Following on from my last post, another dangerous perspective in public relations and communication is that it what we do can't be measured. Well, that's just not true and I firmly believe that the reluctance (even after all these years) to properly measure, evaluate and report back on public relations activity is caused by the identity crisis that grips our profession.
Because practitioners find themselves working on the fringes, directed to send stuff out, they don't see - or get involved with - the whole process of public relations - which is building and maintaining the relationships organisations need to keep their licence to operate. They get bogged down measuring (totally irrelevant) newspaper clippings or counting mentions, along with retweets, likes and shares in more recent years. While some of these things might indicate whether or not your stakeholders have heard and understood you, they don't, in themselves, tell you if your relationship has improved or if the work you are doing has adequately supported your organisational outcomes. For example, has satisfaction, loyalty, trust, commitment or reputation been improved? Have sales increased? Has a policy change been accepted as valid? Have attitudes or behaviour changed? Has the work undertaken increased or decreased the societal or commercial value of the organisation's relationships with its internal and external stakeholders?
There has been plenty of research over the years into the nature of organisational relationships - back in 1999, Grunig and Hon produced some initial research and approaches to relationship measurement and there has been much added since. Yet still I encounter practitioners still caught up with fake measurement models loosely based on 20th century assumptions of our purpose and its relationship to the organisation. In an attempt to encourage practitioners to think about measurement from a different perspective, here's a three minute overview of the process that I've put together and if it encourages even one person somewhere to rethink their approach to public relations research, measurement and evaluation, it's been time well spent.
Practitioners have an ethical duty to properly research, measure and evaluate their work. It is not a holy grail - more an every day cup at the back of the cupboard that few can be bothered to dig out and use. Making research, measurement and evaluation part of the daily routine will do much to demonstrate the value of public relations - particularly given we live and work in a relationship driven society - and address the question of professional identity. It really is time we measured up and demonstrated just how effective we are.
Mind the GAP - Proof Positive of the need to measure public relations?
Findings from the latest GAP study have been doing the rounds over the last day or so, with commentary primarily centred on the use of social media. More interesting for me was the data they had pulled together on how communications professionals were dealing with measurement and evaluation.
With 382 communication decision makers participating in this latest University of Southern California project, it was interesting to see that those who offered up their activities for scrutiny spent an average of just four to five percent of their total budget on formal evaluation. This makes for an interesting 'PS' to my last post, particularly as the study suggested that corporate participants felt that higher spend on measurement and evaluation meant higher standing with the CEO.
As the GAP survey summary put it "In other words, the greater the investment in evaluation (as a percentage of the total PR/Communication budget), the greater the likelihood the CEO believes PR/Communication makes a bottom-line contribution."
I don't consider this to be a surprising finding. In fact, it teeters into the realm of Monty Python's 'bleeding obvious'. However, because there are seemingly still so few practitioners operating robust evaluation programmes, perhaps it will take more research findings like this to convince them to get on and do what they should have been doing all along.
I did find myself weeping into my afternoon tea when I read the 'top five metrics' revealed by the research as, still there at 'No.5', was 'Total Number of Clips'. Now who in their right mind would take that seriously as a measure of organisational performance, reputational health or relationship strength?
Obviously, there is a huge business opportunity here for evaluation-savvy professionals to corner the market with great ethical practice, reported well and demonstrating the value of the work undertaken. As professionals, we know that the work we do has value, improves the organisation and its relationships and creates positive change. So why are professionals so shy about demonstrating this through good research and reporting practices? The old excuses of cost, fear and uncertainty as to what to do have no place in today's operating environment.
GAP stands for Generally Accepted Practice and the research is published every two years. The final report from the 2009 study, which outlines best practice, will be released soon. From the reports so far, I fear that we are a long way from best practice in measurement and evaluation, even though it is entirely possible, affordable and achievable.