Global PR Blog Week 1.0

Micro Media Measurement

One of the biggest factors altering the media landscape and arguably impacting marketing and public relations programs is the rapidly growing influence of word-of-mouth behavior. Once confined to one-on-one conversations and “water cooler chatter,” word-of-mouth behavior has become a significant underlying force that’s influencing public perception and decision making.

Looking back, the early Web accelerated word-of-mouth behavior with personal websites, chat rooms and bulletin boards, but today blogging and syndication has essentially turbocharged this behavior providing anyone and everyone with broadcast-like abilities for opinion sharing. This trend, combined with the eroding loyalty toward Big Media, err, Macro Media sources, is driving people to seek out and engage with online micro communities when it comes to decision making and opinion forming.

For example, I was recently in the market for a digital camera. In the process of doing some research on various models, I read a handful of product reviews and gathered up as much information as I could from company websites (product materials, data sheets, etc.). While this helped me narrow the scope of products I was considering, it didn’t help me reach a purchasing decision – so I went online and began searching through blogs and message boards. The opinions and real-world insight people shared via these mediums not only helped me determine which product to ultimately buy, but it actually changed my mind – I bought a camera model I wasn’t previously considering.

I use this example to simply illustrate the reality that people today are arguably just as likely to be influenced by something they read on a blog or a message board as they are by traditional print and broadcast outlets. And therein lies the challenge for PR: How do you measure the influence and impact of word-of-mouth behavior? Or rather, how can you better gauge what people are saying about your product and/or brand on blogs, message boards, opinion sites, and newsgroups (i.e., the Micro Media)?

The total universe of Micro Media conversations that may be either building or bulldozing your brand at any point in time is gigantic and highly unpredictable. If, however, you can capture these conversations in real-time using quantifiable (volume) and qualitative (sentiment) methods, the insight and value your organization can glean from the findings is tremendously useful.

For example, armed with a better understanding of what the Micro Media is saying about your product or service enables you to make better decisions in respect to upcoming product launches, product quality concerns, marketing effectiveness, and brand perception. This type of information also provides you with a unique ability to pinpoint product and industry evangelists and begin forging new relationships.

There are a variety of useful tools and services that can provide you with a window into how -- and who -- spreads information across the Micro Media. Specialized search engines like Technorati and Feedster are incredibly useful for ad hoc lookups on terms and topics, as are the bigger search engines like Yahoo! and Google. Additionally, “buzz indexes” like those from Daypop and Blogdex are standards by which you could conceivably measure the effectiveness and popularity of a subject. There are, however, two challenges with using these tools for measurement: With the exception of the major search engines these tools focus primarily on the blogosphere, and while this space may certainly be a hotbed of activity and influence, these tools still exclude the millions of active participants on message boards, newsgroups and forums. Additionally, attaching some form of sentiment analysis requires manual interpretation (read: a lot of time), and that potentially becomes a resource issue.

Some organizations may be perfectly content using a combination of these tools (and others) mixed perhaps with some homegrown solutions to gauge the volume and tonality of conversations relevant to their products and industries. I think the reality is that measurement models are unique to each company and as such it’s nearly impossible to recommend a one-size-fits-all approach. Especially when you’re attempting to monitor an audience as large and unwieldy as the Internet itself.

There are, however, two companies that I think offer very compelling services for mining, monitoring and analyzing Micro Media activity -- Intelliseek and BuzzMetrics.

While Intelliseek refers to the Micro Media as “Consumer Generated Media," the audience makeup is exactly the same (i.e., bloggers, message board posters, newsgroups users, etc.). Intelliseek offers some very powerful technology for tracking the Micro Media and turning the results into “actionable insight for companies and brands.” They currently offer a popular free tool called BlogPulse that allows you to create historical trend graphs on keywords as they appeared in the blogosphere over the course of several weeks. Via its paid products and services, the company offers tremendously compelling data mining and reporting capabilities.

BuzzMetrics offers similar services in that it takes large amounts of unstructured data, mines it for relevancy and timeliness, and then adds a sentiment analysis on top. The company focuses on identifying industry influencers and evangelists, and offers several tools for capturing a more holistic view of the Micro Media landscape.

Both companies, by the way, are founders of the recently formed Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA).

I think companies are increasingly becoming aware of the influence of the Micro Media and are eager to explore ways they can better capture and understand how this audience is responding to products and services and ultimately how this is shaping public perception and brand loyalty. To do this successfully requires that companies have a strategy and the tools in place for measuring the impact of their efforts.

Success also requires that companies be prepared to engage with this audience at a new level – eye level. Corporate blogs, official message board representatives and intelligent Micro Media relations strategies are all fundamental elements for moving in that direction. Probably more important than anything else, however, is acceptance of the fact that building relationships with this burgeoning community involves not just talking, but a lot of listening.

The rules of engagement are different with the Micro Media and as such, it requires that PR practitioners quickly adapt and re-evaluate how to define and measure success.

Author: Mike Manuel | Jul 14, 04 | Permalink | 2 comments
Category: @ Mike Manuel | Topic 3 Making PR Work

 

 

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The Global PR Blog Week 1.0 is an online event that will engage PR, marketing and business bloggers from around the globe in a discussion about blogging and communications. The event is scheduled for July 12 - 16, 2004.

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