If You Can't Measure the Effectiveness of Your PR Effort , You'll Never Get to the C-Suite

Here’s your business school saying of the day: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” Here’s your Catching Flack corollary of the day: “If you’re not measuring the effectiveness of your PR programs, your career path will be severely limited.”
I’ve railed recently about the lack of professional standards in our industry and how [...]

When is a press release not a press release?

The term “press release” is a whopper of a misnomer. The public communication we call a “press release” hasn’t simply been a message to the media for a long time.
Now, though, the web makes the term virtually meaningless. So many different people and audiences other than the media can access our press releases in real [...]

A Must-Have Measurement Checklist by KD Paine

KD Paine, the Queen of PR Measurement, has just put out a must-have checklist for PR Measurement programs. You can download it here, and following is an executive summary:

Define the objectives of your PR program, and what you hope to accomplish with a measurement report (e.g., increase your budget, get more internal support)
Define the audiences [...]

Poor Evaluation Methods Remain the Achilles Heel of PR

According to the USC-Annenberg study of PR departments, PR is doing a somewhat better job of evaluating its contribution to the achievement of key corporate goals, but we remain far from successful in developing and using evaluation methods that really get the bosses’ attention.
“The authors believe that the profession is doing itself a great disservice [...]

Generally Accepted Practices in Public Relations Departments

The Strategic Public Relations Center at USC has released its annual study of Generally Accepted Practices in internal PR departments, and it is chock-full of insights that should be valuable both to inside communicators and outside consultants.
The study looks at practices across-the-board including budgets, evaluation, reporting lines, use of outside agencies, management’s perceptions of PR, [...]

New White Paper on Online PR

Great new white paper from e-consultancy on the state of online PR. Definitely worth downloading. Some nuggets for you:

The rise of user-generated content (‘UGC’) and blogging means that there is a growing need to be able to monitor, engage with, and respond to what is being said about you, your brand, product or service online.
[...]

Audit Bureau to Count Online Readers

The Audit Bureau of Circulations, the independent body that verifies the circulation of newspapers, will soon start to release figures counting online newspaper readers as well. The ABC said that, “Beginning this fall, newspapers will be able to report in-market print, online and net combined readership.” In a related announcement, the ABC also gave magazines [...]

KD Paine: Journalists Relying More and More on Blogs for Reporting

From the Media Relations Summit:
KD Payne, the PR Measurement guru, gave a great presentation about “measuring the ROI of social media.” If you’re interested, she’ll be posting her presentation on her website. (free reg. required)
In keeping with the media-specific theme of this blog, here’s the information from her slide about the penetration of blogs into [...]