Working on large international PR measurement programmes for firms head-quartered in the US provides me with many benefits, not least the opportunity to network with some of America's smartest operators in the field of public relations measurement, social media and market research. One of the these is Jason Falls who writes an excellent blog 'Social Media Explorer.'

Today Jason has posted on an issue close to my heart - whether to rely on automated sentiment analysis when undertaking social media evaluation. The issue has arisen due to the overwhelming volume of content that the social web generates. Companies know that it contains much valuable information, but PR analysis providers are unable to scale up to measure the content with human coders in the same way that they always have done with traditional media.  Either they don't have access to enough people, or if they do, the costs incurred for the clients would be simply prohibitive.

As a result many firms attempting to measure content in social media have developed automated systems to assess the tone of the myriad of conversations and in some cases to rank posts, blogs, tweets etc for their levels of influence and engagement. A lot of these companies are software specialists who are branching out into new fields.  Social media content has brought their world colliding with that of PR and evaluation. Many have built flashy dashboards that appear to offer great functionality and amazing insights from all of this content.  

The problem is that the data that they are serving up is often plain wrong. Jason's post describes the issue in great detail so I would urge you to take a look at it.

At Metrica we have been helping clients to understand the threats and the opportunities that social media offers since 2006 (and analysing the traditional media since the early days in 1993!) Our approach to social media measurement has always been to use an element of automation, but to undertake large scale human checking on the data before providing it to our clients. The automation provides an element of filtering if you like, the humans provide the real business insights and the intelligence.  Metrica wouldn't base any business decisions on data that stands a significant risk of being flawed.  So why should our clients?  

Regular readers will know that along with Durrants and Gorkana, we are in the process of integrating our businesses to provide the PR industry with the very best media intelligence service available. As we do this, you can rest assured that human quality control, assessment and consultancy will remain at the heart of our offering. After all, as one client in the United States commented to me: "garbage in... garbage out."  Neither Jason nor I could have summarised the risks of relying on automated social media measurement better.

Last week we were delighted to announce that PR planning specialist Gorkana is joining Metrica and Durrants to provide a best of breed PR planning, media monitoring and evaluation solution for every stage of the PR process.

I managed to catch up with Celina Maguire, Gorkana's Consumer Director, and asked her to answer a very vexing public relations problem.  Over to Celina:

Pet Peeve, noun: something about which one frequently complains; a particular personal vexation

Speak to any journalist and ask them their pet peeve about PRs and they will usually say one of two things:  PRs who ring to “check” they have received their press release and PRs who clearly haven’t read their publication before phoning to sell in their “hot” news.

I hear these two gripes time and again from senior journalists I have in the hot seat as part of Gorkana’s regular breakfast briefing programme to help PRs get under the skin of key publications. On the Gorkana couch to date we’ve had the likes of Lisa Smorsarski, the savvy Stylist editor and her team, Heat editor Sam Delaney and his team, the Glam Media crew, News of the World’s Fabulous team (5.2 million readers and counting) and the boys from FHM revealing all about how they want to be approached by PRs and what stories will work for them.

On May 7, in front of a room full of 250+ PRs, I’ll be grilling Terri White, the editor of ShortList, the free weekly men’s title which has become a media phenomenon, her style director Adrian Clark and features editor Lucy Foster. Terri is planning to spill the beans on some brand new editorial plans for the magazine as well as telling PRs how they can get their client included in its sought after pages.  If you want to know more about the Gorkana breakfast briefings email events@gorkana.com.

In the meantime, I’ve pulled together some little gems - anti-vexes if you will! - gleaned from the journos I’ve interviewed over the last six months about how they want to interact with PRs:

Lizanne Harris, Fashion Director, Stylist

Arrange press events in the morning around 8.30am or in the late afternoon from 3pm onwards as it is very difficult to leave the office once she has started for the day. Central London is the best location for convenience.

Lucie Cave, Executive Editor, heat

Lucie receives around 20 pitches from PRs each day and she and the team can spot which emails are circulars. Offer an exclusive as this will increase the size of the feature, for example they exclusively covered Fern Britton dressed as a man and will always attend celeb parties if they are given a unique opportunity. Lucie’s golden advice is: know the team, read the magazine, familiarise yourself with the sections and pitch to these directly.

Ally Pyle, Editor, Glam.com

Ally encourages personal relationships and one-on-one meetings with PRs wherever possible. She will always try to make time for a coffee or quick lunch meeting. Emails are the preferred method of contact.

Jo Upcraft, Lifestyle Editor, Fabulous

Jo is unlikely to cover anything older than six months, anything that has been placed elsewhere already or anything aesthetically unappealing. Statistics (eg 50% of women saw improved results...) are important and PRs should put those in the first few lines of a concise email, along with an interesting header. PRs should also read the magazine and suggest sections that would suit the story they’re selling in.

Colin Kennedy, Editor, FHM

Colin says PRs should not call before 10.30am – best to aim for between 5pm and 6pm, once the majority of the day’s work is behind the team. He likes PRs to email him, suggesting why a story might suit the magazine, and then follow up with a phone call the following day.

Jon Gripton, Chief News Editor, Sky News Online

Jon prefers to be contacted via email and particularly dislikes it when a cold call is made asking “have you received my email?” However, he actively encourages the personal touch, and appreciates those PRs who have forged a relationship with him over time by understanding the Sky News remit and audience.

Celina Maguire is Gorkana's Consumer Director. Prior to joining Gorkana in 2008, Celina's career incorporated journalism and PR where she has worked both in house and for a number of high profile agencies including Consolidated Communications and Le Fevre Communications.  

Celina is on twitter @celinamary50 where you can follow her to keep up to date with all of her latest PR news and tips. Gorkana itself can be found at @Gorkana. Gorkana also regularly tweets about both journalist job opportunities and PR job opportunities.

Ask most people what they think of Apple Inc and the answers will be fairly consistent.  "Great products", "gorgeous design", "superb functionality", "reliable", "easy to use", "the good guys - not the evil empire" might all roll of the tongue.

Apple's turnaround from near oblivion in the mid 1990s to one of today's hottest brands is well documented. The iMac, iPod, iPhone, and now the iPad have all been welcomed rapturously by an adoring public and it seems that the company can do no wrong. The iPhone and iPad are the products of today's world - both portable devices enabling their users to immerse themselves and engage in a rich world of new mobile media.  Proving the point, the iPad's launch sales in the first few days this week have already exceeded 450,000 units and broken analysts expectations.

Apple's reputation amongst their customers has remained consistently high. But with the world at its feet, Apple has started to play a high-stake game that could put this hard won reputation at risk.

Apple has decided that as the world embraces its products as their media platform of choice, they want to control all access to the platform. Not content with recent hostile comments from Steve Jobs at long time ally Adobe calling the company 'lazy' and ridiculing Google's corporate philosophy, they now appear to have banished all flash and third party developers from the iPhone and in all likelihood the iPad too.  This latest move was done in an underhand manner with a change to the small print in the licensing terms and has prompted Lee Brimelow, Adobe's platform evangelist, in a well written post to exclaim "Apple - go screw yourself!" 

The initial reaction from on-line and social media has tended to back Adobe and their stance.  There are fears that Apple is getting too big for its boots and becoming as arrogant as Microsoft was in its heyday.  It reminds me of when Metrica worked with Netscape evaluating their international media coverage from the birth of the first mainstream browser in the mid 1990s and then throughout the ensuing browser wars. The parallels between Apple and Microsoft are clear and ominous.  Microsoft, coming late to the party, realised how the world was going to consume its media via the internet and wanted to control its access.  Apple is attempting to do something similar.

For a company that doesn't embrace social media, where Steve Jobs has no on-line presence, where the staff are also discouraged from engaging in online conversations and blogs, this is a dangerous game to play.  Apple's behaviour reminds me of closed and failed states like China, the Soviet Union and Iran attempting to do the same with their media channels. State controlled media has never succeeded, in today's world of social media it stands even less chance to succeed (think of the recent Iranian election and subsequent protests viral news coverage). 

Microsoft failed in its attempts to dominate access to the web.  Yes, at the time they damaged Netscape's share of the browser market, but Internet Explorer's gain was shortlived with more and more people now preferring other browsers.  Microsoft's behaviour was at enormous cost to the business both financially and to it's reputation, and for little end reward.  Apple deserves to fail in it's endeavours to control how we access and consume our media too.

Following on in quick succession from the purchase of Metrica by Durrants at the end of October last year, we are delighted to welcome Gorkana to the group today.  The story has been well covered in the national, trade and social media and has stimulated plenty of discussion.

 

We're very excited to be working with Gorkana.  When Metrica came together with Durrants in October, the plan was to build the industry's leading media intelligence organisation covering all of the key stages in the PR life cycle.  Durrants' media monitoring, Gorkana's PR planning and Metrica's PR measurement consultancy means that for the first time it is possible to work with the market leaders as part of one group.

 

In the short term it will be business as usual for all three firms.  As Durrants' Managing Director Jeremy Thompson explains over on Speed MD Wadds' blog:

 

"How soon can we get an enterprise deal for Durrants, Gorkana and Metrica products and services?

 

We’re not going to rush to integrate. The key is stability, and to build something really special for the long term. We are very happy to do enterprise deals from day one though, and have already done a number for Durrants and Metrica combined services." 

 

In the near future, we will create a fully integrated offering in response to the demands and needs of our clients.  We have already conducted significant research amongst the PR industry to help us understand the specific needs of today's PR pros.  But we're always keen to hear more so do please feel free to contact us with your views and ideas.

 

The final thoughts go again to Jeremy:

 

"This move is transformational as it completes the coming together of three market leaders, all with strong reputations for delivering exceptional services and customer support...  Durrants acquired Metrica, the award winning media evaluation specialist in October 2009. Combining Gorkana with Durrants media monitoring and Metrica analysis will give our customers unrivalled access to the ‘best of breed’ solution for every stage of the PR workflow.” 

 

Watch this space!

 

 

The video below is a great (and short) interview from the excellent MyRagan (an online PR community generated by Ragan Communications, a US based PR consultancy). It features Adam Brown, Coca-Cola's Group Director of Digital Communications, discussing the PR strategy and benefits of 'Expedition 206' - Coke sending three of their brand advocates to all 206 countries in the world where their product is for sale. Watch it in the video clip below, or if you are reading this update via email, then head over to MyRagan's website directly to view.

It doesn't discuss the PR measurement side of the activity in much detail however. That's where maybe the PR community and I can help tomorrow (Tuesday). I will be the guest of Shonali Burke answering questions on all things relevant to PR measurement in both the traditional and new media. Fittingly I will be doing this via a Twitter chat. Shonali's #measurepr has grown to be a tremendous success with regular chats on alternate Tuesdays. Previous guests have included the excellent Sean Williams of CommAmmo and the indomitable Katie Paine of KDPaine and Partners.  

Shonali's 'Measure PR' twitter chats are always entertaining and well attended. The event should attract many leading lights from social media PR from across the globe so if you're looking for an international perspective on the latest PR measurement issues and trends, why not join us on Twitter at 5-6pm GMT (12-1pm Eastern Time, 9-10am Pacific Time).  Be sure to follow along in realtime either in MyMetrica, Tweetdeck or Tweetgrid and don't be shy, join the conversation  

Finally, if you would like to direct message me, please be sure to follow me first - find me on twitter at @richardbagnall.

I hope to see you there.

I'm in San Diego over the weekend for the 2009 PRSA International Conference - the largest international PR gathering in the world. Many of the thought leaders of our industry our here to share their thoughts on the future of communications, to teach, to learn and of course to network.

The networking began in earnest last night with a tweetup named in honour of surely one of the world of PR's leading networked communicators Shonali Burke. Shonali used to run the PR for the ASPCA, the USA's equivalent of Britain's RSPCA where her leadership and forward thinking on the importance of measuring public relations won her many accolades.  

Shonali now runs her own consultancy in Washington DC and counts among her clients the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation. #shonalitweetup allowed me a great opportunity to chat to some fascinating people also attending the conference.

Well worth following on twitter and in attendance last night were: 

• @shonali - Shonali Burke
• @leeodden - Lee Odden
• @swoodruff - Steve Woodruff
• @rockstarjen - Jennifer Wilbur
• @kamichat - Kami Huyse
• @vargasl - Lauren Vargas
• @pryouready - Ashley Houghton
• @dfriez - Debbie Friez
• @lisasommer - Lisa Sommer
• @natalie_joy - Natalie Joy

and many, many more. Log in to Twitter and seach for the #shonalitweetup to see who else was there.

The conference gets under way in earnest today with a keynote speech from Arianna Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post.  The Huffington Post is firmly in the firing line of traditional media owners like Rupert Murdoch who consider that it is plagarising their premium content.  Her comments and views on these issues and the future of our industry are bound to be interesting.  

I'll be hoping to update via our blog, but for real time updates form the conference, follow it's hash tag on twitter #prsa09. If you would like to follow my time here with a focus on PR measurement and the future of PR generally, then please follow me too @richardbagnall for my personal updates.