The ROI Metrics that can help make PR agencies relevant again.

Are PR agencies still relevant? This is the question that Brian Solis posed to a panel of Social media fans and practitioners at this years SXSW interactive festival or should I say spectacle. "Agencies have competition from places they never saw coming - interactive agencies, community management companies." said Solis, who has been on the cutting edge of new media PR for the last 10 years or so. According to this Social Media Today post, the Institute for Public Relations completed an analysis (available here) of the increasing impact of social and other new media on public relations. The results of the study suggest blogs and social media are improving PR as a discipline. According to the study:

• 92% of those surveyed think blogs and social media influence news coverage in the traditional media (newspapers, magazines, radio and television)
• 76 percent say the reverse also is true.
• 88% say that blogs and social media have made communications more instantaneous because they force organizations to respond more quickly to criticism.

Most new media strategists and practitioners have been saying that the future of PR is participation for a while now, I agree, however PR agencies are still struggling with defining the day-to day tactics of integrating emerging media technologies into their business strategy. In my practice as a web analyst I have found the biggest issue with many of my clients is defining the metrics by which to measure social media or building what I call an OGSM (Objectives, Goals, Strategies and Metrics). I recommend PR professionals build an OGSM for their specific clients at the beginning of every engagement or project. Here are some of the focus areas and Objectives, Goals, Strategies and Metrics that are applicable to PR directly:

Buzz monitoring

• Objective - "Listening"
• Goal - On topic monitoring of UGC
• Strategy - Ad-hoc topic specific keyword reporting and analysis
• Metric(s) - Audience participation and engagement metrics around velocity

1. Number of posts
2. posting frequency
3. frequency of comments, etc

Online Crisis management

• Objective - "Influence Public Opinion"
• Goal(s) - Join the conversation for the purpose of correcting the brand/organization's inaccurate or mistaken communications.
• Strategy(s) - Monitor UGC in realtime as events happen, track sentiment and engage influentials in a purpose driven conversation. Communicate with authenticity and transparency
• Metrics - Audience participation and Engagement metrics around Content and Relevency

1. Retweets, recommendations
2. comments, pass alongs
3. video reviews, podcasts, etc

Company blogs monitoring/policing

• Objective - "Manage internal messaging"
• Goal(s) - monitor internal conversations for the purpose of keeping the organization on message.
• Strategy(s) - Monitor rss feeds using a negative keyword list. Proactively post on-message topics to internal sites and community managers to acheive "No Drama Obama" style messaging consistency.
• Metrics - Audience participation and Engagement metrics around Content and Relevency

1. tweets,forum posts, blog posts
2. comments, pass alongs
3. Posts labeled as "leaks"

Blogger/Influencer relations

• Objective - "Engage influential bloggers"
• Goal(s) - Develop authentic relationships with top influentials in an a given industry.
• Strategy(s) - Identify top influentials list and monitor on topic posts using topic specific dashboards. Develop engagement triggers and "key topic" filters that engagement leads can use as "conversation starters"
• Metrics - Audience participation and Engagement metrics around Content and Relevancy

1. tweets,forum posts, blog posts
2. comments, pass alongs
3. conversation and engagement indeces

Try these out and see what happens.
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