are included for free as part of PRSA membership.

While analytics is an old idea, it has a new significance in public relations. In the past 15 years, we’ve evolved from rudimentary clip books to building databases detailing media that we generate. We now have the data to really play in the world of ROI measurement.

In the last 15 years, we have evolved from making clip books with scissors and tape to building datasets about the quality and quantity of tour media placements. We now have the data to make an impact in the world of ROI measurement.

The PR Moment Analytics Conference, held at Ketchum Pleon’s London offices on March 22, was the first conference where the topic of analytics was the feature of an industry event. Jessica, our up-and-coming account executive, stopped by my office when I returned to learn about new developments in PR measurement.

“All of this information is interesting. But what can you do with analytics?” she asked.

The short answer: a lot. I gave her the following examples that we heard about at the conference:

• The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society isolated the effects on volunteer fundraising from various channels (such as radio advertising, direct mail, point-of-sale promotions) and online earned media. They found that they would raise more money for cancer research if they shifted more money toward online earned media and point-of-sale.
• A manufacturer of a healthy frozen food entrée learned that Twitter activity drove potential consumers to their website, and those visits, in turn, drive sales.
• A global chemical company determined how different messages and communication channels affect their reputation. They also identified the facts and information that are most important to encouraging influential citizens to speak more positively on their behalf.
• The Anti-Defamation League is seeking the best way to effectively battle hate around the world as it reaches its centennial anniversary. For example, should it focus its communications on general civil liberties, cyber-bullying, religious freedoms or law enforcement training? It is possible to answer these daunting and important questions using analytics — not to necessarily re-shape their message or mission, but to ensure its relevance to donors as well as to raise awareness of these important issues among the general public.

“These are substantial examples,” Jessica said. “What would it take for me to become a PR research and measurement practitioner?”

Good question. Next month, we’ll address the skills that measurement pros and PR practitioners need today as well as discuss an exciting event coming up at the PRSA 2012 International Conference this October in San Francisco that will help develop those abilities.

Do you have any questions? Ask Doc Rock.

This article originally appeared in the May 2012 issue of Public Relations Tactics.

David B. Rockland, Ph.D. is partner/CEO and managing director for the research and change communications businesses at Ketchum. He has held leadership positions in corporate communications and research throughout his career, with extensive global experience in both fields

Writers usually say that they use the inverted pyramid because readers stop reading after the first paragraph.

Meanwhile, readers typically say that they stop reading after the first paragraph because writers use the inverted pyramid.

Before you pound out your next pyramid, check out the following three trends in story structure:

1. Making an impact. Feature-style writing increases the chance that readers will spend more time with a publication, read it more completely and read it more often.

That was one of the most compelling discoveries of “Impact,” a 1999 study by the Readership Institute. The study also found that feature-style writing:

• Increases reader satisfaction
• Is easier to read than the traditional inverted-pyramid approach
• Improves a publication’s brand image, making it seem more honest, fun, neighborly, intelligent and in touch with its readers’ values

2. Working well with readers. Storytelling performed better than traditional news stories, according to “Ways with Words,” a 2006 study by the American Society of Newspaper Editors and The Poynter Institute.

The study found that traditional, inverted-pyramid stories:

• “Do not work well with readers,” and “did not justify their predominance in today’s newspapers”
• Score low in readership and understanding
• Earn mediocre ratings in “involvement,” or whether the story made readers care about the news

3. Drawing in readers. The Associated Press is rethinking its commitment to the inverted pyramid’s traditional, “just the facts” news approach.

The nation’s dominant news service is now sending a feature lead in addition to a news lead with its stories. The feature leads are designed to “draw in the reader through imagery, narrative devices, perspective or other creative means,” according to the AP.

Why the change? The 156-year-old wire service is trying to reach more readers in a competitive information environment. AP leaders believe that feature leads are one way to do that.

That approach is a long way from the standard who, what, when, where, why and how.

Beyond the pyramid

Instead of sticking with the inverted pyramid for every piece, master the feature-style story structure. Use a beginning-middle-end essay formula and illustrate your main ideas with concrete, creative details, especially in the lead and last paragraph.

Copyright © 2012 Ann Wylie. All rights reserved.

This article originally appeared in the May 2012 issue of Public Relations Tactics.

Ann Wylie, president of Wylie Communications, serves as a PRSA writing trainer and presents writing workshops throughout the country. She is the author of more than a dozen learning tools, including “Writing for Social Media: How to Write Blog Postings, Tweets and Other Status Updates” and “Writing That Sells.”.

Pursuing the Accreditation in Public Relations (APR) designation is a decision that has been extremely valuable to my career. Public relations is a profession that is evolving every year but the core of all we do is still based on research and ethical communication practices. The APR helped elevate my role as communications counsel, provoking me to think beyond one-sided scenarios and come up with results-oriented solutions for my clients.

Thinking back on my year-long APR pursuit, below are six tips that helped me prepare for the Readiness Review and the scenario-based exam.

1. Set a goal date and work backwards from that date. Determine how much time you can realistically dedicate to preparing for the Readiness Review and the exam. I recommend at least three months for each (2-3 times a week).
2. Local Chapter Support: Find out if your local Chapter will offer an APR cohort group or course. I found the weekly face-to-face discussions with colleagues about the knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) tested in the Accreditation process, to be very helpful.
3. Study Guide: The APR Study Guide is a great resource designed by the Universal Accreditation Board (UAB) that provides an overview of each KSA. Caution: Don’t study the guide alone. Supplement the topics with the short bookshelf readings, take notes and complete the case studies at the end of the study guide.
4. Don’t Memorize: The APR exam is not an exam where you simply memorize key terms, since a good part of the test is about real-world public relations scenarios. You need to identify the KSAs for different scenarios and know how to apply them. When I was taking notes during the readings, I would include examples from my work experience on how I have already applied the concepts.
5. Walk through the KSAs when preparing your readiness review presentation. Make sure the campaign you choose to present touches on most of the KSAs. You want to understand all the concepts and showcase how you’ve applied them when presenting to the panel.
6. Online Study Course: The APR online study course was most helpful to me. Participating in the cohort sessions and writing scenario-based questions for each KSA kept me focused.

Like our work in the field, leveraging our resources and dedicating time to the task at hand is key to a campaign’s success. The same applies to advancing in the Readiness Review and passing the APR exam. Are you ready for the challenge?

Nathalie Santa Maria, APR, is a senior account executive at Fusion Communications, a boutique public relations company incorporating the communications marketing mix (social media, word of mouth, media relations, research, media training, corporate social responsibility, crisis communications, and copywriting) into all of its public relations efforts and strategic plans implemented across Central and Latin America, and the Caribbean. Santa Maria also is an active member of PRSA’s Miami Chapter.  Follow her on Twitter at @nathaliesm_pr.

After helping two friends revise their resume recently, I realized how much I’ve learned through osmosis of managing PRSA Jobcenter for five years. I’ve had the benefit of meeting many insightful recruiters and asking them advice on behalf of our job seekers.

While there’s no “perfect formula” for revising a resume, here’s some advice and strategies I’ve obtained with a little help from my friends.

1) Brainstorm: Spend time listing all of your accomplishments. This process may take a few days but it’s important to get everything down on paper. If your final document is five pages long – it’s easier to cut than to create.

2) Feedback: Invite over two friends whose opinion you admire and respect. One friend should have great writing and editing skills. The other friend should take notes. The goal for you is to just listen and focus. Encourage them to be candid. Their job is to help you draft a resume to retain the limited attention span of a very harried and overworked recruiter.

3) Brag Briefly with Your Background Summary: You basically have no more than three sentences or four short bullets for a recruiter to know whether they should read further. Do not write this as a narrative. Bullets are more succinct. Ask your friends to read the resume aloud and make sure they stop and identify each key point that can be made into a bullet within your background summary. Devote the most thought into this part of your resume — it’s that important.

4) Be Brief: Keep each thought to only one sentence. If it’s longer, it’s too long.

5) Give Measurable Positive Results to Each Skill-Set: What did you accomplish? It’s not enough to say that you pitched stories to the media. Where did you land those stories? How much did your readership increase? Did your YouTube go viral? How many clicks did your tweets receive? My friend and I were two hours into a resume revising session before he finally mentioned that he increased sales by the millions within his first year at his agency. If you can’t think of a goal you accomplished through the skillset then don’t list it.

6) Research the Possibilities: Do some groundwork on the types of jobs you’d like to apply for before meeting with your friends. What keywords are employers using? Are there certain keywords all the job descriptions have in common? Make sure you incorporate these keywords into your resume along with your action verbs. Don’t be fancy. Don’t embellish. Don’t substitute words. A recruiter friend of mine asked their client to revise a resume four times before they could submit it. Why? Because the job seeker wanted to show off their vocabulary. Just use the same keywords the employer is using.

7) Divide and Conquer: Depending on where you are in your career, you should have at least four different resumes – and that’s just the beginning. After sitting with one of my friends, we determined she had enough qualifications to tailor her resumes as an office manager, executive assistant, nutritionist, art and antiques curator and bookkeeper. Considering the diversity of public relations industries and the various skills required, having many versions allows you to highlight key information for targeted jobs.

8) Rest and Reshare:Like any good writing piece, there comes a point where you have to step away from it and have a day or two of breathing space. After hearing your friends tear apart your resume (which they will do lovingly in your best interests), you’ll need time to review the resume again with a completely fresh eye. Once you’re confident that it’s ideal, give the resume to several talented writing friends that have never seen it before. As careful as you may be, you may miss typos that would land your resume in the hopper.

9) Remain Relevant: I recently returned from an association event for job board managers and recruiters. What’s the best way to incense a recruiter? Apply to a job that’s not relevant. One job seeker applied to so many jobs through the same recruiter (whether relevant of not) that they crashed the system every time their name came up. As a result, the resume had to be red-flagged from being opened by the recruiter. You’re much better off applying for 100 relevant jobs than 5,000 irrelevant ones.

10) Rejuvenate: You’re going to need all the strength you can muster in your job hunt. Getting enough sleep sounds like common sense – but it’s more important than you can imagine. You’ll be grilled on your resume and asked to elaborate on each point. Be sure you can explain every skillset listed on your resume. Practice with your friends and stay alert.

Best of luck and contact the Jobcenter at any time with questions. PRSA Jobcenter is here with Mentor-Match (for members), an Ask the Experts question and answer forum (open to all) and career guidance from articles, blogs and expert recruiters.

Richard Spector is manager of client services at PRSA. He will be presenting the session: “PRSA’s Jobcenter: Tips and Tricks to Use During Your Job Search” at West Virginia University IMC INTEGRATE 2012 Conference.

The reality approach to campaigns stems from the desire to connect with audiences in a way that is personal. When you move away from the general market and focus on a more narrow audience, such as the Latino consumer, a number of challenges can arise due to general misunderstandings about that audience. Over the last year, I’ve seen more and more articles that focus on understanding the Latino consumer. With a buying power of $1.1 trillion and a projected growth to $1.3 trillion, Latino consumers are still a very diverse group, and marketing efforts directed toward them must take that into consideration. Previous (and some current) attempts at marketing to Latinos tended to rely on stereotypes, such as this one for Jimmy John’s Gourmet Sandwiches, or Bounty’s “Guacamole” commercial (what is it with little talking dogs, Chihuahua or otherwise, that brands think appeal to Latinos?). There’s more to engaging the Latino consumer than stereotypes and loud music (and talking dogs). But, for various reasons, marketing to Latinos continues to be a challenge, and occasionally, cringe-worthy.

In H&R Block’s recent campaign to engage Latinos across the country, the approach was more thoughtful, taking into consideration the challenges of working with the various Latino markets across the country. Last month, I attended Hispanicize 2012 in Miami, Fla., where I sat in on the session, “Why Not Do It For Real?: Reality Advertising and the Latino Consumer,” led by Stacy Pagán, a management supervisor at MARCA, Joseph Ramirez, public relations director at MARCA, and Diane Barkeley, director of Latino and Multicultural Markets at H&R Block. Pagán’s team worked closely with client H&R Block to raise its profile among Latino audiences nationwide. MARCA, a full-service advertising, marketing and public relations agency, worked with documentary filmmaker Nicolás Entel for the last two years to develop “reality advertising” television spots.

“Reality advertising is a trust-based approach where you rely on real people — not actors — in real situations to convey your brand message,” said Pagán, who led the H&R Block account at the agency. “Our goal is to earn trust by putting magic moments on camera right as they happen.”

With H&R Block, those magic moments meant surprising subjects with big refund checks at home or work, capturing their reactions on camera in real time. The commercials were filmed in New York, Los Angeles and San Antonio, and feature Latinos from various backgrounds, including a schoolteacher, social worker and legal assistant.

I spoke with Pagán about the challenges of working with Latino communities from three distinctly different regions. We also spoke about the challenges of finding the right director who not only had to work around the reality concept, but also capture the essence of surprise and excitement from non-actors. She also identifies the outcomes of the campaign, and how they hope to extend the campaign in 2013.

Diane Gomez is public relations manager at PRSA, and will soon move over to their marketing department as associate director. Hispanicize 2012 was held April 10-13, and is the iconic annual event for Latino trendsetters and newsmakers in social media, marketing, entertainment and innovation. PRSA is a 2012 partner.

Fourteen percent of Americans can’t read well enough to search for programs in a TV guide, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL).

Meanwhile, more than four out of 10 Americans have basic or below-basic prose skills, according to the study. That means they can sign forms or compare ticket prices for two events. However, they have trouble finding places on a map or calculating the cost of office supplies from a catalog.

So how well are they reading your blog post, Web page or news release?

Rate readability

Americans, on average, don’t read very well, but PR pros do. We make the mistake of writing for ourselves instead of writing for the folks who we’re trying to contact.

To reach real readers:

Aim for 50 or higher on the Flesch Reading Ease scale
In 1946, lawyer, author and writing consultant Rudolph Flesch published the Flesch Reading Ease formula. This formula computes readability based on the average number of syllables per word and words per sentence. Scores range from 0 to 100. The higher your score is, the easier your copy is to read. Today, this is one of the most widely used readability tests. Flesch is used by The U.S. Department of Defense and many government agencies.

To get your score, use Microsoft Word’s Readability Statistics or The Readability Test Tool. For readable copy, you want to hit 50 or above.

Do you think your topic is too complex to meet this mark? Think again. The Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, among others, consistently hit 50 on the Flesch scale.

Don’t like what you see? To raise your score, shorten your sentences and words.

Consider your reader
For some audiences, you want to make your writing even easier to understand. Here’s what you need to know about writing for certain audiences:

• Health care consumers: More than one-quarter of Americans with physical or mental conditions have below-basic prose literacy, according to NAAL.
• Seniors: One-third of Americans age 65 or older fall into the lowest level of prose literacy, according to NAAL.
• Mobile users: Mobile screens cut understanding in half, according to 2011 research by R.I. Singh and colleagues from the University of Alberta. For these audiences, aim for 60 or higher on the Flesch scale.

One indicator to avoid: Don’t ask readers to rate their own literacy. Of the 40 million adults with the lowest level of reading skills on the NAAL test, only 29 percent said that they didn’t read English well and 34 percent said they didn’t write English well.

Copyright © 2012 Ann Wylie. All rights reserved.

This article originally appeared in the April 2012 issue of Public Relations Tactics.

Ann Wylie, president of Wylie Communications, serves as a PRSA writing trainer and presents writing workshops throughout the country. She is the author of more than a dozen learning tools, including “Writing for Social Media: How to Write Blog Postings, Tweets and Other Status Updates” and “Writing That Sells.”.

PRSA has designated April as Accreditation Month. Members can learn more about APR through many special events, including:

• Free On Demand Webinars: Accreditation Power Play, Knowing Your Business is Good PR ; Getting Ready for the Readiness Review
• Using the “Invite-a-Peer” tool to help spread the word about APR

My boss has been (thankfully) pestering me for three years to get my APR. But with growing workplace responsibilities and three sons to chase, who has time to prepare for “the unknown monster” of APR preparation?

So after faithfully placing “Accreditation in Public Relations” on my performance review goals for three years — and explaining it away every year — I had to make it happen in 2011–2012.

After applying and receiving my acceptance, the one-year clock kept ticking until I finally dug into the great resources on the PRSA website that broke it all down into three manageable chunks (Tip #1) — Readiness Review questionnaire, the presentation/portfolio and computer-based Examination for Accreditation in Public Relations.

One of my first acts was to find a study partner — a local public relations professional who also was going through the process (Tip #2). We decided to meet weekly to discuss one chapter of the “Effective Public Relations” bible (Tip #3). Though we had to reschedule frequently, those weekly sessions were invaluable for keeping us on track — especially the tests on each chapter of the book.

I set deadlines for submitting my questionnaire and for my Readiness Review (we’re all better with deadlines, right?) (Tip #4), and put them on a big whiteboard to stare at me daily. The questionnaire took two to three hours to complete, the portfolio about twice that to gather research, examples, etc. (Neither one is as bad as you make them out to be.)

Focusing on a public relations plan that I already had completed for my company made the questionnaire, Readiness Review and portfolio easier to pull together (Tip #5). Now, it was one month until the Examination.

The PRSA website also provided great tools for preparing for the Examination, including a sample test and a breakdown of the knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) on the Examination, and the weight given to each. Since the four-step process of Research, Planning, Implementation and Evaluation make up 30 percent of the Examination, that’s where my partner and I focused our last month of study (Tip #6).

The week before the Examination, I carved out time each night to review notes on the chapters we covered previously. Just like in high school, try to get a good night’s sleep before the Examination — it’s 187 questions and quite an endurance test. Best of all, I passed! And now those three big letters aren’t hanging over my head … they follow my name! Good luck!

Andy Williams, APR, is director, Corporate Communications, for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska. He has been in the public relations field in some capacity since working as a sports writer out of college 25-plus years ago.

In this post, Weiner shares his insights on the changes and trends in, and value of effective research and evaluation, in public relations. Joyce Lofstrom, MS, APR, co-chair of the conference and director, corporate communications, HIMSS, posed these questions to him in an email interview.

Q. Tell us about your work in communications research/measurement, especially as it relates to public relations professionals, in general, and specifically, to all of us in health care communications?

A. Professional communicators generally have two primary interests in public relations research and evaluation: to improve performance and to communicate value. Health care communicators are the same even though the highly regulated environment in which they operate differs considerably from others. As research-based consultants, our mission at PRIME is to help clients understand their business landscape and to position them to make more intelligent communication and business decisions. By informing better choices, clients improve performance organically; proving value naturally follows as senior executives see how PR programs deliver more with less and for less.

Q. How have you seen PR measurement change over the years in terms of how we measure success? I am thinking of going from clips to current evaluation techniques?

A. Despite the proliferation of communications channels, the proliferation of social media and the abundance of technology, most of what is fundamental to PR research remains unchanged. Given the two central motivations already mentioned, research approaches do not depend on advanced technology nor do they require big budgets or advanced statistical methods (although these are beneficial in some cases).

For example, one of PR’s most challenging questions remains “proving PR value.” The solution is really quite simple and costs nothing: The difficulty relates more to the subjectivity of executive values and our professional inhibitions which often handicap our desire to uncover them.

The “Research 101” session reveals the research techniques health care PR people can use to uncover and align executive preferences and priorities. Once executive preferences are reflected in campaign objectives agreed to be reasonable, meaningful and measurable, “proving value” may be as simple as “meeting or beating objectives.”

It may surprise communicators to learn what we’ve learned through thousands of executive interviews: “Quality completion of projects” is more popular than “tying PR to sales” among executives. How much simpler can it be?

Although the research fundamentals remain unchanged, the impact of technology contributes greatly to the current state of research and evaluation. For example, automated media monitoring and analysis systems provide speed and consistency for tracking Twitter content to meet the accelerated pace of business and the cascade of content flowing through social media channels. Advanced statistical software, combined with data-warehousing and new research methods enable brands to assess, attribute and predict relative sales revenue by communications channel.

Interestingly, in dozens of studies across many industries including pharmaceuticals and health care, this highly developed analysis known as Marketing Mix Analysis proves what we PR people have always believed in our hearts to be true: PR works. As we will dissect during the “Research 101” curriculum, PR drives more sales per-dollar-invested than any other marketing channel.

While technology has wrought many advances, research requires uniquely human input and navigation. Just as public relations is driven largely by creativity and relationships, public relations research requires distinctly human insight, intuition and understanding. The marriage of “talent and tools” makes for the most powerful combination.

Q. I am really looking forward to your session, “Research 101.” because of the ever-changing world of evaluation and measurement in public relations. What are the top three take-aways attendees will find from your session “Research 101”?

A.

1. Quality research is within the reach of everyone in public relations: it need not be expensive, overly sophisticated or mysterious. We will demystify PR research while sharing simple, accessible and affordable approaches through case studies and step-by-step exercises.
2. The challenge of “proving the value of public relations” is a matter of unwillingness rather than inability. Attendees will learn how easy proving value can be using proven methods provided in the session.
3. Public relations can be managed for continual improvement in ways that yield meaningful business results. “Research 101” registrants will be exposed to established approaches to identifying and eliminating waste and improving efficiency.

Q. Any closing comments?

A. “Research 101” is designed as much for the neophyte as for the experienced. Using case studies, proven methods and interactive exercises, attendees will leave prepared to create, implement and manage research programs within their own organization. Examples drawn from 20 years of research practice equip attendees to expedite their learning through best-in-class experiences from within and outside the health care category.

We support attendees to bring and share their questions, their challenges and their aspirations. For those currently conducting PR research but unsure of its value or application, mini-appraisals will be available following the general session.

Joyce A. Lofstrom, APR is the director of corporate communications at HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) in Chicago, IL. She is the co-chair of the 2012 PRSA Health Academy Conference.

Mark Weiner has devoted his career to helping many of the world’s most respected organizations and brands to demonstrate and generate a positive return on their investment in corporate and brand communications. He is the author of Unleashing the Power of PR: A Contrarian’s Guide to Marketing and Communication. Weiner is a visiting professor for The Executive Education Programs, S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University and has guest-lectured at many of the nation’s leading public relations programs.

PRSA has designated April as Accreditation Month. Members can learn more about APR through many special events, including:

• Accreditation Power Play Webinar – April 19; 3 – 4:30 p.m. EDT
• Free Online Course Open House – April 24 (for potential candidates; APR chairs invited to participate)
• Free On Demand Webinars:  Knowing Your Business is Good PR ; Getting Ready for the Readiness Review
• Using the “Invite-a-Peer” tool to help spread the word about APR

When I went through the process of obtaining my APR, I didn’t realize that PRSA had such a vast array of materials available for me to use. Of course, I was familiar with the APR Boot Camps, but I had no idea that there was an APR chair that I could connect with, or even that there was an Accreditation website filled with documents to help me with my studying. Do you know that?

Whether you know it or not, leveraging the available resources is a great way to get a start on studying for your APR. Here are some of the best tools to rely on as you complete your APR:

• APR Chairs: Nearly all PRSA Chapters have an APR chair who is there to help you through the process. APR chairs are Accredited and are appointed to this role to help you study and reach your goal. Additionally, they can point you in the right direction for appropriate study materials.
• Online Discussion Forums: When your APR application is approved, you have the opportunity to participate in an online discussion about obtaining your APR. Those who are studying for their APR use these forums to discuss study techniques and strategies, while current APRs log on to provide tips and serve as mentors for those who are currently achieving their APR. These forums can be accessed under the MyPRSA section of the PRSA website.
• APR Study Guide: One resource I relied on a great deal when I was studying for my APR is the APR Study Guide, which was created by the Universal Accreditation Board (UAB). It provides an overview of all aspects of the knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) tested in the Accreditation process, from what to expect for the Readiness Review to how you can physically and mentally prepare yourself for the Examination for Accreditation in Public Relations.

Each of these resources, along with your personal experience in the industry, are helpful in moving you forward as you study for your APR. While making the leap forward to achieve your APR can be intimidating, the UAB and PRSA are here to help you engage the appropriate strategies and techniques to achieve your Accreditation in Public Relations.

Lora M. Johnson, APR, account manager for APCO Worldwide, is a member of PRSA’s New York Chapter.

are included in PRSA membership.

I left Jessica, our account executive, at the office and boarded a plane for Hong Kong to attend the first ever Asia-Pacific Summit on PR Measurement. Delegates from Singapore, Greater China, India, Australia and other countries gathered on Feb. 29-March 1 to expound on the outcomes of previous measurements summits in Lisbon and Barcelona and, ultimately, advance the Business Case for Public Relations.

When I returned, Jessica was curious about what I learned. “I know that the Barcelona Principles set basic standards for PR measurement, and the Lisbon Summit produced a road map for measurement going forward,” she said. “But what happened in Hong Kong?”

Spelling out standards

Jessica is right: The agenda from Lisbon spelled out the need for social media measurement standards. The Hong Kong meeting was the start of a process that will continue through this year.

This initial set of standards stresses the importance of adhering to the fundamental Barcelona Principles. They also outline four key metrics to determine whether social media initiatives are working:

• Influence: must be influential to relevant demographics and topics
• Opportunity to reach: must use consistent counting and no multipliers
• Engagement: can measure at multiple levels, related to specific business/organization goals
• Sentiment: must specify technique, whether human, computer or hybrid

In Hong Kong, we identified 12 skills that would qualify someone as a PR measurement professional, loosely based on PRSA’s Accreditation. They include the ability to write goals; use research to drive PR programming, measure outputs, outcomes and business results; and communicate research and evaluation results in a manner that people can apply and understand.

The social media standards and the Accreditation ideas will now go out for extensive review from professionals around the world — like the Barcelona Principles did before they were finalized.

Tracking next steps

The summit brought our colleagues from Asia into the measurement conversation, which to date had mostly occurred in Europe and North America. If we are to truly create a “global gold standard” for measurement, then everyone has to be involved in the discussion.

At the European Summit in Dublin this June, the discussion will continue as attendees consider updated versions. We hope to reach some conclusions at the PRSA 2012 International Conference in San Francisco on Oct. 13-16. PRSA and the International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC) are planning a day-long seminar as part of the Conference.

We still have a lot to do. Less than 20 years ago, PR measurement meant using scissors and scotch tape to make clip books. Now, we are trying to bring professionalism to the profession and make sure that all practitioners know the basics — especially the next generation of young professionals like Jessica, who will guide public relations into the future. Hong Kong was a step on that journey.

Do you have any questions? Email Doc Rock.

This article originally appeared in the April 2012 issue of Public Relations Tactics.

David B. Rockland, Ph.D. is partner/CEO and managing director for the research and change communications businesses at Ketchum. He has held leadership positions in corporate communications and research throughout his career, with extensive global experience in both fields