Public Relations: The Implications of the New Digital Environment

Everyone agrees that a good PR campaign has its roots in sound strategy, but clients do not always know whether their public relations effort has been successful. In recent years, measuring results has become central to the PR industry, particularly as the internet now plays a major role in both measurement and strategy. News is now real-time. Stories are instantly updated, as they play out, making monitoring difficult.

"We live and communicate in an era of 24/7 news cycles, where professional

What is clear, is that the rise of blogs and social media is becoming more and more influential and in the area of reputation management they are playing an increasingly significant role.

In this sometimes chaotic world clients are asking for better reporting of results, and while some of the more sophisticated PR consultancies see this simply as part of what they do, others believe much more could be done.

Desired long-term outcomes of public relations activity vary significantly from company to company. They could be as diverse as succession planning for the CEO role; investors seeking an exit strategy via trade sale, private equity investment or IPO; raising the company profile with key state agencies; targeting industry awards; gaining greater share of voice in a crowded and competitive industry; attracting and retaining staff in a tight labour market; or improving search engine rankings and protecting online reputations.

In each of these cases, the outcomes can be measured in a straightforward way over an agreed period of time.

"Research can be a powerful measurement tool for public relations," says Nicholas O'Flaherty, managing director, Bullet PR, talking about surveys or focus groups held at set times to gauge shifts in perception within the targeted stakeholder group. "But this requires a specialist skill set," he says, " for which some clients may not have budgeted."

O'Flaherty believes size does matter. "Commissioned research and comprehensive metrics may be appropriate to the needs and requirements (as well as budgets) of large corporations; whereas smaller companies may not need nor desire such measurement indicators, preferring to focus on bottom-line long-term outcomes," he says.

Senate Communications partner Sue Milne, who was a former managing director of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide and Hill and Knowlton (NZ), when asked whether there were increased client pressures to measure the impact of public relations activities, responded, "Sadly, we don't see evidence that this is a trend."

But fortunately, reporting of results is simply a part of what Senate and others do. "Like all professional services industries, we need to be able to justify the investment our clients make in our services," says Milne. "The more we can help clients understand the value of our services, the more likely they are to refer us to others, and in this way help our industry to grow."

Dodd advises that the monitoring of an issue is "a new and now even more sophisticated art, requiring understanding of the various online and offline channels that influence a story". Bloggers set new agendas for a debate and as Dodd says, "Whatever goes online remains as a lasting tribute to how well or how badly a situation was handled." Dodd believes that constant monitoring is needed.

Jennifer Hird, consultant with netPRess Media, says the influence of the internet on media cycles is probably having the biggest impact on netPRess and its users. NetPRess users track the success and breadth of their press releases through their netPRess account. They can see how many times they have been viewed, as well as how many media and business subscribers have been notified about their release.

As Deborah Pead of Pead PR confirms, measuring and analysing public relations initiatives is very important, "in a brand world, it is all about demonstrating ROI [return on investment]", she says.

Creo regularly uses stakeholder perceptions research, a service which is independently provided by its research partner, Perceptive. Creo always provides its clients with analysis of any coverage generated and sometimes converts that to an equivalent advertising value.

The tools Network PR uses to track news coverage are very much dependent on the nature and immediacy of the story. Search engines, web-based news monitoring services and clipping services all have their place in the news monitoring toolbox.

Search engines are a useful tool for immediate tracking of news on a host of websites including media sites and blogs. Bloggers are often responsible for setting a new agenda for debate, and it is vital that PR practitioners stay tuned to the musings of influential bloggers.

Search engines are a convenient way to undertake a very broad or very refined search within a few minutes. Also useful is the ability to constantly modify search terms - critical if one is to follow the rapid metamorphosis of a story that breaks online.

For an immediate overview of how a story is tracking, search engines are valuable, though their limitations include often abundant irrele-vant search results, and a reliance on specific rele-vant search terms. But search engines are worth using for historical searches when undertaking research around a particular issue or client.

Web-based news monitoring services are beneficial in that the quality and relevance of the results is typically better than from search engines, and search terms can be modified on the spot.

"Good media monitoring can rarely be achieved by issuing a few search terms to a media monitoring agency," says Dodd. "As a PR practitioner it is important to be immersed in your client's business so that you always have your eye out for items of relevance. At Network PR we diligently maintain our own internal media monitoring, as well as working closely with an external media monitoring agency."

In the case of media relations, measuring outputs will involve quantifying and qualifying the generated media exposure, whether print, broadcast or online. "There is no one industry standard," says O'Flaherty. "A simple 'column inches' approach to measuring media coverage, which does not accurately assess context and tone, should be treated with caution."

Clipping services have their limitations in that they rely on a brief that is neither too narrow, nor too wide, and that needs to be updated regularly with new search terms. In addition there is the potential time lag associated with the processing and delivery of clips. However, as long as it is not relied upon in isolation, a clippings service is an excellent tool for the ongoing tracking of generic search terms and non-critical issues. A good relationship with a media monitoring agency is important.

Part of the problem with the measurement of public relations activity is that the least sophisticated PR practitioners tend to measure outputs rather than outcomes. It is one thing counting releases sent, numbers of blog mentions, meetings set up or special engagements organised. It is an entirely different philosophy linking PR campaigns to brand awareness and brand preference measurements.

Comparing outcomes to business goals or objectives is the key. Benchmarking leads, prospects or customers before, during and after a campaign is essential, if the objective is to increase sales. Tying market share increases or brand equity improvements to specific campaigns is as important as the relationship between a campaign to enhance reputation and surveys of the change in word-of mouth messages received. Benchmarking against share price, customer service ratings, cost-per-sale and profitability is far more useful than merely counting outputs.

"We track all our activity, irrespective of the nature of the work or type of client, because effective communication is predicated on delivering results and being able to substantiate them," says Kelly Bennett, managing partner TBWA\PR. "For Bridgestone, who we've been engaged by to devise and drive through an internal culture and communications programme, we measure the positive contribution we're making through the outputs of annual employee surveys.

"For other clients such as PlayStation or Nivea, where a great deal of what we do is based around media activity and experiential marketing, we provide regular media updates and post analysis that succinctly outlines ROI."

There is no doubt that public relations has changed over the past year or so. Senate Communications is seeing a greater focus on stakeholder communications and reputation management. In a survey, conducted electronically by Senate in late 2006, with more than 200 New Zealand organisations - ranging from state-owned enterprises to listed companies - fewer than half of all boards and executive teams were found to consciously attempt to influence their organisation's reputation. Yet reputation was found to be considered as the second biggest risk to any organisation.

Bennett warns that with the speed in which news can travel via the web, through texts and other channels, some clients have become more circumspect in terms of what they are prepared to say and when they choose to say it.

At Creo, managing consultant Hamish Anderson sees the emergence of sustainability as the core issue over the past year. So important has it become, that it has led to the launch of Creo Sustain, a division of Creo that specialises in helping organisations make environmental and sustainability issues work for the brand, rather than against it.

But whatever the changes of focus, most PR consultants are seeing the need to embrace new media in their campaigns. In Palmerston North, creative director Rachel Richards advises that her PR company, Vendita, is currently working with a number of its clients regarding using blogging and web 2.0 in their PR strategies.

Working with Coca-Cola, Network PR developed Powerade Connecting Community Coaches. This successfully created an online community of grassroots sports coaches who can connect, interact, share and learn from each other, and be inspired by their coaching heroes. Online (via a forum, monthly coach, Q&A and e-zine) is key to the delivery strategy and according to Jane Dodd, the power of peer influencers in this is immeasurable. "Peer influence, partnered with the traditional experts as influencers has proved highly effective in generating engagement with, and uptake of, the programme."

As Creo's Anderson says, "Reputation practitioners need to learn about these emerging media so they are in the best possible position to advise clients about them, because the people they want to communicate with will be reading and even contributing to blogs."

Pead PR actually set up blogs for its clients and uses social networking sites to promote campaigns.

One particular shift that has impacted Network PR's approach is the increase of media attracting niche audiences. "Time poor and information overloaded audiences are being more selective about what they read and will select their media on the basis of what is most important to them," says Dodd. This absolute customisation of an individual's media preferences means that we as PR professionals need to first fully understand who we are talking to, then understand their media consumption, and finally make sure that we have the right story."

With the diversification of media, also comes the increasing value of 'The Exclusive'. In order to stand out from the competition, media are demanding new news.

Network PR's media pitches for 2007 NZ Blood 'World Blood Donor Day' campaign were customised for every key media, ensuring each news programme, magazine and newspaper had exclusivity to a particular story or angle.

The 'exclusive' approach means more research is required in an effort to identify two or three times more angles than previously required. But the extra effort certainly pays dividends.

"Keep your measurement indicators simple," advises O'Flaherty. "It's easy to get tied up in complicated metrics, and you need to be careful of 'quantity over quality'. Furthermore, some of the benefits of PR, such as preventing damage to a company's brand and reputation, remain difficult to quantify."

Graham Medcalf is editor of NZ Marketing Magazine. graham@marketingmag.co.nz