Defining, collecting, and analyzing data can be massive undertakings but the current data buzzword is “big data.” “Big data” has been getting quite a bit of media attention and can be described as dynamic sets of information that require non-traditional tools for analysis. However, most methods (and often the capacity) for analyzing “big data” are unclear or still in the early stages of development. 
Photo via The IBM Curiosity Shop 
Photo Credit: Mike Licht
By Elizabeth Ballard, Director
“Just try it,” Peggy Olsen repeated in the most recent episode of AMC's Mad Men, flubbing what was supposed to be the new Cool Whip catch phrase. Don’s frustration was palpable as Peggy continued to botch the line. It’s “just taste it” Peggy! Everyone in the room was aware of the importance of the tag line. “Just try it” would go nowhere. Just TASTE it, however, could be a smash hit.
Crafting the right message for your brand or product can be tricky, but it is absolutely necessary. Messaging is a critical factor in positioning your brand or product among the hundreds out there. It can take weeks to come up with what seems to be the right messaging for your brand. Once perfected, you unleash it to the world, send out press releases, schedule interviews, start an advertising campaign, the works. Then what? How do you know if you have the right message?
You measure its impact and resonance. Is your earned media coverage conveying this message? How frequently? Who’s getting the message out? Does it appear alongside negative discussion of your brand or company? Is new, organic messaging popping up together with your crafted messaging? Is there evidence suggesting that this message is helping to increase sales, improve brand awareness, or heighten web traffic? Media measurement can help you answer all of these questions and reveal if your messaging is resonating with the intended audience. It can help you adapt and restructure your outreach efforts to ensure you are getting the most out of your resources.
Just try it.
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By Elizabeth Ballard, Director
An image can convey a lot of information in an instant. Visual elements in media coverage are increasingly important as sharing, re-purposing, and re-posting images becomes easier. Tracking and quantifying the value of brand visibility through images appearing in media coverage is an important part of evaluating how a product or brand stands up to its competitors.
A number of factors must be examined to understand and measure the impact of images and graphics appearing in media attention. Among the things to consider include:
1) Is the image prominently displayed? Is it above the fold? On the landing page? How many clicks does it take to get to the image?
2) Can you see a logo? A partial logo?
3) How big is the image relative to the article? How big is it relative to other images appearing in that publication?
4) Is the image a joke? Is it sarcastic? Is it an ad campaign turned meme?
5) Is there a caption? How does it affect the meaning of the visual?
6) Is the visual negative?
7) Is your logo/product/brand displayed alone or is it grouped with competitors?
An automated media analysis tool probably could tell you if an image appeared, where it appeared, and maybe even if a logo is displayed. But measuring the value of that image will be lost on a machine, as most, if not all, automated media analysis tools are able to examine only the text of articles or the transcripts of broadcast pieces when assessing sentiment.
In contrast, human analysts are able to review the whole article or watch the actual broadcast piece, and can evaluate the significance and impact of the visual elements when assessing sentiment. The ability to take a deeper look at images, place them in the intended context, and assess their significance by using some of the criteria above is vital and requires a level of intelligence that machines do not have. This represents just one more reason that investing in human-based research is worthwhile.
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By Jillian Baronoff, Media Analyst
Social media has transformed into the ultimate PR hub for brand engagement. Through the power of real-time communication, companies have an array of platforms to establish ongoing dialogues with consumers that turn them into loyal fans and followers. Now as social media has reached mainstream acceptance, companies are capitalizing on social media measurement tools to gauge their share of voice and determine whether communication goals are met.
Despite the wide use of social media monitoring and measurement, we are still seeing the underuse of tools that link media outputs to a company’s bottom line. Often, this results from a lack of meaningful engagement that does not clearly support business goals. However, through specific and measureable PR strategies and tactics, companies can use measurement tools, such as CARMA Connect, to link their media performance to business outcomes.
CARMA Media Analyst Mitch Rubenstein celebrates Oreos 100th birthday by embracing his “kid inside.” Recently, I came across a great PR campaign with the types of measurable components that can be connected to business results. On March 6, Kraft Foods kicked off a year-long global campaign to commemorate the 100th birthday of its iconic cookie brand Oreos. The Oreos centennial celebration is tapping into the spirit of childhood that remains in us all. Recent consumer research showed that children are growing up faster, while adults are yearning for those simple, carefree moments that embodied their youth. Therefore, Kraft Foods launched a campaign to celebrate “the kid inside” by inviting consumers to take part in a global birthday party for Oreos. To engage their audience, Kraft set a bold social media objective for fans to share 1 million moments of childhood delight with Oreos. Through an authentic birthday website coupled with Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, fans are engaging with the iconic cookie brand and other fans by sharing personal videos, photos, and stories about their beloved Oreos.
No matter how you twist, lick, or dunk it, I think the Oreos birthday celebration is a stellar example of fan engagement that fosters measurable results. On a basic level, the brand’s social media strategy sets a clear, quantifiable objective of surpassing 1 million moments. This number identifies desired outputs and allows for adaption throughout the campaign. However, the brand’s PR objective is much more than a “like” on Facebook. To qualify as a moment with Oreos consumers must engage with the brand. Out of approximately 400,000 moments shared since the campaign’s launch, many involved either a photo or video of fans with the cookies. That is 400,000 opportunities to establish brand loyalty and generate potential Oreo sales, resulting from the power of unpaid media.
While Oreos has shown the value of quality engagement through social media, its true success can be seen only through its evaluation. Using measurement techniques that connect outputs to outcomes would enable Kraft to see if its social media efforts translated into improved sales results for the rest of 2012 and beyond.
**NOTE: This blog post is a reflection of my thoughts on best standards for social media strategy. As much as we would love the bragging rights, Kraft is not a CARMA client.**
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September 2011 marked seven years for me at CARMA, and now my time as Director has winded down. Last month, I shifted my role to that of a consultant to CARMA (I just can’t bring myself to leave!). With this change, I can’t help but reflect on how the media measurement and analysis industry has evolved and grown since I began my CARMA career as a Junior Analyst, way back when blogs were just becoming mainstream and Twitter didn’t even exist.
My early days at CARMA involved examining clip binders, standing for hours at the photocopy machine, sending and receiving hundreds of FedEx shipments, and sifting through stacks upon stacks of papers. LexisNexis and Factiva were often our only options for digital coverage, and most television coverage was shipped to us on a DVD. Trade coverage was difficult to obtain, and when available, it was through expensive clipping options or subscription services that required hand scanning by CARMA interns and junior analysts to find the desired clips.
Obtaining digital coverage has now gone from “Where?” to “Who?” as CARMA works with a number of content providers nowadays. We are able to choose from a mass of content options and discern which content provider best meets each client’s needs. For example, we have choice for who offers the best general online coverage and for who offers the best online trade coverage. And with this shift to digital, I was happy to say goodbye to hunting for articles in stacks of papers and flipping through binder clips. Not only for the time I saved but also for the decrease in paper cuts I endured during report time.
Another major change in the media measurement industry is the increased need to view immediate results. I’m proud to say I’ve worked at a company who adapted to this need with the creation of NewsAccess and with our partnership with Sysomos to offer CARMA Heartbeat. By combining these services with CARMA’s human-based media analysis, we can provide clients with a total picture of its media landscape – immediate top-line metrics such as volume, share of voice, and topical information, with meaningful insights that result from CARMA’s in-depth research conducted by our human analysts, including key metrics such as our client’s message and favorability performance.
The emergence and popularity of Twitter only has intensified the demand for immediate results. The platform itself fosters the need for immediate media analysis information. After all, we all can think of dozens of media firestorms and backlashes that were started because someone tweeted about some controversial event that occurred in some random place around the world.
Through this evolution, CARMA has grown and reworked itself and its offerings to continue as the leader in media analysis. I’ve found it rewarding that I was able to play a part in helping make this happen and helping CARMA to stay at the forefront of the media analysis industry. As I make this transition, I offer my thanks to my colleagues and my past and current clients for a wonderful seven years at CARMA!
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By Angie Jeffrey, APR
Guess what? Measurement and evaluation are on the rise with corporations increasing their budgets considerably over the past two years. Allocations for measurement and evaluation have risen to 9 percent of total PR/Communications program budgets, up from just 4 percent in 2009. And this is happening even during today's economic troubles!
The news comes from USC Annenberg's recently released Seventh Communication and Public Relations Generally Accepted Practices (GAP) Study, which provides PR practitioners with data they can use to better manage their PR and communication efforts, and with information on key trends and best practices against which they can benchmark. The GAP VII Study is the largest and most comprehensive survey to date, with the participation of more than 600 senior-level PR/Communications practitioners in the U.S. The study was led by Jerry Swerling and his team from the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism; partners included The Arthur W. Page Society, the Institute for Public Relations, PRSA and IABC.
The study provides insights into a variety of topics in PR, but I will focus on just the Measurement and Evaluation results. According to the study’s news release, how you measure really is linked to success.
“Companies using outcomes measures, such as influence on stakeholder attitudes and opinions, the bottom line, etc., are much more likely to say they have a good external reputation and are successful than are companies that rely on traditional “PR output” measures, such as clips, impressions and advertising equivalency.”
(What the study didn’t ask was how many respondents use their output measures to LINK to outcomes like leads, sales, or survey scores through simple correlations. Consider this a shameless plug for CARMA Connect, which does just that!)
Anyway, the researchers say the pronounced rise in measurement budgets speaks to the improved ability to measure web content via social media monitoring tools, but also may indicate a more strategic view and use of public relations. The latter is an encouraging thought.
The chart below shows the most common items being measured by corporations, some of which may surprise you – like “Influence on Employee Attitudes” ranking #2. (Ratings range from “1=Don’t Use” to “7=Use Significantly”). More sophisticated measures really have gained in importance while the clip analysis is still a mainstay.
Of course, you will not be surprised to see that Metrics for Digital/Social have increased greatly in importance in the last two years, increasing from 3.1 in 2009 to 4.6 in 2011. And, the use of Primary Research for Pre- and Post-campaigns also has made big strides.
I hope you’ll take time to download the study, as it's rich in mission-critical information. Meanwhile, congratulations to my good friends from the IPR Commission on PR Measurement & Evaluation, Forrest W. Anderson and David Michaelson, Ph.D., who contributed to the study. Great work, guys!
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By Sonia LaFountain, Chief Operating Officer
When planning media outreach, organizations put a great deal of thought into how to generate media coverage that will reach their target audience. They market and outreach according to whom they want to influence, where they want to influence them, and what they want to influence them on. Yet organizations sometimes fail to close the loop by ensuring that their measurement efforts are focused on that core audience.
Clients come to CARMA looking for advice on an approach to analysis. They tell us that they have been measuring everything but are not 
Photo by: guidozsure if this is the best approach or perhaps can no longer afford to measure everything. We often find that the things they were measuring and the media they measure no longer fit their media outreach plans or business goals.
Where to start? Start by defining your core audience both in traditional and social media and then focus your measurement efforts on that core audience. For example, if you support a product or brand, and your efforts are focused on southern states, then you need to measure only in the south to show the effects of your media outreach efforts.
Defining targets both in traditional and social media takes a bit of time and effort, but the end result is well worth it. Measuring and evaluating the media coverage that reaches your target audience will help you understand if you're reaching your goals and objectives. It also will allow you to become more efficient and effective, while enabling you to acquire information about which you can be confident to act on.
If a measurement provider tells you that they can’t isolate results for your core audience, then you are probably working with the wrong company. CARMA takes the time to work with content providers that are both comprehensive and flexible in their approach to content collection, both in traditional and social media, so that we can take a targeted approach to monitoring and measuring the coverage reaching your core audience.
Taking a targeted approach with media measurement also will help with taking the analysis and evaluation process to the next level by linking your media outputs to your business outcomes. If you have analyzed according to the target market, the next step of linking the media outputs in that target market to business results in that market is a snap with CARMA Connect, our output to outcome analysis service.
And if you still need to look at media coverage in all markets and across all media type and can’t narrow your analysis to targets, then at least be sure to define within the broader landscape what media are most important. Defining priority media at the outset of any media analysis program will allow you to receive an analysis that informs at all levels.
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by Katie Eickhoff, Analyst
When putting together a media measurement plan for a client, analysts need to consider measuring content across platforms and across channels.
The definitions of cross-platform and cross-channel can get muddled. Cross-platform measurement allows for content appearing on multiple information delivery systems on which applications and content run (i.e. tablets, smartphones, television, etc.).
Advertisers in particular are concerned with cross-platform measurement, as their ads appear across a variety of platforms, but current content identification systems can’t handle the variety of platforms that show ads. Like non-paid social media measurement pros, advertisers suffer from a lack of a standard for this aspect of their industry. 
Photo via Flickr
Accurately tracking on what platform content appeared is extremely important, both for getting an accurate audience count and for ensuring that the right channel is being used to deliver content most effectively. For example, Microsoft determined that “viewers spent more time, had greater recall, and higher levels of emotional and cognitive engagement” when they viewed campaign pieces via XBOX Live, compared to traditional 30-60 second television spots.
Meanwhile, a common definition for a channel is that it is a means of communication. They include everything from a person speaking to podcasts, websites, and television stations. Channels are the applications that run on platforms.
From the measurement standpoint, cross-channel posting could be considered more challenging. The ability of platforms to change their content display tends to be limited by hardware (i.e. consumers who bought a 42” television or an 11” tablet will be viewing content according to the limitations and dimensions of that piece of hardware). But content on channels isn’t limited by hardware. It’s that lack of limitations that complicates measuring. Bing and Google+ tout their capabilities to cross-post content to users’ Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, and LinkedIn profiles, among others. In doing so, they distort the clear boundaries that distinguish channels. While entities like Google Analytics are already experimenting with script tracking to distinguish content, the task becomes more difficult as websites become more complex.
Accounting for those distorted boundaries between channels and platforms is going to continue to be a challenge until a standard can be found for measuring cross-channel and cross-platform content. Until then, the measurement industry will have to continue to work with clients to develop customized ways to account for the new platforms and channels that display content about them.
By Chris Scully, VP of Research at CARMA International
In 1987, professional poker player David Sklansky published The Theory of Poker outlining his thoughts on the underlying theories and concepts for winning at all the variations of the card game. In this book, he unveiled the Fundamental Theorem of Poker.
Photo credit: Viri GSimply put, the theorem states that anytime you're playing poker and your opponents do something (such as bet, call, raise, or fold) that they wouldn't do if they knew all your cards, then you win money. Also, anytime you do something (again, such as bet, call, raise, or fold) that you wouldn't do if you knew all your opponents' cards, then you lose money.
Using this as an inspiration, I'd like to offer what I call the Fundamental Theorem of Favorability Analysis: Anytime a story says something about a company or organization that the entity would want the story to say, then that discussion is favorable. Anytime a story says something about a company or organization that the entity would not want the story to say, then that discussion is unfavorable.
For this theorem, I define "about the company or organization" broadly such that it includes discussion of that entity's products and services, organizational mission or goals, management, financial performance, standing as an employer or corporate citizen, etc. I also use the word "story" broadly to incorporate new reports, opinion pieces, and all types of social media hits (blogs, tweets, Facebook status updates, etc.). Lastly, I define "that discussion" as being the part of the story saying that certain something the entity would or would not like the story to say. This discussion could be as brief as a word or two or as expansive as several paragraphs or more.
Incorporating this theorem into a favorability assessment methodology is relatively easy to do when using human analysts. I think many people – even those outside the PR industry – already understand this concept intuitively, and it's easy to formalize it by establishing guidelines that enable coders to recognize instances when the theorem should be applied.
In contrast, I think it's a pretty difficult task for automated offerings to incorporate the Fundamental Theorem of Favorability Analysis into their sentiment algorithms. Foremost, software doesn't have any intuition, which means that every specific sentiment rule that a software offering follows must be programmed. Also, the ways in which a story can convey information that invokes the Fundamental Theorem of Favorability Analysis is limitless, and thus, no programmers could ever devise software that accounts for all possible favorable and unfavorable discussions.
I believe the practical impossibility of incorporating the Fundamental Theorem of Favorability Analysis into media analysis software is a main cause of The Neutral Problem that is so prevalent in automated offerings. However, since many programmers of media analysis software don't come from a PR background, it's possible that some don't quite grasp how truly vital this theorem is to assessing media coverage accurately, and thus, they don't devote enough of their efforts to accounting for the theorem in their programming.
Regardless of the causes, I think it's clear that until automated offerings can incorporate the Fundamental Theorem of Favorability Analysis into their algorithms, human-based media analysis is always going to produce more accurate favorability assessments.
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