Three leading communications groups have announced they are having a go. They are forming a coalition to “define, develop and promote industry-leading standards for social media measurement”.
After a series of initiatives and conference discussions held over the past 16 months in Barcelona, Portsmouth, London, Miami, Lisbon and Philadelphia, the new coalition will combine communications research & measurement consultants from the International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC), the Council of PR Firms (CPRF) and the Institute for Public Relations (IPR).
“Clients and agencies are hungry for expert guidance to navigate the changing media landscape, and they deserve guidance that’s based on sound social science, proven practices and openly available methodologies,” said the coalition Chairman, Tim Marklein.
“Too many of the social media measurement options available today are based on proprietary tools and methods that can’t be easily replicated across brands, campaigns and organizations. As a coalition, we intend to map out a path to standards that address key social media measurement challenges, including content sourcing, influence, sentiment, engagement and ROI among others.”
The coalition is starting off with a PR industry consultation, that will include a Social Media Measurement “conclave” with nearly a dozen marketing, research, communications and advertising associations in New Hampshire, USA later this month, and then AMEC is running “The Big Ask” social media measurement conference in London on 17 Nov, when it aims to ask PR and media intelligence professionals what they want to see as part of the new global standards.
What does this mean for travel bloggers?
Well, nothing practical right now. They are still at the talking-about-how-they-talk-about-having-talks stage. Keep doing what you are doing – writing fresh & interesting posts, establishing yourself as a centre of authority in your subject area, and engaging with your audience across as many social media platforms as you feel comfortable with. Let the PRs catch up with you.
But, do take it as yet another sign that social media, and blogging in particular, is being taken increasingly seriously by businesses and marketing organisations. If they are this keen to measure us, they must want to buy what we do.
Post Revisions:
- 8 August, 2012 @ 8:25 [Current Revision] by Alastair McKenzie
- 6 October, 2011 @ 2:49 by John O'Nolan
- 5 October, 2011 @ 8:26 by John O'Nolan
I fear the result will be something like Quantcast or Compete that does a horrible job of measuring real traffic, when they’ve got tools like Alexa and Google (pagerank and search rank positioning) that everybody is already using—especially advertisers. What really matters is traffic and influence. The first is easy to measure in a rough sense anyway by what’s already out there. Not anywhere near perfect, but at least a sense of whether Blog A or Blog B has more fans. Influence is harder to measure, but Klout is a start for Twitter and again, if someone has lots of RSS subscribers and they show up high in the search engines, they’re influential for their niche.
I think what PR people are looking for is some silver bullet tool that’s as brainless as circulation was for magazines. That will never exist. They need to work harder and know who matters in the space they’re trying to pitch, which means actually reading and participating instead of just buying lists and blasting out one-way communication. You should already KNOW who to invite on a press trip around a certain theme before you even start planning it. If the subject matter of the trip is so scattered that there is no theme, then that’s a whole other problem—-and why they’re floundering so much. Then they’ve got the whole universe of travel writers to pick from instead of just the real experts for a specific subject matter or destination.
Tim – I agree that PRs are looking for a quick, easy way to find the most appropriate travel bloggers. I’m not so sure about the value of Twitter/Klout etc in find the “best” bloggers for the job. Twitter is so “of the moment” and the Twitter reach figures are not for real, as they’re assuming that every follower of the travel blogger is logged in reading every tweet.
First things first. PR people need to read David Meerman Scott’s The New Rules of Marketing and PR way before they spend too much time on social media strategies.
While a bit dated, Scott’s book takes PR professionals to task for their lack of targeting. Still adhering to the “spray and pray” method of media releases, PR colleagues rarely research the blogger journalist they’re sending their stuff to.
• Please, read some of my articles so you know what my niche is
• Please do not begin your email to me with , “Hi, There.” My name is not “hi there.”
• Please be prepared to partner with me in developing good content for publication
• Please suggest a direction or idea specific to my interests
And trust I’m open to a dialogue, if you know and use my name.
Then let’s worry about measuring social media’s impact.