Meanwhile Back at the Ranch

We’re all searching for our own personal Holy Grail.

For 20 years clients have asked me how we measure the success of a public relations campaign. And for 20 years, I’ve provided answers that includes pre- and post-campaign consumer opinion research, advertising equivalency, gross impressions, etc.

But I’ve never really “known” for sure. It’s incredibly difficult (if not impossible) to connect the dots between sustained positive publicity and sales and customer loyalty.

Close, but no Grail.

And the social media revolution has only clouded the picture, as now marketers are expected to connect a wider array of dots to demonstrate that a post on a well-read Mommy blog somehow generated greater impact on your bottom line than a 90-second feature on your local television news station. (In reality, it would be great if you got both “hits.”)

The traditional clipping service has been replaced by all manner of technology companies, who promise to fire up their Web engines and show you who’s saying what about your products and services, which bloggers, tweeters and news sites wield the greatest influence, and how all of this Internet chatter is woven together.

One of my favorite terms to come out of this revolution is “share of influence,” which is about as Emperor’s New Clothes as it gets.

As Asi Sharabi recently pointed out in his No Man’s Blog, you can spend a lot of time separating the wheat from the chaff and still not know much more about your brand’s standing in the public consciousness than you would by Googling yourself.

From what I’ve seen, he’s right. Most of the companies cites (no need for me to name names) offer up a garbage in-garbage out accounting of who-said-what-to-whom.

One exception, in my opinion, is an Overland Park, Kan.-based group called Spiral 16.

I’ve been using their Spark software off and on for the past six months, and I’ve found it useful in helping me work more efficiently for my clients by sniffing out opportunities and threats that we otherwise wouldn’t know about and then prioritizing our activities using this knowledge.

It helps prevent us from falling into the “mistaking activity with achievement” trap that befalls so many in the public relations profession. We are no longer forced to do the “dump and chase” routine of issuing news releases and then making a million follow-up calls—we can actually engage our customers, prospects and influencers where they live and via the information they consume.

The truth is, we cannot accurately measure social media yet. But we can use these monitoring devices to keep our fees down and generate greater bang for the buck.

Something that all clients can (and do) appreciate these days.

Not the Holy Grail….but not bad.