Valley PR Blog

PR Newswire panel talks social media, ROI

By Linda VandeVrede on January 26th, 2010 In Best Practices, Social Media

Four panelists from academia, television, newspapers, and agencies provided their insights on social media and measurement at this morning’s PR Newswire breakfast, held at ASU Skysong.

Michael Pranikoff from PR Newswire shared some industry stats up front.  Fifty-two% of the fastest growing co’s in the U.S. use twitter, but there is still a disconnect with the familiarity of companies and execs with social media.   At the same time, almost 87,000 jobs have been lost in media.  The “influencers” have moved online, and the power has shifted from editors and publishers to the people.

The pressure is on to make content accessible, easy to use, and easy to view.  PR is not just about visibility, it’s about engagement, and as Valley PR Blogger Len Gutman pointed out during the session, no matter what social media tools are developed, it all gets back to creating and growing relationships.   Pranikoff also cited a Gartner study that says 84% do not measure the effectiveness of their social media programs.

I talked to a few PR people before the session started, and their common worries are budgets and resources.  The stats are needed to prove the ROI of social media to clients, but it’s difficult to marshall the resources and money up front to gather the data and measure it.

If clients could only have listened in on the panel, which included Serena Carpenter from ASU, Chris Kline from ABC15, and Chad Graham from Arizona Republic, as well as Len Gutman of Open Door Communications, they would have gleaned some info that would shake up their Luddite world.  Here’s a few of the gems I heard from the panel:

Chris @chris_kline – uses twitter as a newsgathering tool.   PR should develop strategies in social media.   It’s a 2-way street now.   PR pros should include their twitter name on their news releases so they are easy to find.   Your identity online doesn’t end at 5 p.m. when your job ends – it’s 24×7, so be careful to protect what you post and say online.

Chad - @chadwickgraham – twitter helps him do his job better.  He is finding sources and getting pitches on twitter, which he loves because of the built-in 140-character limit.  News is also going to the people, so they have to find new channels to get that news out.   Newspaper reporters must still abide by the same ethics, even tho they may be using a new tool.   Bing is gaining market share.   SEO is extremely important.   Often newspaper headlines are chosen for their ranking ability, using more prominent keywords. 

Len - @lengutman – has added social promotion to his suite of services for clients.   He pitches journalists on twitter, but you still have to know them and develop relationships.  It’s not just pitching them blind because they’re on Facebook or twitter.   SEO is part of his job description now. 

Serena – @drcarp – teaches online media/journalism and handed out a sample social media assignment for her students.  She is helping educate them on creating metrics based on goals.  Her handout included the following list of recommended SEO and marketing resources:

 http://www.seomoz.org/blog

http://searchengineland.com

http://mashable.com

http://chrisbrogan.com

http://www.steverubel.com

http://techcrunch.com

http://socialmediab2b.com

http://kdpaine.blogs.com

http://www.pr-squared.com

http://www.fixya.com

Metrics are the way to demonstrate value to clients so that we PR professionals can include social media as one more tactic in our strategy.  It’s a chicken and egg situation in one regard,because you need budgets to conduct good research and measurement, but you don’t get the budgets from some clients until you’ve already demonstrated the value.

PR Newswire has a new social media metrics monitoring tool, which they demoed briefly at the end of the session.   Cost is approx. $500/month for 1-3 users.

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