How to Track PR via Social and Print Media
If you’re a business owner, chances are you know three letters very well: R.O.I. (Return on Investment.) It can be tough to put PR into numbers, which is why most of us work in the field. We checked out of math class when the algebra teacher started putting letters next to numbers on the chalkboard.
Online Media
We want to impress you, so we value impressions. There are many different ways to show these and many different web sites you’ll hear PR people reference. For online coverage, we’ll use Google Analytics, Quantcast, Compete and TrafficEstimate, just to name a few.
Oftentimes, these figures are compiled monthly, as in “unique monthly visitors.” If you’d like to know weekly or daily figures, those can be determined quite easily.
Now, because we are looking at a media web site, such as Forbes.com, it is tough to know if visitors actually clicked through to the article about your company’s news. That said, nothing’s guaranteed in media impressions; Forbes could have 2 million subscribers, but 1 million of them could have left town the month you were in the magazine; The Today Show could have 4 million average viewers every day, but they could have gone to work early the day that your CEO lands on a segment.
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Online reporting is a bit easier to read, as your site can trackback click-throughs. Additionally, online coverage can get re-posted via social media networks and through wires.
Print Media
Print media is still alive and kicking and its tough to judge its effect on the public. Sure, we can look at circulations, but many conversations around the world start with, “I was reading an article in/by/about…”
In print, circulations are often multiplied as a sort of “pass on” factor. For example, BusinessWeek’s circulation is 926,785, but there is a “pass on” factor to consider, as families, offices and other places of business pass magazines around. So, an agency may report it as 926,785 x 4, or 3,707,140.
Newspapers are often sent to families or offices, as well, but since they are daily and not weekly or monthly, they are often multiplied by 2.6. Each issue is thought to have a shorter shelf life. Thereby, it likely gets “passed on” less. So, the Financial Times’ circulation of 500,000 is often reported as 1,300,000.
Ad Value Equivalencies (AVE) is also not an exact science. AVEs are determined by multiplying a medium’s ad rate by the size of the placement. In print and online, this is measured in inches or quarter inches. In broadcast, this is measured by seconds or half minutes. Many people value content more than size though. For that reason, we have developed a Publicity Value Analysis, which will be discussed soon here on the Green Buzz Agency Blog.
Alison Walsh is an Experienced Public Relations and Marketing Professional. You can reach her at alisonhope.walsh@gmail.com
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because it’s their default home page, and they don’t even know the difference between entering Food into their browser and into their search engine.You are right that if Bing ranks generics higher, and they have less valuable information than brands, consumers will have a bad user experience and switch to Google.