Slide 1

“Is anybody
listening?”
Social Media
Measurement –
the Momentum Builds
Clip News Seminar
Athens,
28th September, 2011


Slide 2

Barry Leggetter
Executive Director
The International Association
for Measurement and
Evaluation of Communication
(AMEC)
AMEC is the global standards
body in communications
programme measurement


Slide 3

A question to start

• How many people in the room
measure social media in some
way?
• How many of those raising
their hand are clients?


Slide 4

Global trends

• Social media usage involves mind
blowing statistics
• Its language can also be
confusing to clients


Slide 5

Global trends – and huge numbers!
• 347 million or 73% of European Internet users use social
networks
• 50% of social network users are connected to brands
• People become a fan on Facebook because they like the
product, not because of the advertising
• 36% posted content about a brand on social networks
• 61% of employed social network users are proud about
their employer, but only 19% share stories on social
media
• 33% of employees can’t access social network sites at
work
Source: Insites Consulting


Slide 6

The US Is No Longer the Center of the Online Universe
US Internet Population vs. Rest of the World

Rest of
the
World

Distribution of Worldwide Internet Audience

North
America

34%
Euro
pe
26.6

14.8%

%

87%

U
S

July
2011

Asia
Pacific

66%

41.2
%

8.7%
8.7
%

Latin
America

Middle
East Africa

13%
1996

2011

 In 1996, 2/3 of the world’s Internet population was in the US, yet today Asia Pacific is the largest
region with over 41% of the population.
 Many emerging regions are likely to bypass old modes, skipping dial-up to go straight to
broadband, making multimedia, video, and collaborative content immediately accessible.
 Early adoption of mobile web in addition to PC web will likely be popular in many of these high-

growth
areas.
© comScore, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential.

3

Source: comScore World Metrix, July 2011


Slide 7

Google+:
Google+:The
The Future
Future of
of Social
Social Networking?
Networking?

In the first 21 days of its existence,
Google+ visitation grew 561%.
As of July 19, Google+ saw just under 20
million visitors worldwide.

Growth between week 1 and week 2 was
82%.

Just over a quarter (27%) of visitors were
from the US.

© comScore, Inc. Proprietary and
Confidential.

13
1
3

Source: comScore Voices: Google+ Off to a Fast Start with 20 Million
in
21 Days
Visitors


Slide 8

The Communication Challenges – 1.
Ownership


Slide 9

The challenges – channel ownership
• The first challenge is ownership of the channel
• PR and media intelligence companies need to stake their
claim
• This doesn’t have to be exclusive – other disciplines
want a share (advertising, brand, marketing)
• The challenge to PR professionals is without
understanding social media, it will lose PR budget to
other disciplines


Slide 10

The Challenges - confusion
ON THE ONE HAND
AMEC clients say that
measuring social media is
important
BUT.....
only 11% of clients said they
actually carried out social
media measurement

Source: AMEC International
Business Monitor, May, 2011


Slide 11

There is no magic bullet


Slide 12

Why do we need standards?
• Social media has moved beyond the experimentation phase
• Clients need formal standardized metrics to evaluate
progress, and justify PR and marketing spend
• It’s time to push past proprietary systems and embrace a
move to standards
• The best metrics for social media are unlikely to come from a
single agency or single specialist research agency
• We need measurement standards that help us establish
consistent measures of social media performance


Slide 13

The challenges - the move to standards
• Definitions
 Earned/uncontrolled metrics

• Share of voice
• Messaging
• Sentiment
 Paid/controlled metrics

•
•
•
•

Likes
Followers
Registrations
Web traffic/engagement


Slide 14

What others are doing internationally
• Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Best Practices
 Definitions of Social Ad vs Behaviourally Targeted
 Use of data
 Privacy

• Web Analytics Association (WAA) Social Media
Standards
 Definitions & Standards for grabs, bookmarks, click backs, posts
& comments.

• Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) definition of
listening.
• Society for New Communications Research (SNCR)
• AMEC, Institute for PR and Council of PR Firms


Slide 15

Barcelona Principles was the launch pad
• The communications landscape is changing rapidly
• A lack of clear standards and approaches to PR
measurement results in the profession not always being
taken seriously
 it doesn’t count unless you can count it

• The Barcelona Principles was created by AMEC as a
way of bringing the worldwide communications industry
together


Slide 16

Barcelona Principles of PR Measurement
1. Importance of Goal Setting and
Measurement
2. Measuring the Effect on Outcomes is
Preferred to Measuring Outputs
3. The Effect on Business Results Can
and Should Be Measured Where
Possible
4. Media Measurement Requires
Quantity and Quality
5. AVEs are not the Value of Public
Relations
6. Social Media Can and Should be
Measured
7. Transparency and Replicability are
Paramount to Sound Measurement


Slide 17

Barcelona Principle #6
• Social media measurement is a discipline, not a tool; but
there is no “single metric”
• Organizations need clearly defined goals and outcomes
for social media
• Media content analysis should be supplemented by web
and search analytics, sales and CRM data, survey data
and other methods
• Evaluating quality and quantity is critical, just as it is with
conventional media
• Measurement must focus on “conversation” and
“communities” not just “coverage”


Slide 18

• Active advocates
• Brand engagement
• Leads/sales

Awareness

Knowledge

Interest

Support

Action

• Revenue

Social/Community

• Market
share
Engagement
• Cost savings

• Content creation (e.g. assets created, videos/podcasts)

Public Relations
Activity

• Social media engagement (e.g. blog posts, blogger events, blogger briefings, Twitter posts,
community site posts & events)
• Influencer engagement
• Stakeholder engagement
• Events/speeches

Intermediary
Effect

Target Audience
Effect

• Impressions/Target
audience
impressions
• Earned media site
visitors/day
• % share of
conversation
• Video views
• Prominence

• Key message
alignment
[traditional & social
media]
• Accuracy of facts
• % share of
conversation

• Expressed opinions
of interest
• Social network
Followers
• Retweets/Shares/
Linkbacks
• % share of
conversation

• Endorsement by
journalists or
influencers
• Rankings on industry
lists
• Expressed opinions
of support
• Social network Fans
• Likes

• Unaided awareness
• Aided awareness
• Owned media site
visitors per day
• Social network
channel visitors

• Knowledge of
company/product
attributes and
features
• Brand association
and differentiation

• Relevance of brand
(to consumer/
customer)
• Visitors to website
• Click-thru to site
• Time spent on site
• Downloads from site
• Calls
• Event/meeting
attendance

• Attitude uplift
• Stated intention to
buy
• Brand preference/
Loyalty/Trust
• Endorsement
• Requests for quote
• Links to site
• Trial

NOTE: Within social media, several of these metrics could straddle two rows as an Intermediary Effect and/or Target Audience Effect, depending on who’s engaged in the conversation. For
simplicity, we have listed those metrics under Intermediary Effect to reflect the general conversation as you would not know if all participants are in your target audience. If the commenters are
known to be in your Target Audience, you could reflect those metrics under Target Audience Effect.

18


Slide 19

Fast Forward - Lisbon Measurement
Agenda 2020
The Measurement Agenda was adopted at the 3rd
European Summit on Measurement held in Lisbon, in
June, 2011
1. How to measure the return on investment (ROI) of
public relations (89%)
2. Create and adopt global standards for social media
measurement (83%)
3. Measurement of PR campaigns and programmes needs
to become an intrinsic part of the PR toolkit (73%)
4. Institute a client education program such that clients
insist on measurement of outputs, outcomes and
business results from PR programs (61%)


Slide 20

Some client barriers to social media
measurement
• Young people represent a large percentage of the “net
generation”
• Some companies do not see them as influencers and not
worth the investment in social media metrics
• Companies tend to focus on the smaller, campaignspecific metrics, such as traffic from Twitter or number of
fans on Facebook, rather than bottom line impact, such
as sales, as well as customer satisfaction rates
• Recognized industry standards do not yet exist, resulting
in lack of confidence in measurement methodology
applied by agencies


Slide 21

One size does not fit all…


Slide 22

We need to look at what PR professionals
want from social media measurement
• To educate colleagues about the importance of monitoring
& measuring online conversations
 Sometimes with a limited budget

• To demonstrate ROI value of social media investment
• To show the impact has the social media campaign had on
the ‘business’
• To understand the drivers and influencers of the
conversations
• From all these conversations to know who and what
matter?


Slide 23

Standardization Opportunity #1

Engagement:
How do you define it?
How are you measuring it?
What are the different levels?


Slide 24

Standardization Opportunity #2

Influence:
How do you define it?
How are you measuring it?
Is the data available /
transparent?


Slide 25

Standardization Opportunity #3

Sentiment:
Can we agree on a standard
scale?
How is social media different than
traditional media?


Slide 26

Other Standardization Opportunities
• Standard “content sourcing table” (like a food nutrition label)
• Standard audience measures (e.g. Nielsen and Arbitron)
 Audited circulation figures for online/social media
 Unique daily vs. monthly visitor counts
 Impressions vs. opportunity to see vs. probability to see
 Targeted audience vs. total audience

• Agreement on basic coding: reach, frequency, messages,
media types
• Standard method for determining “value” of fans and followers
 The value will be unique to an organization, its stakeholders, its
activities and its objectives – but could a universal method be
agreed?


Slide 27

Today we took the thinking forward
• Earlier today 3 international groups announced a
Coalition to develop global standards in social media
measurement
• The three groups are the International Association for
Measurement and Evaluation of Communication
(AMEC), Council of PR Firms and Institute for Public
Relations (IPR)
• We are doing this to end the confusion in the
marketplace, amongst clients and in the PR industry


Slide 28

Moving to the next level
• AMEC has formed Coalition with IPR and Council of PR
Firms to develop social media standards
• Cross-industry social media measurement summit –
New Hampshire, US, October: 24/25 October
• “The Big Ask” - AMEC London half—day seminar:
November 17


Slide 29

In summary
• The move towards developing
global social media
measurement standards is
under way
• If you have a point of view
about what goes into the
standards contact:
• Barry Leggetter, Executive
Director, AMEC
[email protected]
• What industry leaders think


Slide 30

Thank you
....for inviting me to be with you today
The International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of
Communication (AMEC)
[email protected]