My Christmas Eve tradition never varies. Once the presents are wrapped and under the tree, the table is set and the stockings are stuffed, I put a few more logs on the fire, grab a glass of wine (or port if I’m feeling indulgent) and ask myself what my clients know as the “Champagne Moment” question: “If I’m sitting here a year from now, sipping the finest Champagne and toasting to truly outstanding success over the past year, then what achievements would I need to have accomplished to result in such exuberant celebration?”
The answer has been the same for much of the past decade: finish writing the damn novel that I’ve had in my head forever. So, this year I thought I’d change it up a bit, and turn my focus outward.
So here are my resolutions for 2017:
1. I will move from measurement to data analysis
After three decades of focusing on measuring PR results, I’m done. Not just because after three decades it’s getting a bit old, but because the world is moving on. Increasingly PR, now renamed “Earned Media,” is a critical arrow in the marketing quiver and as such it’s contribution is being measured as part of a communications whole.
Sure, there will certainly be several organizations—startups, advocacy non-profits and others—for whom PR is a stand-alone endeavor. But most for-profit organizations and many non-profits are seeing the need to evaluate the performance of the entire communications effort.
A year from now, my hunch is that I will have very few clients who look at PR in isolation and a great many more for whom I am weaving PR results with web analytics, social analytics, and CRM to determine the interrelationships between the various activities. Using tools like Proof, such data mining has become much easier and will become far more ubiquitous. Besides, there’s nothing work-wise that I like more than losing myself in a giant Excel spread sheet.
2. Data cleaning will become a core part of my business
As people have awakened to the concept that fake news, intentionally leaked documents, and misinterpretation of data all played a role in the U.S.’s choice of a leader, organizational leaders are taking a closer look at data accuracy.
It’s an issue I started writing about three years ago, and the situation has only gotten worse. With luck, more people will be taking a closer look at their data and asking me to help them clean it up.
3. I will stop talking about AVEs
Well, I’ll try. (I can’t take responsibility for all the yahoos out there—like Rob Wynne, for instance—who might try to provoke me.) The gist of most of my evaluation conversations of late is focused around the fact that AVEs, impressions, and even reach aren’t cutting it these days, and decision makers want to know the connection to business value. Once again, the arrival of tools like PROOF and Glean.info will make it much easier to provide answers.
4. I will be more Bernie Sanders, less Hillary/Barack
I wrote last month about how we needed a more populist approach to measurement. There are plenty of academics writing about the theories of measurement, and a plethora of high-end solutions on the market that appeal to major brands and large global organizations. The gap is between the people who are doing the most talking and the ones doing the most work: the one and two-man shops in agencies and nonprofits and small businesses that are wearing multiple hats and have no time and no budget to measure. But I know that with Excel and Google Analytics they can have great evaluation. I will teach them how.
5. I will help move social media metrics to the next phase
It’s been more than five years since the initial meeting of what would become The Conclave on Social Media Measurement. Many of the standards we wrote back then feel increasingly anachronistic, given the arrival of Facebook Live, Snapchat and a POTUS that tweets instead of holding press conferences. We will be updating our initial documents, study the data and trying to figure out how to measure the business impact of it all.
6. I will listen more, talk less, ask more questions, and let go of a lot more preconceived notions
The institutional earthquake that is taking place in government and the media right now will spill over into all our lives. And, while much of it scares the living bejeeezus out of me, I’ve never been one to run away from change. The way to muddle through is to look at the data, listen to credible sources, take the pulse of your constituencies, and distill it all into good advice. That’s my plan for myself, for The Measurement Advisor, and for Paine Publishing.
Here’s wishing you all the best with your resolutions,
