Deciding how much media measurement to share with senior leadership can be a dilemma for communications leaders. The media monitoring systems most teams use can produce many metrics, but how much of the data is worthy of a C-Level discussion?

In our conversations with numerous teams across many industries, we’ve observed three models for reporting to the C-Suite and Board:

1. Some teams don’t do any formal reporting of media metrics, or they keep whatever they prepare internal to the team.
2. Others circulate a few macro statistics, such as clip count trends, cumulative reach, or average tonality and include titles and mastheads from the more prominent stories.
3. The remainder share a much deeper analysis of coverage: topics and campaigns of special importance, impact achieved, how results supported goals, competitive/peer bench-marking, and other factors. The best of these reports also tie the coverage to broader company initiatives and goals, corporate reputation, or other dimensions of interest to senior executives (a subject for a coming post).

Here are some takeaways we’ve derived from our work with many of America’s leading companies:

No External Reporting

In today’s business environment, most departments quantify their results. Executives in IT, finance, marketing, operations, and sales all manage their organizations using relevant metrics. In this context, we have had more than one communications executive confide in us that they feel like they are always behind their peers when they cannot show similarly compelling data in management meetings. One said, “Without that, I’m concerned we won’t have a seat at the table.”

Teams shunning measurement entirely also miss out on opportunities to use data to be more effective. Who wouldn’t want to know, for example, which of the messages you’re putting out are generating passion and engagement among readers, and which are flat-lining? This is just one example of the practical, actionable data that many communications teams are using to hone their strategy. We’ll elaborate on this in a future post.

Limited Macro Reporting

Broad measures such as clip volumes, average tonality, and some share of voice measures can give a general feel for performance. But they often raise more questions than they answer when presented to senior executives that are accustomed to drilling into data. And when there’s no clear connection between metrics and business goals, even executives who are shown a positive trend may question whether it is all that meaningful – and perhaps privately doubt whether success is being measured the right way.

Topic-level Metrics Connected to Business Priorities

Those of our clients who share deeper topic-level analysis with senior leadership feel this strategy has built significant credibility for their team. By accurately quantifying results and tying them to important issues and themes, reporting becomes more relevant to senior leadership. A thoughtful framework for tracking and evaluating results also shows that the team is systematically managing toward clear objectives – and is equipped to quickly identify problems and respond with adjustments when necessary. 

At times, teams considering more granular reporting are concerned that it may highlight unfavorable trends. Periodically, some part of the communication plan won’t go as well as hoped, and the data will likely show this. However, most executives we know don’t blame the team in this scenario. Quite the opposite – they appreciate when the team proactively identifies challenges and discusses plans to respond. Teams that clearly define their goals and then objectively report on both disappointments and successes gain credibility and autonomy in our experience.

The Bottom Line

Even if you’re not being asked for deeper, more analytical reporting (or perhaps any reporting at all!), you should consider proactively introducing it anyway. Our experience is that thoughtful metrics foster the type of fact-based dialogue that C-level executives favor. They also allow you to better frame your team’s strategy and results – and to build credibility and support at senior levels. In a world of frequently shifting organizational priorities, budget battles, and high turnover, those are valuable assets.

Chris Bolster is a Managing Partner at PublicRelay. 

Early in 2011, the “Arab Spring” uprisings made headlines around the world, using social media to share information without government interference.  Twitter was a key platform through which this was accomplished and the spike in the use of hashtags such as #Cairo and #ArabSpring showed its impact.  Using these hashtags allowed sympathisers around the world to demonstrate their support for the uprising and provided real-time encouragement to the revolutionaries.

Importantly though, while social media platforms like Twitter can play a vital role in the propagation of real-time unfiltered information during time likes this, it is also a popular communication channel via which businesses attempt to promote products and engage customers. On February 3, these two different uses converged with unfortunate results.  Early that day, fashion designer Kenneth Cole decided to hitch his wagon to a heavily-trending topic to promote his new clothing collection.  He did this by tweeting “Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online at http://bit.ly/KCairo -KC”.

What Happened Next…

Within minutes, the tweet went viral and a wave of negative coverage followed close behind.  The comment was condemned for being – at best – in poor taste and – at worst – totally offensive.   The condemnation took many forms; for example, a spoof ‘KennethColePR’ twitter account was created, with posters competing to outdo each with parodies of the tweet.  A crisis management PR strategy was rapidly enacted with Cole apologizing 2 hours later via Facebook, but the reputational damage was already done.

So, What Should Have Happened?

For any company where social media is an important element of their communications strategy, the temptation to jump on a trending topic to generate coverage will always be great.  When handled sensitively, this approach could deliver positive benefits, but before embarking upon this course it is important to understand the tone and context around the topic that you plan to hijack and to incorporate your tactic into a broader media communications strategy, to ensure that you maintain control of the conversation.

In this case, it certainly appears that this wasn’t done, although an oddly similar episode in September 2013 suggests that this was not an isolated mishap, but rather a conscious action seemingly based on the old saw that “any news is good news”.  If this is true, it highlights even more strongly the need for full understanding of what you are jumping into via accurate monitoring and analysis of media coverage, otherwise any short-term upswing in attention could be more than wiped out by the subsequent negative coverage.

Over the years, we have all seen markets respond to rapidly changing environments with a quick solution that solves the problem at hand, but not as completely as we’d like. More time is needed for a complete solution to be developed.

Shortly after 9/11, I recall waiting in long lines at the airport – sometimes upwards of 2 hours – so that the hastily-implemented extra TSA screeners could do their job. We all saw a very real need (airline safety) being met by a quick solution (thorough screening) that was often frustrating and time-consuming.  It took years until the Trusted Traveler programs were put into place, new passenger queue areas were built, and agents were trained to be more effective and polite for the worst of the security delays to abate.

The PR Quick Fix

In public relations and communications, we faced our own major crisis when the Internet took over: anyone could instantly access any content from virtually any publication, any opinionated person could be a publisher via their own blog, and social media made the worst of those people into both critics and amplifiers of bad news. We in the communications industry had to do something – fast – to get our arms around what was being said, and how our messages were resonating. So what did we do?

We turned to our friend, “technology”, to solve the problem quickly.

Powerful software was developed to deliver automated content scraping via rich Boolean keyword searches. Sentiment software extracted words that reflected opinions and emotions. Coupled with beautiful graphs bolted on the front end, this approach gave us a glimpse into all that content whizzing by at the speed of electrons.  It was far from perfect, but it worked.

From Automated Tools to Curated Media Analysis

But now there has been more time to understand the rich complexity and interaction of content, the Internet, and social communications. Many senior communications professionals are finding that automated tools can only go so far in addressing their needs for insightful and actionable media analysis, particularly for large, complex brands with broad coverage across many outlets. They thirst for knowledge beyond the keywords.  They hunger for relevant, insightful media analysis from mass-volume, multi-channel coverage.

Automated PR software applications cannot accurately and comprehensively interpret; they will only do what you tell them to do in the most literal terms. Even with the best search terms, first-generation tools will pick up irrelevant content (false positives) or exclude important content (false negatives). They struggle to determine comparative relevance.  And just forget about subtle things like sarcasm, double meanings, or context. For example, is “He is the Tiger Woods of X” a compliment or an insult? For golf, that would very likely be a compliment, but used in the context of being a good husband? Probably not.

One approach that has been gaining increased acceptance is media analytics based on advanced technology, yet augmented by highly trained, specialized human analysts that wield sophisticated analytics tools.

Many organizations are finding that a human deeply analyzing a statistically relevant subset of coverage from the most important outlets, social media influencers, and channels allows them unprecedented quantitative insight into what is working, what is not, and how they are performing versus their peers. Human discretion also accounts for those subtle nuances that software applications cannot reliably pick up.

Organizations are discovering that as they understand the problem – and their goals – better, they are employing solutions that achieve the original goals, yet do them more effectively, gracefully, and usefully.  Humans leveraging technology can understand and analyze content like no computer can, and they can be flexible as situations change quickly.  They solve the original problem, but in a better, easier way.

…just like a shorter security line at the airport – who wouldn’t like that?

Eric Koefoot is a Managing Partner at PublicRelay.