An interesting meeting today with Kevin North at Sentiment Metrics, which has developed an online tool for tracking social media conversations. Many organisations are eager to get into Twitter and Facebook, and yet few have an efficient way to learn what is being said about them online. Sentiment Metrics think they have the answer, with their system that tracks all the social media noise and helps you find the bits that interest you. Although ‘separating the wheat from the chaff’ takes careful analysis by someone who understands what an organisation cares about (e.g. their PR agency), the system offers potentially huge time-savings on monitoring and access to a far more complete picture of how a business is regarded. Companies like Regus, HSBC and Sony have already signed up – expect many more to follow.

Corporate sponsorship and brand activation are fine tools for business but they can occasionally put a premium on the quality of the PR support that they receive. Whether it is a sports event, a cultural occasion or a personal endorsement, planning ahead is always wise. (more…)

Many of the best PR results come from responding to external news stories, rather than simply announcing things that have happened inside your firm. (more…)

In June, we wrote about PR measurement and the various options organisations have for evaluating the impact of their communications. We followed this in July with some breaking news about the launch of the Barcelona Principles – the first attempt by the PR and measurement industries to agree a common global approach to PR measurement. Now that the dust has settled a little, it is worth considering why these principles matter and asking where we go from here. (more…)

Following on from our recent post about PR and Measurement, a new global charter of principles for measuring PR was launched last week. The ‘Barcelona Declaration of Research Principles’ was launched at the second European Summit on Measurement, where representatives from PR companies and research organisations rejected Advertising Value  Equivalence as an appropriate measure for public relations. Although the new charter is only a roadmap to a better solution, it seems a helpful development and may take us closer to the industry’s Holy Grail.