On the Level: Where are you?

 By Meredith McKee, Account Supervisor, Consumer

Check out Edelman’s new tools BlogLevel and TweetLevel – available to anyone for free – and find out where you rank on Twitter and in the blogosphere.

Developed by Edelman staffers, these tools track bloggers and tweeters from around the globe and score them according to influence using 40 different metrics. People with the highest rankings are those who have unique ideas and engage their followers by providing informative and relevant content.

It’s addictive to use, and very helpful, as you can find the most influential people on a particular topic and even see how influential your own Twitter or blog are. As someone who works with travel clients – I’ve looked up everything from travel, business travel, airlines, hotels – and even more specific to destinations. Cross-referencing these tools with other sources you can be sure you are engaging with the right people on Twitter and blogs.

Give it a spin yourself. Not sure what to search for first? Tweetlevel yourself…it’s like Googling yourself.

2011 Is the Year of Mobile Marketing

  By Kate Sutherland, Account Supervisor, Consumer

The Association of Travel Marketing Executives (ATME) recently brought together leading industry executives to discuss what was new and exciting for the coming year. While the entire panel agreed that the past few years had been difficult for each of their industries they were all optimistic for a strong 2011 and had a fresh outlook on how to attract new customers.

Mobile marketing is the number one new tactic being employed from airlines to hotels in order to stay front of mind with travelers. Jim Zito, VP of Interactive Marketing at Morgans Hotel Group; Hugh Riley, secretary general, Caribbean Tourism Organization; Chris Rossi, SVP of Virgin Atlantic Airways; and Shirley Tafoya, president of Travelzoo all agreed that providing consumers with an easier way to access information on their mobile devices was key to attracting and keeping customers engaged with their product. The focus will be on creating new applications that are both functional and unique. For example, Virgin Airlines will focus on making it easier for passengers to check in online and receive real-time flight information, while Travelzoo is trying to find a way to quickly and easily make their sales available through their own application.

The overall consensus: this will be a “test and learn” year for mobile. I work with a variety of travel clients, and can speak from experience when I say that mobile is a major focus for 2011. Whether it’s to sell a product, or provide a service, over the next few months I have a number of clients rolling out new mobile features on both the Blackberry and iPhone.

What about social media?

While social media was the focus of 2010, there is a definite shift in priorities moving forward. Last year, everyone had a “jump in and see what happens” attitude, without considering where exactly social media best fit for their company. Was it a PR tool, customer service tool or a sales tool? It was everything. I had one client learn the hard way that social media, like traditional media, requires strategy. We had another company, with a number of different Twitter accounts, sending several different messages out daily. It created disconnect for the brand and, ultimately, confused the consumer. In the end, every client should recognize that social media should be approached like any PR campaign – through careful planning and strategic entry into the appropriate mediums.

This issue was not exclusive to my client.  Many companies learned the hard way that social media does NOT fit everywhere. Now they are taking a step back and evaluating the ROI on social. Where does it work, how do you best engage through social and where is it not a fit? The answer really depends on the industry and clientele, but each company agreed they will work hard to find a “home” for social media this year to more effectively communicate their key messages, product offerings or engage with customers directly.

Interestingly, hotels and airlines have very different outlooks on how to use social media. While Morgan’s Hotel group has great success using social media to get information out about events and parties at their U.S. hotels, Virgin uses it strictly as a customer service tool to help passengers especially when they experience problems with their trips. Regardless of how it is used, a dedicated staff or person is key to making a social media strategy a success. Offering real-time information and responses was an important lesson learned last year for each company.

The final message from the day – whether it is mobile marketing or other social media strategies - is that being proactive, interactive and innovative is the only way to succeed in gaining customers' attention and loyalty.

Three Learnings From the "Barcelona Principles"

  By Ward White, Chief Strategy Officer

Just about the hottest topic in the PR trade press lately has been the Barcelona Principles.

• What’s this all about?
• Why should I care?

What’s this all about?

Last summer, 230 leading measurement experts from 33 countries gathered to address a worldwide problem -- the lack of standards in measuring what we do as PR people. They debated and voted to take a stand on seven issues. These seven points have becomes known --and widely praised -- as the “Barcelona Principles.”

These are:

• The importance of goal setting and measurement.
• Measuring the effect on outcomes is preferred to measuring outputs.
• The effect on business results can and should be measured where possible.
• Media measurement requires quantity and quality.
• AVEs are not the value of public relations.
• Social media can and should be measured.
• Transparency and replicability are paramount to sound measurement.

The full Barcelona document is on the website of the Institute for Public Relations, which is the industry’s bridge between PR academics and PR practitioners. IPR co-led the effort to assemble this worldwide summit and played an active role in the drafting. PRSA also participated. The link is http://www.instituteforpr.org/research_single/the_barcelona_declaration_of_measurement_principles

Why should I care?

As I see things, there are three main take-aways for the everyday PR or marketing professional.

1. The most important thing about the Barcelona Principles is that they exist. The PR world came together and agreed – MEASUREMENT MATTERS
   
   A common mantra in Business School is “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” To manage a PR program, you need measurement. Your boss, or your client, needs measurement.
   
   TAKE-AWAY: Measurement is essential to every PR program and project. Without measurement, the program is incomplete and inadequate. Period.
2. The second most important thing is – RESULTS MATTER.
   
   Hence, “Measuring the effect on outcomes is preferred to measuring outputs.” Your clients don’t care how much effort or information you put out. They care about what your program achieved. What difference did it make? What was the outcome?
   
   TAKE-AWAY : The significant measure is not your activity, your output. Producing a brochure or a press release is output. Rather, measure outcomes, -- what happened as a result, what difference did it make to your client, her boss or to the business itself?
3. Third, BUSINESS RESULTS MATTER.
   
   PR is not primarily a communications discipline. It is a business discipline that uses communications to achieve business results. (If you’re not in a business, substitute “organization” for “business” wherever it appears and everything here will apply).
   
   Where possible and accounting for other variables, measure business results – sales, market share, change in purchase preference or attitude. This principle applies especially to marketing-related programs.
   
   Media coverage is not a business result. At most, publicity is one tool in the toolkit we use to help a client build its business. The best programs start with business objectives. They then engage every relevant stakeholder group, they use every tool (social media, purposeful philanthropy, personal relationships, coalitions, marketing partners, events and, yes, media coverage,) to achieve the business objective.
   
   TAKE-AWAY: Your PR program cannot achieve quantitative business results without quantitative business objectives upfront. The focus of PR professionals today is on defining objectives that build the client’s business (or brand) in measurable ways.
   
   We are urged to think more like a business executives and less like communicators. Our challenge is to think like a CEO, to think – not like our client – but like our client’s boss. When PR people can be both businesspeople and communicators at the same time, we bring something unique to the table, something of great value to clients.

CONCLUSION.

The heart of the Barcelona declaration is in the first three principles – measurement matters, results matter and, most of all, business results matter. The rest is detail. (A few of those details have stirred controversy, especially the validity of using advertising equivalency), but the first three principles highlighted here are the ones of lasting significance.

I predict that the Barcelona Principles will be with us for a good while. Accordingly, we would do well to get used to them. At one level, they simply re-state the basics. No surprises there. But they also represent an ideal. We will have to keep stretching to reach the goals they lay out. Stretching, striving to be better – that’s good for all of us -- and good for the PR profession. Viva Barcelona!

Disclaimer: this blog post represents the author’s personal views and is not an official statement from Edelman as a firm.