The Golden Rule of Measuring PR

Measuring PR is a crit­ic­al task in communications.

Today, the wide­spread focus on out­put and res­ults often makes us for­get about our stra­tegic choices in what to measure. 

The golden rule of meas­ur­ing PR is that the choice of met­rics has a more sig­ni­fic­ant impact than whatever actions are taken on the measurement’s output. 

This golden rule sug­gests that by choos­ing the right met­rics, PR pro­fes­sion­als can align their goals and object­ives with the organ­isa­tion and shape their per­cep­tion of what is essential. 

Here we go:

Creating Impact With Designed Intent

Public rela­tions (PR) is all about estab­lish­ing, devel­op­ing, or main­tain­ing stra­tegic­ally essen­tial rela­tion­ships with publics. 

It is the art of com­mu­nic­at­ing with stake­hold­ers, such as cus­tom­ers, employ­ees, investors, media, and the pub­lic, to build and main­tain a good rela­tion­ship. PR pro­fes­sion­als use vari­ous strategies and tac­tics to man­age the flow of inform­a­tion between an organ­isa­tion and its stake­hold­ers, with the ulti­mate goal of cre­at­ing a pos­it­ive per­cep­tion of the organ­isa­tion and its products or services.

How To Define Public Relations

Someone once tried to count the num­ber of actu­al defin­i­tions of pub­lic rela­tions, but they allegedly gave up after find­ing over 500+ dif­fer­ent ver­sions. ¹Morris, T., & Goldsworthy, S. (2008). From PR to pro­pa­ganda. 97 – 111. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​0​0​7​/​978 – 0‑230 – 59485-2_7

Amongst so many defin­i­tions of pub­lic rela­tions, here’s the defin­i­tion that I find to be most useful:

Public Relations (PR) = the stra­tegic and tac­tic­al use of com­mu­nic­a­tion to devel­op and main­tain pro­duct­ive rela­tion­ships with stake­hold­ers, influ­en­cers, and publics.

Please note:

Stakeholders in PR = incentiv­ised rep­res­ent­at­ives with vari­ous interests in the organisation.

Influencers in PR = inde­pend­ent gate­keep­ers with audi­ences of import­ance to the organisation.

Publics in PR = situ­ation­al groups with sim­il­ar com­mu­nic­at­ive beha­viours affect­ing the organisation.

Learn more: How To Define Public Relations

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However, meas­ur­ing the suc­cess of pub­lic rela­tions is a com­plex task. It is not just about count­ing the num­ber of media men­tions or the amount of traffic gen­er­ated to a web­site. While these met­rics are essen­tial, they only tell part of the story. 

The fun­da­ment­al PR chal­lenge for com­mu­nic­a­tion meas­ure­ment activ­it­ies is to impact the organ­isa­tion with the designed intent.

What Gets Measured Gets Done

The say­ing “what gets meas­ured gets done” is a well-known concept in busi­ness. It implies that an organ­isa­tion must meas­ure its pro­gress toward that goal if it wants to achieve something. 

By meas­ur­ing pro­gress, the organ­isa­tion can identi­fy areas that need improve­ment and take action to address them. This is also true for pub­lic relations. 

If an organ­isa­tion wants to improve its repu­ta­tion or build stronger rela­tion­ships with its stake­hold­ers, influ­en­cers, and pub­lics, it must make more con­scious decisions about what to measure.

The focus on meas­ur­ing out­put is often mis­placed. Many PR pro­fes­sion­als are too focused on the num­ber of media men­tions or social media shares. While these met­rics are essen­tial, they only tell part of the story.

Choosing What to Measure is a Strategic Choice

Choosing what to meas­ure in pub­lic rela­tions is a highly stra­tegic choice. It informs the organ­isa­tion of what is essen­tial and what should be prioritised. 

For example, if an organ­isa­tion decides to meas­ure the num­ber of media men­tions, it sig­nals that media cov­er­age is cru­cial in build­ing its repu­ta­tion. On the oth­er hand, if an organ­isa­tion decides to meas­ure its social media fol­low­ers’ engage­ment, it sig­nals that social media is an import­ant chan­nel for com­mu­nic­a­tion with stakeholders.

Choosing what to meas­ure has a more sig­ni­fic­ant impact on the organ­isa­tion than the out­put of the chosen meas­ure­ment. It sets the tone for the entire PR strategy and shapes the organisation’s per­cep­tion of what is essential.

This line of think­ing bears the hall­mark of Marshall McLuhan’s point that “the medi­um is the mes­sage,” mean­ing that a medium’s format will pro­foundly impact the audi­ence more long-term than any single mes­sage. ³The medi­um is the mes­sage. (2023, February 25). In Wikipedia. The medi­um is the mes­sage. (2023, February 25). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​T​h​e​_​m​e​d​i​u​m​_​i​s​_​t​h​e​_​m​e​s​s​age

The Importance of Measuring PR

Instead of react­ing to the out­put of meas­ure­ments, PR pro­fes­sion­als must be pro­act­ive and focus on what hap­pens before actu­al meas­ure­ments occur. This means set­ting clear goals and object­ives for PR activ­it­ies and devel­op­ing a strategy to achieve them.

For example, sup­pose the goal of a PR cam­paign is to increase brand aware­ness. In that case, the PR team may meas­ure the num­ber of media men­tions, social media engage­ment, web­site traffic, and search engine rankings. 

However, if the goal is to improve cus­tom­er sat­is­fac­tion, the team may choose to meas­ure cus­tom­er feed­back, social media sen­ti­ment, and cus­tom­er reten­tion rates.

By being pro­act­ive, PR pro­fes­sion­als can also identi­fy poten­tial issues or risks and devel­op a crisis com­mu­nic­a­tion plan to mit­ig­ate any neg­at­ive impact. This involves mon­it­or­ing and ana­lys­ing con­ver­sa­tions about the organ­isa­tion on social media and oth­er chan­nels, identi­fy­ing poten­tial issues, and devel­op­ing a plan to address them before they escalate.

In con­clu­sion, meas­ur­ing the suc­cess of pub­lic rela­tions is not just about count­ing media men­tions or web­site traffic. It is about choos­ing the right met­rics that align with the organisation’s goals and object­ives and being pro­act­ive in devel­op­ing a strategy to achieve them. 

Choosing what to meas­ure is a highly stra­tegic choice that shapes the organisation’s per­cep­tion of what is essen­tial and sets the tone for the entire PR strategy. By being pro­act­ive, PR pro­fes­sion­als can not only meas­ure the impact of PR on the over­all busi­ness goals and object­ives but also mit­ig­ate any poten­tial issues or risks before they escalate.

PR Resource: How To Measure Attitudes

How To Measure Attitudes in PR

How do you meas­ure atti­tudes? There are a few things to think about to get your meas­ure­ment right. ⁴Educational Communications and Technology. (2001, August 3). 34.5 Measuring Attitudes. The Handbook of Research for Educational Communications and Technology. … Continue read­ing

An atti­tude meas­ure­ment should meet the fol­low­ing criteria:

• Valid
• Reliable
• Simple to Administer, Explain, and Understand
• Replicable

There are four main types of atti­tude meas­ure­ment approaches:

• Self-Reporting
• Reports of Others
• Internal Reporting (Sociometric Reporting)
• Records

There are four main types of atti­tude meas­ure­ment methods:

• Questionnaires and Rating Scales
• Interviews
• Reports (Logs, Journals, Diaries etc.)
• Observations

I’m a big fan of using ques­tion­naires and stand­ard­ised inter­views for PR measurements:

Validity. Attitudes are psy­cho­lo­gic­al, so I strive to cla­ri­fy what I want to meas­ure, noth­ing more, noth­ing less. And I nev­er add any unne­ces­sary complexity.

Reliability. People exper­i­ence the world dif­fer­ently. But even if atti­tude meas­ure­ments aren’t exact, their use­ful­ness for PR more than makes up for it.

Learn more: How To Measure Public Relations

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PR Resource: Fundamental Approaches to PR

Fundamental Approaches To PR

There are three schol­arly approaches to PR:

• The Excellence Approach
• The Rhetorical Approach
• The Critical Approach

The Excellence Approach. A busi­ness-ori­ented approach focused on object­ives and cor­por­ate value cre­ation. The under­ly­ing motiv­a­tion behind the the­ory was that PR was mostly a vari­ety of tac­tic­al tools that des­per­ately needed a man­age­ment the­ory to work well in a soph­ist­ic­ated organisation.

Notable men­tions: James E. Grunig, Larissa A. Grunig

The Rhetorical Approach. A clas­sic­al approach that stems from ideas dat­ing back to ancient Greece. It’s a psy­cho­lo­gic­al the­ory of how com­mu­nic­a­tion struc­tures human cul­ture by shap­ing human minds. An absence of mor­al judg­ment char­ac­ter­ises the rhet­or­ic­al approach and is utilitarian.

Notable men­tions: Edward Bernays, The Toronto School of Communication Theory, Robert Heath

The Critical Approach. A crit­ic­al approach deeply rooted in the­or­ies around soci­et­al power dynam­ics. Power is seen as a means to exert dom­in­ance, manip­u­la­tion, and oppres­sion. The crit­ic­al approach bor­rows many ideas from the rhet­or­ic­al approach by pla­cing them in mor­al frameworks.

Notable men­tions: Walter Lippmann, Noam Chomsky

Read also: 3 PR Approaches: Excellence, Rhetorical, and Critical

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