Assessing the impact of external coverage

Submitted by Alastair Thomson on Thu, 24/03/2011 - 22:23

One of the challenges of being responsible for communicating the policy positions and aspirations of an organisation is how you know whether you're getting through to the right audiences.

I'd be interested in learning how other organisations measure the IMPACT of campaigning and comms.

Numbers of cuttings? Sure - but how do you distinguish between 800 words in a trade magazine or three column centimeters in the FT? Or a sentence in Hansard? Or for different message,s 50 words in the Sun or the Mirror?

Similarly, is two minutes on the Today programme better than three on breakfast TV (and if the coverage is ta 07.50 can you say that the impact is greater than at 08.57?)(Similarly for Hansard, is being cited orally by a minister, frontbencher or select committee chair evidence of a higher impact than a backbencher?). Similarly, how do you balance getting one of your people as a guest on a phone-in on local radio for half an hour against doing five minute interviews down the line for four stations?

And then how do you assess the impact of social media? Should a re-tweet from a celeb or expert be rated as having more impact than two for Jo and Joe Public?

I manage a comms operation with three talented staff - one with background in broadcasting, another with a background in print and a third who's developed our capacity in digital (including social media).

Knowing how y'all assess impact will help me make a more convincing case to my Board when we make our next decisions about staffing and resourcing of work.

I look forward to hearing your take!

Submitted by Simon Francis on Fri, 25/03/2011 - 12:33.

The true test of this is then what the coverage actually achieves.

Opportunities to see / circulation are a good way of monitoring the weight of individual pieces (and if you want to get technical, you can try and assign 'decay' rates to OTS if a piece is on Today at 7.50 or 8.50 or page 1 v page 48 of the Mail).

OTS can also be applied to social media, looking at follow numbers (and HEAVY decay rates, e.g. the % of followers who actually read each tweet will be low)

But then you need to measure how many people took some form of action as a result of all these OTS. So, depending on the objectives of the activity, did this help:

- Increase web traffic (using your own data, referral sources, direct traffic and google searches can all indicate PR was the source)

- Increase awareness (using tracking research through GfK NOP / ICM, etc)

- Increase donations (internal figures / 'how did you hear' options on donation screens)

There will be others I'm sure.

Hope this helps!

Simon

Submitted by Ade Fashade on Thu, 31/03/2011 - 17:53.

Is assessing the impact of external coverage also about taking it one step further, so that we are measuring the difference the coverage is making to the end user? This could mean getting the views of the end user i.e. the people who the subject issue affects the most, and asking them whether the campaign on the issue has had a positive impact? Could be of interest to funders perhaps?

Submitted by Amelia on Wed, 06/04/2011 - 14:14.

Sorry for the cross posting and going slightly off piste but I just spotted a link to this on Twitter which is almost relevant, food for thought anyway.

Journalists don't want your press releases - they want your multi-media content - article by Jude Habib on Third Sector website. Basically lloking at how people are usign social media to get in direct contact with journalists and how journalists are always looking formulti media content.

Submitted by Ali Goldsworthy on Thu, 07/04/2011 - 11:40.

I'd really caution against just using media coverage as a measurement tool. there is some stuff in the PR world on it (AVE) but they are moving away from it -more here

http://www.cipr.co.uk/content/news-opinion/presidents-blog/4912/barcelona-principles-the-end-of-ave-

Submitted by Mandy Murphy on Thu, 07/04/2011 - 13:03.

Some interesting comments on here, just thought I'd share a few thoughts.

I personally find AVE (advertising value equivalent) a good base measure of assessing coverage impact - in today's budget-conscious times it's a good way of presenting a case for the value of press work at more senior level (ie, this piece of coverage would have cost £x in advertising space, but PR costs nothing!).

However, I think AVE has to be considered alongside a range of different measures:

Consider what you want to achieve from your press coverage, and wherever possible align it with your organisation's strategic objectives. Think how else you can quantify impact from a specific press drive: people signing up in support of a campaign, social media discussion, website traffic, amount of take-up for products, services or events, bringing about a change in policy? It can be difficult to track this impact directly but sometimes one piece of well-targeted coverage makes a clear difference. For example, when Polly Toynbee namechecked www.voluntarysectorcuts.org.uk in a hard-hitting comment piece, site traffic rocketed and hundreds of organisations logged cuts on the site in one day. Columnists are good to target, as they engage and sustain debate long after a story has broken.
Consider your audiences. Who do you want to buy in to your message: journalists, opinion formers, the general public, etc? The timing of your coverage comes into play a lot here too - for example, the Today Programme is seen as the ultimate goal in terms of shaping the day's agenda and getting more press coverage over the course of the day. But different audiences will buy more into prime-time magazine shows like the One Show.
Never underestimate local media for publicising campaigns and engaging members. Well-placed coverage in large regional papers can have a trickle-down effect, or consider asking regional contacts to write letters to their local press. If you consider that the FT has c 400,000 readers, large regionals such as Yorkshire Post have 200,000 - it's all about knowing who you want to target.

Finally, I think social media is important, but in integration with traditional press materials, pitches and good old face-to-face meetings!

Submitted by Alastair Thomson on Thu, 07/04/2011 - 13:19.

I think Amelia's point about multi-media content is well-made. We''re increasingly learning the value of short films to support more detailed research reports.

Not as an alternative but as a supplement. Academically rigorous research is essential - especially for officials but sometimes a three minute film has more impact than a 300 page document among time-pressed politicians.

Submitted by Lee Webster on Thu, 07/04/2011 - 14:46.

I agree with Mandy's comment on local coverage - getting activists to write to their local papers has been successful for us - although you do need to find a local link, a way of making it relevant, especially when, like me, you campaign on issues of global poverty. I do find that if you're trying to get an issue on the radars of MPs getting on a local letters page is also an excellent way of doing that.

Submitted by Ade Fashade on Wed, 03/08/2011 - 11:40.

Just to highlight that we have recently assessed the impact of our latest 'Rogue Landlord' campaign, which exposes the inhumane way some landlords treat vulnerable and voiceless tenants. Following the Dispatches programme on Channel 4 on 4th July, highlighting the plight of tenants being treated badly by some landlords, we had the largest number of visitors to our website ever the next day, with people wanting to know more about their rights, and support Shelter's campaign. We gained 200 new followers on Twitter, 21 new likes and 79 comments on Facebook, and a couple of mentions on the Finance Parliamentary debate the next day.

To watch the programme again, click http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/episode-guide/series-96/episode-1