Guest post by Jen Zingsheim
[Ed: Since I was at BlogWorld all last week and then took a much-needed couple of days for R&R, Jen Zingsheim was kind enough to guest-moderate #measurePR for me. Here’s her quick recap.]
On May 24, the #MeasurePR chat was a community chat, discussing the reporting side of measurement””how PRs plan for a tool throwing bad numbers, reporting numbers that contradict, and whether Share of Voice (SOV) is a useful or useless PR metric.
- Klout has been having some issues over the past couple of days, leading C.C. Chapman to blog about the Great Klout Plunge of 2011. This gave rise to the first question of the chat: do you have a backup plan in place to measure when you rely on tools, or is this just a risk you run when using someone else’s measurement system (a tool, in other words).
- Mike Donatello pointed out that having a backup system isn’t usually realistic, as budgets no longer allow for that level of redundancy. He added that it makes sense to go with the most “bulletproof” tool providers for that reason (true, that). Lewis Poretz added that in addition to bulletproof, you should make sure there’s customer service available when you need it.
- There were several suggestions on what to do if data from social media and traditional media contradict one another. CARMA_Tweets suggests examining the nature of the media, and checking demographic factors of each audience, such as age, to see if that explains the difference.
- Dave Fleet posted that he feels Share of Voice is a useless metric for PR. Many agreed, but with the caveat that context is important in looking at SOV, as it can be a useful metric under certain circumstances.
The discussion also touched on the “splinternet” and measuring proprietary platforms, as well as asking if perhaps clients are less interested in measurement than we are. You can view the full MeasurePR transcript for May 24 via this link.
[And don’t forget we’ll be back with #measurePR next week; June 7, 12-1 pm ET. Hope to see you there!]
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Ack–my mistake. Sorry Dave! It was a great post, and a good discussion point. @davefleet theelusivefish
Thanks for mentioning my post! I should clarify that it was my big-brained colleague theelusivefish that contributed that post on my site – I can’t take credit for it :)