“In the past, the notion of measuring engagement with editorial content was largely theoretical. Circulation and readership figures were treated as proxies for engagement,” say Smith.
But for online PR, Google tools provide hard numbers. Parker and Smith define reach as the number of views that a page receives and engagement as the amount of time that a person spends on a page.
They find that visitors spend a widely varying amount of time on different news sites and predict how many words they are likely to have read per page.
“[…] as a general rule, specialist titles seem to have lower numbers of visitors and page views, but tend to have far higher engagement with content,” says Smith.
There is one exception. News sites such as Reuters that act as a syndication service have a high level of reach and engagement.
The lessons for online PR are clear.
Don’t chase sites with large circulation numbers as engagement is likely to be low
Plan your campaigns and target content at sites where your audience is engaged
The higher up a story you get your content the more likely it is to be read
The 70-page report lifts the lid on client-side and agency digital programmes. It tells a story of an industry experimenting with social media programmes (typically with no dedicated budget or a small budget) and grappling with the issues of engagement, monitoring and measurement.
The report is a must-read for anyone in the PR industry who aspires to remain in the PR industry. Here are some highlights:
46 per cent of companies and 45 per cent of agencies are using tools to monitor their brand online. Without exception, all businesses should be tracking the conversations around their brand online. There really is no excuse as the results of the research show such tools needn’t cost a thing.
47 per cent of companies are responding to negative comments online. Negative comment is often the start of a conversation that can ultimately transform a vocal critic into a loyal supporter, able to offer support and understanding for your business. Yet all too often, brands are on mute.
The report is in no doubt that Twitter is the PR tool of 2009. However we’re still in the early stages of experimentation and there are very few examples of real innovation. It’s easy to get hung up on follower numbers and use Twitter as a simple one-sided broadcast channel for corporate messages.
Metrics to define social media success remain a work in progress. Measurement has been an ongoing issue for the PR industry during the last 50 years. A series of cross- industry initiatives such as Social Measurement Camp are focussing their efforts specifically on what success looks like for a brand in a social network. In the meantime direct traffic and the tone of conversations around a brand are good proxies.
While the measurement of social media remains an issue, businesses are very clear about the desired benefits of investing in social media programmes, namely brand reputation and customer engagement.
We can find no evidence of any reputational impact to Scotland online as a result of the Scottish government’s decision to release Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.
We’ve looked hard and believe that claims of a boycott have been largely exaggerated. Its a good old fashioned PR stunt to drive interest in Scottish products.
But results from Google Insights for Search do show that searches around keywords relating to Scottish products are cyclically focussed around Summer and Christmas and that search volumes have been in decline since 2006.
Here’s another neat animation from my pals at RealWire. In about the same amount of time it takes to boil the kettle and make a cup of tea it explains how creating conversations and communities is at the core of successful online PR. Have a look for yourself.
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