MeasurePR: The Barcelona Edition

We had a great #measurePR chat today. Katie Paine, who helped me kick off this series, came back after a while, and it was great to have her talk about the Barcelona Principles, social media ROI “calculators” and the like.

If you’re wondering what the Barcelona Principles are, here’s what Don Bartholomew has to say about them:

“…The Second European Summit on Measurement held last week in Barcelona has come and gone, but its impact may be felt for some time to come.  The Summit was organized by the International Association for the Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC) and the Institute for Public Relations.

The most notable outcome of the Summit was the creation of the ”˜Barcelona Declaration of Research Principles‘.  The Principles were debated and voted upon by about 200 delegates representing 33 countries and five global PR and measurement organizations (AMEC, IPR, PRSA, ICCO, The Global Alliance).  David Rockland, Ph.D. chaired the debate.

Here are the ”˜Barcelona Declaration of Research Principles’:

1. Goal setting and measurement are fundamental aspects of any PR programs.
2. Media measurement requires quantity and quality – cuttings in themselves are not enough.
3. Advertising Value Equivalents (AVEs) do not measure the value of PR and do not inform future activity.
4. Social media can and should be measured.
5. Measuring outcomes is preferred to measuring media results.
6. Business results can and should be measured where possible.
7. Transparency and Replicability are paramount to sound measurement.”

If you believe in good PR measurement, then the concept of focusing on outcomes is not new to you; nor is the acknowledgment that AVE is a pretty cruddy substitute for good measurement.

What’s really impressive about this is that 200 delegates representing 33 countries and five global organizations came to this conclusion (IABC seems to have been noticeably lacking).

Wow.

That’s a pretty impressive start; now we have to see if everyone is going to walk the talk and implement them.

Katie talked about how PR professionals can start living by the Principles (I feel like going down on my knees every time I type that) in their day-to-day practice of our profession, and much more.

She also gave us a link to a nifty spreadsheet she uses to calculate the ROI of conferences and speaking engagements, so check it out (remember, one size doesn’t fit all; if you like the concept, adapt it for your own needs).

And we had some laughs as well, though we managed to keep Sean Williams from burning a hole in his laptop at the mention of the “theater of the absurd in social media metrics.”

Check out the entire transcript of MeasurePR: the Barcelona Edition here, and don’t forget to join me in a couple of weeks when Johna Burke will be the guest on #measurePR – and yes, I will be bringing it to you all the way from Alaska.

So please do save the date: July 20, 12-1 pm ET, join on Twitter using #measurePR. If you like, you can RSVP here.

Posts you should read, bookmark and save in your time capsule:

• Katie’s Barcelona Principles checklist
• Neil Malcolm on why AVE’s the “dodo” of PR measurement
• The above-referenced posts by Sean Williams on social media metrics and Don Bartholomew on the Barcelona Principles, respectively.

Image: Wolfgang Staudt, Creative Commons