Media used to be a solid thing: newspapers, TV, radio.
Now, with the Internet, and Web 2.0, it’s all beginning to blur. I’ve seen it. You’vve seen it. And now, someone has quantified it.
Ketchum and the University of Southern California Annenberg Strategic Public Relations Center recently released thier survey results which says that media isn’t quite as solid as it used to be. And because of it, target markets are fragmenting.
Shannon Nelson (the other great PR Shannon, who happens to be from Pierce Mattie) tells us that education and creativity is key in helping PR firms and their clients reach these …read more

There’s a temptation to include custom measurement in every communication activity, rather than doing some global measurement.

It’s great to canvas your customers, employees, suppliers and others from time to time about their expectations and how well you’re meeting them.
If you communicate in three different ways with a person, you don’t need to send them three different surveys.
But if you your measurement tools are more noticeable than the information you’re trying to communicate, they can cause survey fatigue among the people you most want to hear from.
Create feedback loops that aren’t intrusive. And when you do send out a survey …read more

Why bother hiring an agency, if you’re not going to let them do their job?
At times I’ve been guilty of second-guessing agencies, and jumping straight to tactics before a strategy has been agreed upon. Tactics are the most visible aspect of a campaign, so it’s easy to zero in on them.
That kind of thinking undercuts the work of the agency to identify the end result that is desired, and how best to arrive at it.
Jay Moonah describes the dilemma well:
“If you are working with an agency, what you need to help your agency partners understand is WHAT you want …read more

There is no magic solution to all business issues, so stop looking for the online discussion tool to solve every last thing.
On the other hand, there remain a committed group of corporate communicators and their bosses who are determined to resist the lure of wikis, blogs, podcasts and other conversational tools for business.
Shel Holtz does his usual good job of countering the various arguments against organizations adopting social media tools.
His main points:

Even usually-cautious lawyers are signing onto the Cluetrain;
You can show the ROI;
The time-sink factor can be managed.

Technorati Tags: blogging, business, communications, public relations, corporate, companies, podcasts, wikis, organizations, resistance, …read more

Stealing someone’s identity to defraud someone is a serious criminal offence.
Borrowing someone’s identity to take the piss out of them, as the Brits would say, is a time-tested satirical technique.
The skewerer gets props for cleverness. But the one who is skewered often also gains visibility, possibly a wider audience, and kudos for having a sense of humor (if they don’t go ballastic and launch a legal nuclear strike).
Author, blogger and long-time tech industry marketing communications savant Shel Israel has been mercilessly mocked by video blogger Loren Feldman. Israel is doing a series of video reports about social media measurement, and …read more

It’s easy to focus on the opinions of experts and executives.
But unless the end users of your product or service are primarily experts and executives, you need to break out of the Circle of Authority.

No one can tell you what’s right and what’s wrong like the people who actually use the services.
Surveys and focus groups are good, but don’t limit yourself. If you chance upon a customer, ask them some open-ended questions about their satisfaction, ease of use, and other things.
Don’t guide their comments away from criticism. You may not like to hear it, but you definitely need to …read more

You’re reading the 27th highest ranked blog in Edelman’s Social Media Index, an attempt to add texture to the various rankings of business blogger popularity, "authority", newsmaking heft and influence.
Rating influence isn’t easy, and certainly can’t be very precise with an automated ranking system that skims the surface of which bloggers are using which social media tools most effectively. In fact, I doubt it can be measured precisely by any instrument. Technorati gets blogs into the ballpark of relative popularity and linkability, but I don’t pay much attention to its "authority" measure.
Although the Social Media Index may be a blunt …read more

Communications measurement consultant KD Paine learned a good lesson about all the friendships and relationships she has developed over the years. When she needed help, friends, co-workers, customers, acquaintances and strangers came through for her.
Paine had two weeks in which to raise $125,000, or her farm would be auctioned off to pay back taxes and mortgage payments.
Friday afternoon, she completed the payments, and continued on the weekend to raise another $10,000 with a yard sale / fundraiser.
Said Katie:

"I was, and still am, extremely uncomfortable with going public with my plight. But my friends, who supported me thru fire, breast cancer, …read more

I don’t know K.D. Paine. Never met her. I think I might have left a comment on her blog once, but maybe not.
So when I sent her a $20 donation this morning, it was more out of a sense of participating in a classic little guy versus the bad bank scenario, than out of any personal relationship.
A communications measurement consultant, Paine also owns a farm. When the original buildings were destroyed by fire in 1999, she rebuilt. Now the bank wants to sell the land and buildings out from under her.
She’s well on her way to raising the $150,000 needed …read more

One reason RSS feeds only give you part of the picture of the blogosphere: comments.
Often, the comments are more interesting then the original posts. And comments let you discover writers who either don’t have their own blog, or whose site you’ve never visited before.
From an organizational perspective, comments can be important to track. That’s where a lot of the most damning condemnations of corporate behaviour happen.
Co-comment plans to expand their comment tracking service to include better tools for searching out interesting conversations in comments, allow tagging, and allow commenters to rate their peers on the value of their contributions. The kinds …read more