Friday Roundup – Goodbye AVEs

Following establishment of the Barcelona principles in June this year and the annihilation of any idea that AVEs (advertising value equivalents) represent the value of public relations, AMEC (the Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication) has moved on to ask two questions:

  • What are the “validated metrics” to replace AVEs?
  • How do you get started in measuring social media, and what are the definitions of relevant metrics?

This work is being led by the US Agency Research Leaders Group chaired by Ketchum’s David Rockland, and formed a significant chunk of the conversation at last week's IPR 8th Annual Measurement Summit.

If you're looking for one slidestack that walks you through the principles and explores the progress made to date in answering the questions above, check out this presentation: "Validated Metrics - Social Media Measurement", delivered during the summit by Mike Daniels (Director, Report International and Chair, AMEC) and Tim Marklein (Executive Vice President, Measurement & Strategy, Weber Shandwick), and moderated by Peter Wengryn, CEO, VMS.

I think the work to date is most definitely going the right way; seeking to identify the desired outcomes of a public relations programme and working backwards so to speak to establish metrics that belie the programme's success accordingly. And I was particularly pleased with slide 25 on influence rating / ranking which corroborates my recent contribution to the Monitoring Social Media conference, "the fallacy of the influentials".

This jigsaw is coming together. We will have some operationally sound frameworks available next year, and I'm hoping my own book, "The Influence Professional", might make some useful contribution when it emerges from the publishing process in Spring. Whatever the timeline, you should have begun winding down any remaining reliance you have on AVEs by now. It's not a case of waiting to transition from mediocity to good; AVEs don't even make the cut as mediocre, they are specious, misleading and unprofessional. Period.

Facebook Groups Give Rise to Social Nicheworking

by Brian Solis of PR 2.0

Facebook announced a new platform for Facebook Groups recently. Rather than jump into the fray to share my immediate reactions, I opted to instead allow the news and its promise settle.

Like many, my initial reaction was that of disappointment. After all, I was almost immediately bombarded with emails notifying my that I was added to groups where I did not request nor authorize membership. Plus, I was subsequently hammered with email updates as new group members added their commentary to the various group walls. More...

TV's 'The Spin Crowd' Puts PR Back 20 Years

by Trevor Young PR Warrior of Parkyoung

It's quite a feat to put a profession back 20 years but that's exactly what E!'s The Spin Crowd does for the public relations industry. Thanks guys :)

The Spin Crowd is a new 'fly on the wall' TV series based around the overly dramatic day-to-day operations of Hollywood publicity outfit, Command PR.

It's car-crash TV in the purest sense. At once strangely addictive but also seriously off-putting.

But then, Kim Kardashian is executive producer. 'Nuff said. More...

[report] Consumers want incentives for review and recommendation

by Andrew Grill of London Calling

Credibility of reviews is unaffected when reviewers are rewarded

New research* published today by social media agency, immediate future, demonstrates a desire from consumers to be more involved in the review of products and services provided by online retailers.

Over 60 per cent of the 2000 UK online shoppers who took part in the research, said they would be more likely to shop at a site that rewarded them for writing reviews or recommending products to friends.

The credibility of consumer reviews or recommendations that are incentivised by the retailer are largely unaffected.  More...

Lifestyle blogger Bangs and a Bun on lessons for PRs

by Stephen Waddington of Speed Communications

Leeds-based Muireann Carey-Campbell is the lifestyle blogger behind Bangs and a Bun. She published a letter of complaint this morning on her blog to PR agency Mission.

The letter sets out how she was mistreated by Mission in its efforts to engage with her on behalf of its client, Nokia, as she prepared for a half marathon. You can read it for yourself on Muireann’s blog along with a developing conversation between bloggers and PRs in the comments – and apologies from both Mission and Nokia. More...

Harnessing the Here and Now

by David Meerman Scott of David Meerman Scott

A huge company has announced that it is acquiring one of your competitors. The news hit the wires five minutes ago.

What would you do right now? Not tomorrow. Now!

These are the ideas I explore in my new book Real-Time Marketing & PR which releases on November 1, 2010.

Over the next several months, I'll be speaking about the ideas in the book, releasing a new ebook with surprising and fascinating original research, writing bylines, shooting video, and posting on Web Ink Now so I can share the concepts of real-time with you. More...

Introducing The Conversation Prism Version 3.0

by Brian Solis of PR 2.0

On August 5, 2008 JESS3 and I introduced version 1.0 of The Conversation Prism. Today, I’m proud to announce The Conversation Prism Version 3.0. With the introduction of 3.0, our view of the social media panorama is updated and also reflective of the real world is embracing and organizing the social Web.

One of the aspects that make social media so fascinating is the conversations that define the culture and value of each community. While many of us operate on the information that fill public streams, sometimes the most interesting aspects of a story take place in the back channel. More...

Tom Foremski on the future of media

by Stephen Waddington of Speed Communications

Speed’s Simon Hill is in San Francisco this week where he caught up with Tom Foremski (@tomforemski) to seek his views on the future of media business models as part of the book project that Steve Earl and I have underway. Tom is a former Financial Times journalist and reports on the business of media and technology at Silicon Valley Watcher. Q. When do you expect the last newspaper to be printed?
A. There will always be newspapers just not quite so many of them. Paper or electronic the distribution doesn’t matter if you can build and maintain a business model. More...

Sticky start to Vaseline's 140th Anniversary promotion

by Walter Adamson of NewLeaseG2M

By accident I came across a promotion for Vaseline's "140th birthday". It's a product owned by Unilever - a company which boasts 1H2010 sales of €21.9 billion, "underlying volume growth 6.6%, underlying sales growth 3.8% and underlying price growth (2.6)%, underlying operating margin up 30bps with continuing strong gross margins offset by significant investment in advertising and promotional expenditure, up 180bps and a net cash flow from operating activities €2.2 billion, up €0.2 billion". More...