Excellent post for PR Grads to ponder: Measuring PR Value

Posted May 28, 2013

So, how much have you really learned over that four-or-so-years you spent in higher education? Below are 13 questions every new PR or communications school graduate should be able to answer. At least if you want to get a decent job in PR, social media, research or communications. (Does not apply to those who consider being a greeter at Wal-Mart a career.)

Those of you who have been out of college for a while might want to test yourselves, too. Don’t worry if you are stumped, we’ve included the answers below.

1. What is the formula for the calculation of ROI?

2. What’s the difference between reach and impressions?

3. Define a SMART objective.

4. How do you accurately measure public awareness of a topic?

5. What are Grunig’s six components of a relationship?

6. What’s the difference between causation and correlation?

7. What’s the difference between owned, earned, and paid media?

8. What is a LIkert Scale and how is it used?

9. What are Katie Paine’s 7 steps to a perfect measurement program?

10. What are the three requirements of influence in social media?

11. What’s the difference between outputs, outtakes and outcomes?

12. What does HITS stand for?

13. Name two methods of measuring the value of PR.

Bonus question: Who is your favorite character on NCIS?

Answers:

1. ROI = (Gain from Investment – Cost of Investment)/(Cost of Investment)

2. Impressions are the total eyeballs that have possibly been exposed to a story or a post – more accurately described as opportunities to see (OTS). Reach is the extent to which you have reached your specific targeted audience group. For example, if your target audiences is young men between the ages of 15 and 25, you may generate 100 million opportunities to see your messages in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune, Business Week and the Financial Times, but you have only reached about .0001% of the U.S. population that are boys between the ages of 15 and 25.

3. SMART is: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

4. Awareness is measured with a survey.

5. The six Grunig components of relationships are Trust, Commitment, Satisfaction, Control Mutuality, Exchange, and Communal.

6. Correlation is a statistical test that examines the relationships between variables. Causation is a relationship between variables in which a change in one variable forces, produces, or brings about a change in another variable.

7. Owned media are promotion channels that you control, such as your website, Facebook page, or Twitter account. Earned media is exposure gained through promotional efforts other than advertising. Paid media is exposure generated by advertising.

8. A Likert Scale is a standard response to a question on a survey in which the respondent is offered a five- or seven-point scale to express how much they agree or disagree with a particular statement.

9. Katie Paine’s 7 steps to a perfect measurement program are:

Define the goal
Define the audience
Define your investment
Define your benchmark
Pick your Kick Butt Index
Select a tool
Analyze and repeat

10. Influence in social media requires engagement around an individual, relevance to a topic, and frequency of posts around the topic.

11. Outputs are the products of a PR or communications program, like press releases. Outtakesare the changes in awareness or attitude that the outputs produce. Outcomes are the actions that people take as a result of the outputs.

12. How Idiots Track Success

13. Cost benefit analysis and cost efficiency ratio.

*** This is a post on measuring PR value. this is a bullet point to boost SEO.

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