Event highlights need for clearer PR definitions of ‘social media’

Claire Thompson, Freelance PR consultant, Waves PR

Claire Thompson, freelance PR consultant, by Paul Smith (Twitpic)

One week on and the dust from Social Media week is settling, and my inbox has calmed enough to take a reasoned look at the Social Media Measurement event and some general thoughts around the topic.

Feedback, barring a few small but constructive tweaks to be had, was great, and very rewarding.

Reflecting on the conversations that were being had though, one thing leaps out at me: the need for a little more granular definition when discussing ‘social media’ in PR or general terms.

It was obvious that some people were discussing one to one conversations, others were discussing video dissemination, some focussed on blogs and still others full blown campaigns in the same breath. We were talking at cross purposes: social media isn’t one homogeneous thing.

The rules of engagement are different for each activity, and the language, as well as the monitoring skills, needs refining around each.

From a PR perspective, our need to monitor or measure social media falls into several broad categories (and yes there are shades in between):

- listen and act: being able to hear when people are particularly pleased or disgruntled with us (our clients) and reacting in a timely and appropriate manner. It’s simply not possible to watch every social media network all of the time. In many ways, Twitter is the easiest to monitor thanks to a proliferation of tools. Having an automated ‘scout’ works well for everyone if the ‘scout’ (tool) can reach into places we don’t have a ‘perma-presence’ (and sometimes don’t have access to because of membership or pay walls)

- tracking creative works: how far has a piece of (usually creative) generated content been passed (penetrated), and what has reaction to it been?

- brand monitoring: garnering a ‘sentiment’ measure over the lifetime of a particular campaign (measuring the ‘love’ – or otherwise!) – be it  ’broadcast’ or interactive

- ‘directory’ services: we all have limited time (budgets) and so how do we ensure that the right people receive information about proactive (push) campaigns?  How do we find the right audiences? Being able to identify key influencers in any given area (from recruitment to sales, from purchasing to partnering)  is an important way of ensuring that client’s money is well spent (and, if the data is of high enough quality, of ensuring that recipients don’t receive spam). Ideally, we’ll spend less time searching and more time engaging.

- identifying SEO targets: some campaigns carry and element of ‘link back’ creation. Identifying the places to target with stories to create links is an invaluable, empirical resource.

The normal user, the person who doesn’t use social media for marketing, doesn’t give two hoots what we’re doing, doesn’t care about our’ campaigns’ except in as much as it impinges upon their time, space, entertainment or privacy. (And I suspect that privacy will fall due for some centre stage examination before too long.)

But for those engaging in social media campaigns of whatever hue, being able to define which element of social media activity we are talking about will save a lot of confused conversations set at cross purposes, will help identify the right measurement tool for a project, set expectations and standards and help put PR’s relationships with other disciplines onto a better footing.

Shared content from the Social Media Measurement event:

With thanks again to Sun Microsystems for sponsoring.

- Audio recordings from ipermedia: http://www.ipermedia.co.uk/2010/audio-social-media-monitoring-tools/

- Photos from Benjamin Ellis: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamin2/

- Great article by Annabel Hodges (Head of Search & Analytics, Zone):

http://www.zonecontent.com/social-media-measurement-and-monitoring-tools-social-media-week-london

- Murray Newlands – video and write up, Luke Brynley-Jones introduction: http://www.murraynewlands.com/2010/02/social-media-measurement-and-monitoring-tools/

- Murray Newlands – Asomo ‘hustings’:

http://www.murraynewlands.com/2010/02/social-media-measurement-and-monitoring-tools/

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Other Links to this Post

1. ClaireatWaves (Claire Thompson) — February 12, 2010 @ 4:58 pm

2. uberVU - social comments — February 13, 2010 @ 11:50 pm

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