How much is the page worth where your online content has appeared?
Interesting idea?
Most of us have seen advertisement in online newspapers. They now form a significant part of publishing revenues.
In exploring the price of online newspaper advertising, it is no great leap of logic to try to attempt to satisfy the question of the difference between price and value.
This is quite an open and transparent market. The rates are published and in a form that equates exposure and price. This suggests that the market is not just active but transparent as well. The Guardian article yesterday puts this space into perspective even if it is gloomy about the prospects for the publishing industry.
Value and price, measured using the exchange rate of monetary currency, would seem to be a reasonable measure for online newspaper advertising.
But it is not a good currency for editorial and social content. There do not seem to be transparent markets or effective exchange rates that convert online conversations into a currency that can be used in most modern commercial environments.
In this research project, I have taken the price of online newspaper advertising and by using the published rates, numbers of visitors from ABCe and have worked through an Alexa comparison of user visits. This has given me an algorithm to provide a figure that would project the value of an advertisement on web pages that are not online newspapers.
In other words if you were going to advertise on that page, how much would it cost you?
If you like, an Advertising Potential Value!
In testing, I have played the results back into online newspapers and the results are pretty good. The formula got within 5% for the Telegraph and Guardian and within 10% of the price charged by Mirror Group.
I know that context is different and I know that web pages are optimised for purpose and thus not all web pages would be suitable to carry advertisements (and many blog pages and other content is not suitable either). I am also aware of the issues we have as between different web sites indexed by Alexa. This is not going to be a micron accurate measure but is will be, at worse, indicative.
However, this allows me to test an approximation of advertising value potential for web pages were they in competition with newspapers for advertising revenues.
NOTE: the return you get will be the value based on the UK audience figures only. The global equivalent will be bigger and based on a different base point.
Over the next few days, I will build a widget so that you too can have a look at the results and will post it here.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
The Real World of the Internet
This report of the intersection between the internet and people by Michael Silberman at the Mother Jones website during the Obama campaign is a great case study.
While it applies to political campaigning the concept works across so much of online public relations
All too often, we separate out the need for being of the community and being online. Today, I was vaguely listening to the radio in the car (after listening to FIR) to hear that there is a school of thought that pure play online retailers are detached from consumers because they do not meet them in person as traditional retailers do.
I thought this was a bit harsh because my experience is by no means bad. However, the Mother Jones article takes us a lot further forward.
It speaks to the need for good internal and motivating online interactions, cross over between the front line and back office and integrated and multi-media use of internet properties.
There is nothing about internet communication that is a one trick pony.
While it applies to political campaigning the concept works across so much of online public relations
All too often, we separate out the need for being of the community and being online. Today, I was vaguely listening to the radio in the car (after listening to FIR) to hear that there is a school of thought that pure play online retailers are detached from consumers because they do not meet them in person as traditional retailers do.
I thought this was a bit harsh because my experience is by no means bad. However, the Mother Jones article takes us a lot further forward.
It speaks to the need for good internal and motivating online interactions, cross over between the front line and back office and integrated and multi-media use of internet properties.
There is nothing about internet communication that is a one trick pony.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Have we learned yet - Brands need hunter-gatherers
Elizabeth Albrycht, in her June post "Brands as Media: Platforms for Value Creation" put forward the idea that brands are changing because of a "shift in technology and audience expectations is driving a major evolution in marketing, which, at least initially, is leading companies to develop, purchase and/or maintain/support media properties, be they online forums, blogs, and social networks. (This is already starting to result in brands competing with traditional media, the very places they have supported by their advertising over the past decades. With large consumer products companies in better financial shape than media companies, this might result in some odd marriages in the next few years.)"
She follows Haque who posits that "traditional branding activities, especially advertising, imposes costs on consumers. Costs of interrupted attention, time spent waiting for a TV show to resume, polluted visual fields in cities and countrysides, and so on. Culturally, consumers are now expressing their increasing resentment of these costs and refusing to pay them (and technology is giving them ever more tools to easily do so)."
This suggests that brands are morphing and are taking on new rolls and capabilities.
Brand marketing without push advertising, heavily PR dependent consumer journalists and blinding Point of Sale is a strange beast.
It moves towards a community experience, part of the gossip communities indulge in and leavened by a capability for the community to cluster round the best gossips, the best informed gossips and the most enabled (RSS) gossips in the world.
These are people.
Real people.
They are the top hunter gatherers of the 21st century and they contribute to the tribe as part of the community.
In their rituals they seek the information that the gods of technology offer them and interpret these oracles to in a conversation with their community.
Some are so good that people flock to their communities from many other tribes, who in turn spread the word.
We seek them out as mankind did for tens of thousands of years before agriculture produced enough ears of wheat for communities to build settlements, markets and inventories.
These people have to work with the grain of the community. They need to be of the community and their expression of the brand has to compete within the daily chatter of the community as it forages.
To shout out a brand message disturbs the community. If it has value it will become part of the community's conversation and culture but if it has no meaning it becomes culturally disruptive at a social cost to the perpetrator.
In this technology fuelled era, we are seeing echoes of mankind's almost lost past.
Image: Hunter Gatherer Wiki.
Why 20th century marketing is dead
If one of the worlds, leasing business publications was to be found to be selling editorial to the highest bidder it would be a scandal...right?
People would loose trust in its editorial independence.
It would loose its appeal to industry leaders.
Of much greater significance is that it would be vilified in social media and progressively its reputation would cost its shareholders their fortune just as those who once though banking shares were a smart lost theirs.
Indeed, those who colluded in such a scam would be suspect. Their ethical practice would be called into question and their reputation too will suffer.
Well, there are marketing practices that drag people along this gently inclining slope to the slippery bit and in an era of transparency cannot avoid the finger being pointed:
There is nothing new in this. It has gone on for years and yet, because it is common practice does not make it right.
So, are we shocked to see circulations of publications in free fall when the words they print are really just advertorials? Well not really. Will anyone regret the going of such publications. Well no, not really.
Feel for the poor pensioner who depends on investment in such shares for a living.
People would loose trust in its editorial independence.
It would loose its appeal to industry leaders.
Of much greater significance is that it would be vilified in social media and progressively its reputation would cost its shareholders their fortune just as those who once though banking shares were a smart lost theirs.
Indeed, those who colluded in such a scam would be suspect. Their ethical practice would be called into question and their reputation too will suffer.
Well, there are marketing practices that drag people along this gently inclining slope to the slippery bit and in an era of transparency cannot avoid the finger being pointed:
"Please let me know ASAP if you have a client that might be interested to participate in BusinessWeek's Cloud Computing ad section. This is a "pay-to-play" opportunity ($6,980 entry fee) to appear in a hot section.
"Appearance here will position your client as a leader in the the cloud computing space. BusinessWeek delivers a prime audience of 4.8 million decision-makers, consisting of over 1.8 million senior executives, and 2 million business technology influencers.
"BusinessWeek magazine will publish this section in its April 13, 2009 global print (and online) edition (hits newsstands/goes live April 3). Produced in partnership with the Cloud Slam 09 Virtual Conference Event, this timely section, titled "Cloud Computing: Next-Gen Internet to Power Business," will discuss the business imperatives of cloud computing, i.e. harnessing power, opportunity of on-demand computing, storage, applications, infrastructure, etc.
"If your client were to commit to advertise, we would develop complimentary coverage to appear in the section article (or develop a top quality "advertorial" piece); interview and content development by Internet veteran Vance McCarthy. Exposure includes visibility on www.cloudslam09.com during and after the event, and on www.businessweek.com/adsections providing links to their website (can include video), and high quality reprints. We are also offering Cloud Slam '09 Sponsorships. Further, we can create a very cool, interactive 3D “virtual booth” for your client at a relatively small fee. Uniquely, the booth 'container' is in PDF, so it can be distributed everywhere your client wishes, beyond the event! Lots of value and impact in this package! Another complimentary element here is BusinessWeek's social networking Business Exchange site now taking flight.
There is nothing new in this. It has gone on for years and yet, because it is common practice does not make it right.
So, are we shocked to see circulations of publications in free fall when the words they print are really just advertorials? Well not really. Will anyone regret the going of such publications. Well no, not really.
Feel for the poor pensioner who depends on investment in such shares for a living.
Sunday, March 08, 2009
The Value of Online Content
So you ‘Goole’ your company to find that Google has indexed 200,000 pages that have a reference to it.
These references have a value. Some are pages on your web site; others will be orphaned pages, some are pages that reference your organisation because you have a commercial link arrangement. Some are references in newspapers and magazines that have written about the organisation because of PR or other newsworthy activities and some will be blog post, LinkedIn references, information sharing sites, YouTube videos, Twitter mentions, social network reference and there will be a lot of others too.
Some of these references will link back to your organisation’s websites/s and many will be a mention in passing.
Individually and collectively, all these mentions have a value. They are assets even though they do not appear on the balance sheet. Without them, your organisations will be invisible to most people who want to know about your organisation and others that do have such links will have a competitive advantage.
The problem we have is finding out what this asset is worth.
Worth can only be established at a time of transaction between a willing seller and a willing buyer and as most online references are not monetary by nature we face a problem in valuation.
The big problem is in knowing the nature of the currency.
A mention of an organisation in a blog post or a visible sign in the background of a Flickr photo provide brand presence but may not have any intent to offer value (monetary or otherwise) by the publisher or, conversely, the intention may be absolutely commercial in intent.
In PR, we have always had a problem of converting such intangibles into monetary values. It is why some practitioners use Advertising Values, a very rough and ready (and mostly misleading) transmogrification from one set of values into another in an attempt to find a common monetary currency.
Online there are a number of transactions that have monetary value. For example, we know the cost of advertising on the web pages of newspapers. There is the value of Pay Per Click advertising which is well established as well. The price of banners and other commercial online devices are pretty easy to ascertain.
However, they have the same problem that editorial in newspapers have. They apply to advertising and only in a tiny fraction of web sites and internet channels.
Working with my friend Girish Lakshminarayana I have been looking at ways we can approach this problem and over the next few months hope to find currencies and a means of developing currency conversion that will allow us to offer robust metrics.
It will not be easy but there are some ideas that we have that make me think this is doable.
In the meantime, we will also be looking for examples of expression of relationship and the currencies that apply.
If there is PhD student out there who would like to join the fun, let me know.
Domians of PR practice and influence
We are constantly being asked to describe what the PR sector does in the context of its role in influencing opinion and decsiosn making.
Last month I needed a lecture to to put this into context and, in the process, describe PR in its wider role.
I was helped by a paper I prepared some years ago about the domains of PR practice.
My attempt to introduce this area of PR practice is reproduced below.
The Range of Practice
There are a number of ways one can identify the nature and scope of public relations practice.
One is to view practice from the perspective of the publics that influence organisations.
In Chapter 2 of Exploring Public Relations[i], (pp19-22) Tench and Yeomans explore the environments that influence the practice of public relations. This perspective is very important in explaining the role of public relations from a perspective of influencer publics.
This public relations view has counterparts in Freedman’s[ii] stakeholder theory and subsequent papers[iii]. This concept examines the nature of relationship management from the perspective of the organisation and seeks to manage relationships with stakeholders that the organisation perceives as having influence. It is a common management practice and has its problems mainly because of the numbers of publics the organisation ignores in its analysis of its stakeholders.
We can see this effect easily by searching for an organisation using Google’s advanced search capability to find pages published in the previous 24 hours and then assessing the extent to which the organisation had control of the publication of the content, and thus, its online reputation. It quickly becomes evident that most organisations have a very modest influence, and conduct their business from a stakeholder perspective (there is an extensive bibliography about stakeholder theory at http://theclarityconcept.pbwiki.com/Academic+Resources
Another view might be from the perspective of PR practice. Basically: what do PR people really do? My unpublished paper [iv] seeks to answer this question.
It shows that there are many types of PR practiced and many of them are focused on limited areas of activity.
What this demonstrates is that, with a grasp and understanding of the range of activities that fall within the broad church of the profession, entrants can be informed as to their choice of career and, in addition, as their career progresses they have a grasp of fundamental principle that will, in time, allow them to manage other specialist in PR and organisational management with specific and specialist roles.
The nature of affective publics
To be effective in practice we have seen that the practitioner needs to be able to understand the nature of relationships that are affective.
It is important to note that organisations are not always companies. They can be voluntary organisations, associations, pressure groups, religious organisations and many more.
All organisations can, and most do, have someone with a PR role.
There are many groups that influence organisations. Some are internal (management – the dominant coalition, employee groups – including organisations departments, cross discipline/departmental working parties, informal clubs and interest groups, Trades Unions etc), some are part employed on contracts (accountant, advisors and consultants, contractors), some are part of the value chain (suppliers, wholesalers, retailers etc), some are regulators (local, regional, national and supra-national government), some are regulatory (trade and professional associations, standards authorities, government agencies etc) and then there are consumers and consumer groups including informal recommenders often family or social groups providing word of mouth recommendations.
There is a new form of group emerging. They are of the nature of publics that form round issues as described by Grunig and Hunt but have evolved since their writings 20 years ago[v].
What we see is groups of people who cluster round tokens. The tokens can be an issue, interest brand, or a set of common values, a feature that has always been part of human interaction, but which is now much facilitated by the internet (see the work of Bruno Amaral) . They are commonly (if narrowly) described as ‘user generated groups’[vi].
This array of influencers is considerable and all are potentially the specialist interest of managers and notably public relations managers. In senior posts, PR practitioners may have responsibilities for relationships with many such groups and in some cases all such groups.
The nature of interaction between organisations can be as between two PR practitioners each representing different groups.
The practitioner in an organisation needs to know about those organisations that affect the workings and long term effective survival of the organisation.
The influences on organisational direction
To be effective in development of relationships between organisations the practitioner needs to know how organisations are constituted; how they make decisions and what influences their decision making. In addition, the practitioner will need to know how to access the influences on decision making.
Organisations are different. Decision making in a company is very different from decision making in a cricket club or county council.
What we need to be able to do is find out how to influence the decision making process.
It is important in this sphere of PR practice that one examines the nature of organisations.
There is considerable literature but Elizabeth McMillan has some excellent papers[vii] that explain the nature of organisational structure.
To interact effectively with organisations there is a need for transparency. John C Havens and Shel Holtz cover organisational transparency for organisations showing that to build trust there is a need for transparency and that because organisations disclose information to its publics, it can and does spread to third parties[viii].
For this reason, they come to the same conclusion and Phillips & Young (2009 ibid).
It is important to be transparent. It is important to manage transparency and it is important that the presentation of intellectual properties (trademarks, patents, copyright content, know how, processes etc), should be in a manner and time suited to the publics involved and knowing that at some time more than one public will have access to the information provided to a third.
The conclusion we then come to is that changing relationships to maximise short term organisational success and optimise long term survival, organisations need a coherent strategy across all domains of public relations.
The PR manager needs to know about the range of organisations and social groups (including ‘user generated' groups) that affect the organisation.
Why organisations like to be influenced
At first glance one could be squeamish about wanting affect the decisions of an organisation.
In fact, for an organisation to be effective, it needs external influence over its decision making processes.
If one takes, as an example an organisation like a County Council in the midst of a once in 20 year crisis brought about by a snow storm.
In 2009, this happened. After a cold winter, stocks of salt for keeping roads clear of ice and snow were depleted. Then in February snow storms covered roads and paths to an unusual extent. The council has a responsibility for keeping roads clear and paths passable. But stocks of salt were depleted. What was to be done?
The councils across the country tried to get supplies but their normal vendor was out of stock and there was no one nearby who could help out.
Then, the council heard about using table salt. They also found out that stocks were in good supply. This information affected their decision making. They could buy table salt for roads and paths.
In this case the influence of the media, prompted by an initiative by the Gloucester County Council, became a solution across the country.
Here we can see quite clearly that an influence on decision making helped solve a problem.
However, the council will not have made such a big decisions without taking advice. Some of that advice will be about the suitability of table salt on roads (it has to be mixed with road salt); some will be about cost, transport and the amount needed. Such information will come from third parties, internal expertise and then, with all the facts, the council officers and relevant council committee can make a judgement and come to a decision.
Organisations, welcome influence to help them make better decisions.
How practitioners influence decision making
In many cases the role of the practitioner is to influence publics. This may be a two-step process such as encouraging press coverage to offer a point of view and which is read by the target public. In other cases, the process will be one of convening meetings between parties and on yet another occasion it may be the production of publications for circulation to key audiences.
Often, the practitioner will be involved in many activities all aimed at achieving the same end.
This is helpful for the target organisation. A press article may alert the organisation to a possibility; a brochure or paper, will provide detailed information and a meeting can provide the opportunity for an exchange of questions and answers.
This kind of approach works as well for inter-organisational relationship building in its many forms and is the lubricant of much wealth creation.
The process of planning and managing public relations campaigns outlined in chapter 10 of Exploring Public Relations (ibid) provides the basis for identifying the mythologies that are applied in influencing decision making.
Any such plan will have clear objectives; has to be strategic in concept; is often multi-public in nature and frequently will use an array of tactics.
In many instances, this area of public relations work will involve a number of two step processes.
For example a key public may be influenced by the media, its suppliers, public bodies (councils, regulators, professional associations etc) and by some very influential individuals inside the organisation.
The role of the practitioner is to recruit such third parties as ambassadors, persuaders and influencers and a persuasive case has to be put to each.
However, sometimes an individual practitioner may not have the skills, knowledge or experience to do all this work. This is where the diversity of PR practice and the capability of specialist practitioners comes into its own. They can be approached to help by deploying their expertise on your behalf.
The nature of PR consultancy is that it offers such capabilities. These people are readily found as members of the Public Relations Consultants Association (http://www.prca.org.uk) or the CIPR (www.cipr.co.uk), The International Association of Business Communicators (IABC - www.iabc.com/).
While there are many reasons for joining and attending local meetings of such organisation, one of the key ones is to be on good terms with these many different practitioners locally and to find out what they do and how they go about it and, indeed, how they like to be briefed.
In conclusion
This paper set out to show the wider diversity of practice there is in the discipline of PR.
We have seen that there are a number of approaches to understanding the kinds of PR practice available to organisations including Stakeholder Theory and the Excellence Model.
We have discovered that the usual forms of planning public relations between organisations is applicable to inter-organisational PR.
To be effective in inter-organisational PR it is important to understand how organisations are constituted and how they make decisions.
We also explored reasons why organisations want to change perspectives between each other and that they like to be influenced.
One of the things we noted is that this kind of PR often involves a multitude of opinion formers and influencer organisations who can act as ambassadors and influencers on your behalf.
Finally we discovered that the range of PR disciplines available provide resources and expertise that you can call on to assist in planning, managing and implementing and inter-organisational PR programme.
[i] Tench, R. & Yeomans, L. (2006) Exploring Public Relations Prentice Hall
[ii] Freeman, R.E., & Reed, D.L. (1983). “Stockholders and stakeholders: A new perspective on corporate governance.” California Management Review, Vol. 25 No.3, pp.83-94.
[iii] Freeman, R. E. & McVea, J. (2001). “A Stakeholder Approach to Strategic Management” Darden Business School Working Paper No. 01-02
Freeman, R. E. & McVea, J. (2001). “A Stakeholder Approach to Strategic Management” Darden Business School Working Paper No. 01-02
[iv] Phillips, D. (2006) Domians of PR Practice http://www.netreputation.co.uk/managementclarity/domians_of_pr_practice.pdf accessed 2009.
[v] Grunig, J, E. & Hunt, T (1984). Managing Public Relations. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace.
[vi] Phillips, D & Young, P. (2009) Online Public Relations Kogan Page London
[vii] McMillan, E. (2002) 'Considering organisation structure and design from a Complexity Paradigm Perspective' in Frizzelle, G. and Richards, H. (eds.) Tackling industrial complexity: the ideas that make a difference. Institute of Manufacturing, University of Cambridge.
[viii] Havens, J.C. & Holtz, S (2008) Tactical Transparency: How Leaders Can Leverage Social Media to Maximize Value and Build their Brand. Jossey-Bass
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)