Equivalency or Not to Equivalency

At the recent PRSA T3 conference I sat on a panel discussing social media measurement and ROI with Shonali Burke. I presented some of the core things that Voce does for measurement as well as providing some real-world examples of what some of our clients look for in determining the success of a program.

One of the examples I gave was how we look at engagement with online video and compare that CPI with traditional media. During the Q&A I was asked if using the equivalency model to compare PR to advertising was the right model. Whether you like it or not you need to have some basis of comparison. With social media though, those comparisons are all over the place. You might compare elements of a program to advertising, or traditional PR, or even customer service. Going further down the rabbit hole, you look at things like: client acquisition, customer retention, employee retention, recruiting, to name just a few.

In any of the measures, the big focus is to determine which medium is performing more efficiently. It’s also important to remember that all clients have different results that they value. Measurement is not a one-size-fits-all approach. However, the core data that you can track online is always the the same. It’s how you analyze and compare that provides that measurement value.

Cross-posted to Hyku

About the Author
Josh Hallett leads up the Voce Connect Client Services team, managing the care and feeding of clients and developing social media strategies with the rest of the team. You can also read his personal Hyku blog and follow him on Twitter @hyku.

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