, I think it is fair to say that there definitely isn’t a ‘one size fits all’ approach. We will watch the continued evolution of this space with interest. I think online measurement tools will have an enormous impact on the way we measure, but it is our responsibility as an industry to ensure that we continue to measure the things that matter.