The reality hit home when I glanced for the umpteenth time at the recently released Ragan/Nasdaq study of PR measurement, a recent study of North American public relations professoinals. I’d been reading and rereading it to find a real aha moment, and then it hit me. 

I was reading the bit about what free tools people were most likely to use. We’ve seen this question before and as always Google Alerts tops the list. But in this survey, second place went to Google Analytics, a tool that most PR people never touched a few years ago. Next was Facebook Insights and then a host of other social media tools. Even Excel and unique URLs made this, I delighted to see.

But it was the data on the following page that was aha inducing. When asked what tools they actually paid for, after the usual collection of “others” and “whatever the PR agency provides” the number one named product was  Hootsuite!  . 

As I looked at the list I was also amazed at how few traditional media companies showed up.  Only 6 of the 20 were companies that even existed when I started KDPaine & Partners,  (and yes, we did make the list.) Fully 50% of the tools mentioned were focused either primarily or exclusively on social media metrics. Remember this is a survey of 1,467 PR professionals, not social media gurus.  And while consolidation has occurred, the old stalwarts of my industry that still exist like Carma, Echo and Burrelles didn’t even get a mention. The message is clear,
the days of the mythical boundary between social and traditional media is over, gone as John Hiatt would say, like a Nixon file.

Given the target audience, it’s hardly surprising that the most frequently measured element of a program would be media mentions. But runner up? Web traffic and page views. Third was blog mentions and blog comments.  Even the old stand by "impressions" didn't make the top three.

So It’s not just AVEs that have one foot in the grave, it is all the traditional media metrics that we’ve relied on for too long. So now I’m less surprised by the fact that “lack of standards”  emerged as the number one biggest problem in measurement. It’s not that we actually lack standards, in fact, we have quite a few already.Its that the standard terms we’ve been using for decades no longer apply to what we’re measuring and there is no replacement. And, the reason there is no replacement is that the old metrics never related to our business anyway, and increasingly PR pros are realizing that they need metrics that cross silos, disciplines and geographies and most importantly, tie back to their own specific programs and objectives.

This data combined with other recent reports, spells doom to silos and those who hide behind them, at least in North America. 

And, while it will probably be a few more years before the revolution hits the rest of the globe, if this report from the global alliance is any indication the measurement spring is about to be upon us: http://www.globalalliancepr.org/website/news/integrated-reporting-key-milestone-corporate-communicators-everywhere-5-reasons-why-ceos-and-co

Think about this: 31% of  adults that Pew surveyed reported abandoning a news outlet because it no longer met their needs. Where are they getting news these days? 15% get news from social media. 72% said they get it from friends and family via word of mouth. And increasingly when they hear about news, they will follow a link that a friend sent them.  

Think that Local TV is important? Think again. Overall audience numbers are down 6% according to the study, and when your local audience does tune it it's for weather, sports and traffic. So just where in that mix, will your carefully crafted press release fit? 

For many of us, this doesn't come as a huge surprise. But for those of you who are still using definitions of "top tier" media that date back more than a year or two. You're probably targeting the wrong outlets.  

Yes, advertisers buy ads on the superbowl to reach a large audience but social media is the opposite of the superbowl. It is, or can be, a conversation between and organization and its stakeholders. Its very nature  suggests that your social media goals should not be "reaching as many eyeballs as possible"  but rather reaching the right eyeballs who have a problem that you can solve.

But that isn't an argument I'm going to solve today.. which is why we have a broad coalition of advertisers, associations and pratictioners who have been working for a year and a half on establishing standards. You can read all about that effort here. And the latest standard definitions for reach, impressions and engagement are available at the SMMStandards Page. I encourage everyone to go read them. 

Why was there no link to the the latest standards for social media ? Or why didn't they send their readers here to see the latest in standards for traditioanl media? 

The truth is in this other revealing statistic: 21% of survey respondents  think that measurement isn't necessary, so lack of standards are just yet another silly excuse not to measure anything. A decade ago the excuses were "its too expensive" and then along came a bunch of free or almost free services like Google Analytics to provide a soution. Then it was "ther is no way to measure" and books and white paper flooded the market. What's the next excuse, I can hear it now. "Industry says, the reaons it can't measure is that it doesn't have time-- too busy sorting its socks."