Social Media Lessons from ‘Milk’s Favorite Cookie’

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 100^th 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.**

WOW! Measurement’s Day has Finally Come!

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! 

Be Sure to Measure the Right Audience

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.

Crossing the Measurement Streams

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.

Humans to the Rescue

By Anders Klein, Senior Analyst

A few weeks ago, CARMA CEO Albert Barr’s blog post focused on the continuing need for human-based media analysis to complement the surge in quantitative data available from automated media monitoring and analysis, while recently the New York Times described the “Rise of Big Data.”  Albert described the ‘Garbage In, Garbage Out’ (GIGO) problem within the field today, one that has led to a proliferation of data points that answer few questions.  Today, I wanted to focus more tactically on the ways in which human analysts can complement your analytic process for media measurement and can help you shape both what comes in and what come out from a strategic perspective.

To begin any project, a little strategic thought and planning up front goes a long way. Certainly a company wants to monitor its traditional media coverage and social media mentions to understand its reputation, but companies should also think about tracking the media coverage of their key competitors. Also, a company should think about which media sources are priorities given budgetary constraints.  Lastly, a company needs to take a hard look at its strategic media goals to assess why they are collecting media performance data and how it will be used for future planning. Outlining this in advance enables a company to establish the proper context to judge its media performance (since the measurement effort focuses on key media and key competitors) and helps the company receive media analysis results that enable effective strategic planning.

Having a sense of your earned media coverage is helpful, but I have learned from years of media analysis experience that knowing volume results alone can be deceptive. The content needs to be analyzed. Again, this is where human analysts are able to work with the company to determine what messages and topics are important to track and what processes are needed to monitor for unanticipated but important crisis issues.  In short, analysts (either internal or external) understand the company’s media strategies and goals in a way that artificial intelligence cannot.

Finally, on the output end, the proliferation of data and software tools means that media performance results can be sliced and diced into a dizzying array of charts, graphs, and spreadsheets. But I have found that more often than not this volume of data is overwhelming and often is underutilized as a result. By focusing on a company’s goals combined with identifying issues that emerge, a human analyst can help the company make sense of the data coming in and help them to understand how to use it strategically in decision making. 

GIGO will continue to be a problem. But through careful planning, aligning the company’s media measurement efforts with the company’s strategic goals, and utilizing human analysts, companies can ensure that they are minimizing the negative impact of GIGO and maximizing the positive effect of their media measurement program.