Ok.  So it’s Tuesday.  Yesterday was Memorial Day in the US and an banking holiday in the UK.  So technically, I am still on track – and starting to have real fun with #blogmonday. The whole purpose is sharing linkey love with some of the “hidden gems” of the blogosphere. Yeah, you gotta write a blog post, but you were going to anyway. But contribute to #blogmonday by blogging about who you like – and why.

Last week, my votes were for:

• Heavy Bag Media
• Shannon Paul’s Very Official Blog
• Kami Huyse’s Communications Overtones
• Digital Street Journal
• The Fail Blog
• Greenversations
• Technosailor

Here are this week’s contributions:

Blogs That Need to Make it Onto Your Blogroll

• Doug Haslam’s blog.  While this is not part of his official blog, his fundraising effort for the Pan-Mass Challenge to raise money for a cure for childhood cancer leave him in sole first place in this category

Blogs You Might Not Read – But Should

• Mike Rupert’s “This Should be Illegal Blog.”  Disclosure: former Georgetown student.  But hell, any blog with this title is worth taking a look at, right?  And this is a good example of using social media for local grassroots efforts.
• Elspeth Murray’s Blog/Web site.  Elspeth came to my attention through her chronicles of a trip back to childhood places in Scotland.  I enjoyed reading it and I think you will too.
• Warren Sukernek’s “Twittermaven“.  Warren is just plain smart, but makes you think even more about Twitter — if that’s possible.  Give it a read.

So spread the linkey love. Even it it is Tuesday.

Mark #blogmonday Story

I don’t know Doug Haslam personally, but consider him to be one of those friends whom I have not yet me.  He’s a Red Sox fan, I’m a Red Sox fan.  He writes for Media Bullseye, I write for Media Bullseye.

I have a soft spot in my heart for noble charities, and Doug is contributing to one of the most noble:  the Jimmy Fund.  Doug is going to be riding his bike for the Pan-Mass Challenge, a grueling bike trip/fundraising effort with proceeds going to be Jimmy Fund.

It’s one thing to stroke a check or to get one’s head shaved on St. Baldrick’s Day as I did a couple of years ago, but Doug is putting his body to the test where others have their tiny bodies at risk — children.  Childhood cancer is, for me, the cruelest of diseases.  It does not have to be, however.  The are fine organizations like the Jimmy Fund that raise millions to fund childhood cancer.

Two years ago at Jimmy Fund Telethon Day, I happened to be at Fenway Park with my then six year-old son, who, thank God (and I still do) is perfectly healthy.  We watched then seven year-old Jordan Leandre, a recovering childhood cancer victim, round the bases in what was one of the most emotional scenes I have ever witnessed.  I posted a YouTube video below;  fast forward to the end and you may not be able to keep a tear out of your eye as well.

So I am using his space to ask you to help someone who is doing so much for others. Please consider making a donation for Doug.

Mark

Reprinted from a Media Bullseye article I wrote that was published on May 18, 2009.

The Spice Girls are, in my book, perhaps the worst band of the last century (sorry, fans), but I invoke the name of one of their more tortuous songs to talk about measurement.

This article has been bouncing around in my head since the “For Immediate Release” call-in show on April 25, 2009. The guests were Chip Griffin, CEO of CustomScoop (disclosure: a sponsor of The Hobson and Holtz report); and Aaron Weber, Insight Manager at Spiral16. (further disclosure: I am paid to write this article by Media Bullseye, a sister company of Custom Scoop.)
The guests described a variety of topics, including what constitutes good social media measurement and when it gets “creepy,” meaning you might make a Tweet complaining about a product and then hear from either the products’ representatives or perhaps a competitor. At that point, I had not encountered any “creepiness,” aside from a comment on my blog from Comcast after I took on DirecTV.

The lively podcast (and call-in) discussion got me thinking about “what I really, really want” out of a monitoring service. I have blogged and written articles about measurement and the ensuing steps your
can take for online reputation management ad nauseam, but I have a new wrinkle to add to the discussion:

1. Capturing the right information from the right sources is just the first step, but
   adding context to content is the next, critical step that many monitoring services lack; and

2. Those who do offer some sort of analysis of blogs posts, media mentions and not even
   tweets are often “hired guns” who lack the ability to ascertain the nuances that make a mention, positive, negative or neutral, let alone a favorability ranking. You can’t tell me that someone sitting in another office who has 10 other clients can know more about your issues than you.

The Conundrum

• Are those who do monitoring, either inside or outside of organizations, looking at
  the right thing to measure? and

• Are the right people actually doing the measurement?

My answer is: a) sometimes, and b) not really.

My public relations measurement uber-hero is Katie Paine, whose book “Measuring Public Relationships” is still the best read out  there on the topic, and I am going to borrow liberally from her book in order to help make sense of this.

What to look at

There are two types of horrendous monitoring, one worse than the other. The first is a “clips report” simply regurgitating a bunch of stories without providing any frame of reference to what it all means.

Lame.

What is still bad, but marginally better, is measuring “impressions.” Impressions are a made-up number that is still imprecise. Some organizations say it is 2.7 times the circulation number (counting pass-alongs) and some say it is simply the circulation number itself. This concept is fundamentally flawed as well because just because your article appears, it is a not a lock that the number of people
who see a publication = the number of people that you reached. This is at best flawed, and at worst, downright lazy. Still lame.

Non-Lame-ness

Here’s the Katie Paine part that, when I first read it (and then taught it) was one of those serene moments in which the universe makes sense. She offers up a simple way to measure the messages that actually get through to your audiences. Does it matter how many people buy the publication that your earned media piece runs in? Hell, no. But does matter how many people actually saw the message(s) that you were attempting to convey? Hell, yes.

Katie elegantly calls this revelatory statistic “Cost Per Message Communicated,” meaning that when you cut through all of the (lazy) monitoring mumbo-jumbo, the simplest and most precise way to determine the value of the public relations effort you have undertaken is to a) capture the right information an b) measure the messages that were available to your audiences.

I’ll talk more about this in the second article, but what I “really, really want” is a monitoring system (technology AND subject-matter experts) who will:

1. Capture all of the print, radio, television, blog, online news, Twitter and message
   board stuff that is said about my organization or issue;
2. Separate the “wheat from the chaff” and let me know – concisely – what I need to pay attention to; and
3. Help me understand the value of my public relations, public affairs or even crisis communications outbound messaging – not the “thump test” of number of publications or impressions, but how many of my key messages reached their intended audiences.

I am starting to have real fun with #blogmonday.  Since I started it, I have learned about topics as varied as different ways to enjoy bacon (but it sucks that I cannot partake because I am on a diet), social media karma as well as how cool a town Omaha is.  So what more do I need?  I need YOU.

I need you to share some linkey love with some of the “hidden gems” of the blogosphere. Yeah, you gotta write a blog post, but you were going to anyway. But contribute to #blogmonday by blogging about who you like – and why.

Last week, my votes were for:

• Dan York’s Disruptive Conversations
• Kami Huyse’s Communications Overtones
• David Armano’s “Logic+Emotion” blog
• Toby Bloomberg’s “Diva Marketing” blog
• Jim Long’s “Verge New Media”
• James Kotecki’s “Emergency Cheese”

Here are this week’s contributions:

Tried, True and Terrific

• Heavy Bag Media.  I like Jackie Peters’ writing style, but also enjoy her tweets about the wonderful places where she eats in the LA area (see prior note to being on a diet, however).  Jackie’s latest post is writing that I like: direct, concise and slightly snarky: “…too often marketing is approached as an ad-hoc jumble of tactics tossed against the wall in the hopes that one or two pieces will stick.” Bra-vo.
• Shannon Paul’s Very Official Blog.   I love her topics, her thinking, as well as the fact that often offers not just random thoughts and questions, but quite often, very thought-provoking posts.  I love movies that, after which, you have to go for a cup of coffee to think about and say “hmm.”   For me, Shannon’s blog is the online version of that movie.  Have a read if you would like to be enlightened and entertained.
• Digital Street Journal.  I love reading Jonathan Trenn’s blog, because, dammit, I learn something new about every time I cruise over there.  His posts are longer than most, thoughtful and really examine issues.  It’s kind of like the BBC of the blogosphere.

Blogs That Need to Make it Onto Your Blogroll

• The Fail Blog.  Any blog that makes you laugh out loud needs to be part of your weekly reading.  It’s all about typos, people crashing into things and other items that that make you glad that you are not part of Darwin’s Master Plan:

Blogs That You Might Not Read – But Should

• Greenversations.  Yes, Virginia, the federal government CAN spend your tax dollars in meaningful and creative ways.  Jeff Levy of the Environmental Protection Agency does a lot of things right, and the “Greenversations” blog is just one of them.  I am not what you would call a tree hugger, but I sure can recognize good social media outreach when I see it.

Random Blogs of the Week:

• Technosailor.  Aaron Brazell’s blog is informative, like me, he is in the swampland that is the Nation’s Capitol, and, most importantly of all, he is a Red Sox fan. Read the blog.

So like I said, start blogging, Bubbeleh.  Spread the linkey love.  You’ll thank me for it in the morning.

Mark #blogmonday Story

I debated what to call this post because it is an “open letter,” but calling it a letter to my “former students” seemed too, well “formal.”  With graduation happening on Saturday and I will have the immense honor and pleasure of handing you your Master’s Degree diplomas – and I will do so with a sense of pride that I feel the need  to express.

Since many of you who are graduating were in my first class, we all began this journey together,  I feel a deep bond with you.  And there are a few thoughts that I would like to express to you, the Class of 2009, and for the rest of my wonderful group of students.

Many of you may remember that, each semester, I reminded you that, although this was hard, we all were on a journey — together. And it was occasionally time to stop worrying about the grades and start thinking about the journey.  I did some thinking to, and here are just some of my thoughts.

Teaching many of you has been one of the greatest joys in my life, but it was I who learned from you.  Through your intelligence, intellectual curiosity and honesty, you made me better.  You pushed me to work harder. You challenged me to be at my best, each and every single class.

I have also had the distinct pleasure of staying in touch with many of you and providing career advice, life advice and basically anything that (I hope) was of value.  That too, is an honor;  it lets me know that ours was not just a temporary relationship, but a bond that was forged through tough work and sometimes, tough love.

For the class of 2009:  I feel an immense surge of pride and cannot wait to see you on Saturday.  Teaching with you, working with you, learning from you has been an immense pleasure and joy.

I was there for many of you on Day 1 — and I will have the honor of being there on the last day.

I thank you all humbly for this wonderful experience.

Mark