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.

 

If we compare Clegg and the Lib Dems' share of social media in the week just gone to the same week a month ago, the effect is immediately obvious. What a difference a month makes. But, how much of this is attributable to him, and how much to his mentor, Vince Cable and hisown social media bandwagon going on at "In Vince Cable we Trust"?

There is an ongoing debate about the potential influence of social media on the UK’s2010 general election. Much has been made of Barack Obama’s use of social media to build a winning coalition of volunteers and supporters in 2008. Will social media transform the UK’s election in the same way? We have set up our own Mood-o-Meter in partnership with Fishburn Hedges to compare comment about the main political parties and their leaders in the UK in the run up to the May 6 general election.

This shows positive posts within social media for each ofthe main political parties by day in contrast to mainstream media. We also show the share of positive posts and articles made that mention each of the three party leaders. While both Labour and the Conservatives are neck and neck in both social and mainstream media, positive comment about Gordon Brown versus David Cameron shows a significant contrast. Brown is more popular in social media, while Cameron tends to dominate the mainstream media.

Will social media influence the result? Nobody knows yet. Will social media influence how the campaign is run? Definitely. You can see the official campaigns dipping their toes in the water, with Labour’s crowd sourcing political poster competition or the Conservatives’ Cash Gordon site.

Social media creates more opportunities for third parties to influence the debate and creates daily pitfalls for candidates. There have already been social media casualties. In the past a misguided comment needed to be picked up by a journalist, now candidates are making gaffes by themselves and publishing them to the (social media) world. I expect hacks and the parties’ own attack machines are scouring social networks for any inappropriate comments made by candidates.

What can we learn from social media that we didn’t know in previous elections? Comparing the views made public by ordinary people creates access to a huge panel of voters’ views. In the past opinion polling was based on a small number of voters being contacted by the polling companies. Based ona typical poll of 1000 people, if 20% claim to be voting Liberal Democrat that means that just 200 people in the country have made that statement. Social media has opened up the field, meaning the views of a cast of 1000s are instantly available.

Behind the scenes our powerful tool myMetrica is slicing the data in a number of other ways and will be providing us with the basis for much analysis as the election campaign draws on. Check Measurement Matters regularly for more updates on the latest trends and results, comparing election reaction on social and mainstream media.

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!