Have the confidence (and skill) to say no to AVE

I’ve written a lot about what I think about AVE in the past. So I was delighted to hear that PR Week has banned the use of AVE in its awards.

I was also equally interested in an event run by the CIPR last week entitled ‘How to measure beyond AVE‘. The event was so-so with the thrust of the argument seemingly being to use digital channels and social media because these are more measurable and, hey, AVE doesn’t work on them anyway!

For me, this is slightly missing the point. Every PR agency still focuses a lot on traditional online and print media and will do so for sometime. Rather than just encouraging everyone to use more digital media, we should be showing how AVE still remains a stupid way to measure coverage – offline or online.

Another aspect of the event which really surprised me was when the speaker asked the 100 or so delegates in the room whether they use other metrics apart from AVE. Only three of us put our hands up! I’m seriously hoping that the rest were just being shy, because that is a massive problem for our industry if it is true.

Then I did some searching and found this blog post from Octopus: “until an equally simplistic measurement tool is developed, PRs have little choice but to soldier on with AVE regardless of its many faults.”

Huh? So, it is up to the industry to find an equally ‘simplistic’ way of measuring what we do?

I’m proud to say I have never used AVE as a measurement metric in all the years I have been in PR and have only been asked whether we use it by clients on a handful of occasions.

And I’ll be damned if I’m going to reveal to agencies that are struggling to find other ‘simplistic’ measurement metrics the numerous ways they can give their clients proper ROI based on business results rather than just whether your campaign does or does not stack up against what an advertising agency could do. That relegates PR to the bottom of the heap.

I really hope I don’t have to write a blog post like this again, but I’m sure I will.

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Update – EML Wildfire

I’ve been pretty quiet on here over the last few months. This is due to a number of reasons including the merger between Wildfire and EML which was announced this week. You can read the press release, the blog post from new MD Richard Parker and the coverage in PR Week.

It’s a very exciting development and makes the newly formed EML Wildfire one of the top ten tech PR agencies in the UK. Watch this space!

Hopefully with the merger now complete, I’ll be able to spend a bit more time sharing thoughts and views on here and also on the new EML Wildfire blog.

Shut up about Quora already!

I had a bit of a rant on Twitter this morning.

It was prompted by a big multi-page feature in the lastest issue of PR Week on Quora. The headline asked whether this new network could become the “new Twitter” and included a range of comments from the great and the good of the online PR industry giving their thoughts on what it means for brands and PR strategies.

All well and good; Quora’s been getting a lot of attention recently.

It’s all just hot air

But, if we step back a bit and think about this objectively, it all suddenly becomes rather absurd.

Quora, despite having launched about a year ago, has only really been on most people’s radars for a few weeks maximum. And when I say “most people”, I mean the techy, social mediaites on Twitter. In terms of user numbers and general awareness, it is nowhere.

There is a real danger in the social media echo chamber in which many of us live our lives, that we gravitate towards the new and sparkly just because someone posts a blog post saying it might be a good thing.

As Vivek Wadhwa says:

“Silicon Valley is again drinking its own Kool-Aid; it is looking at the world through its own prism. This is a common problem here, where we jump from one fad to another; where venture capitalists start investing in similar technologies and drive company valuations through the roof; where TechCrunch hypes the technology du jour and causes entrepreneurs all over the world to drop what they are doing in favor of building copycat technologies.”

Now, I’m not saying we shouldn’t look at new things, play with them or keep half an eye on them. Of course, we should. I’m also not saying that Quora won’t be successful (though I do have reservations and agree with much of what is said in this New York Times review).

Second guessing the next big thing!

But, rather than just jumping on the bandwagon, we need carefully assess the service it in a responsible, considered way. It’s pretty telling that the most popular topic on Quora right now is social media! Go figure…

I think Adam Timworth gets it spot on when he says: “…my gut feeling…is that the Next Big Thing, whatever it turns out to be, won’t be this hyped. And Quora is really hyped right now. Every previous Next Big Thing, from blogging, through Flickr, Twitter, Facebook and more has gone through an extended period of quiet use by a small, but steadily growing pool of users and evangelists, before the real mainstream growth kicks in. I’ve never seen a major Next Big Thing on the web go from zero to hero in about 10 days.”

Most of the ‘big things’ in tech at the moment were game changers and I don’t think Quora is different enough from what has come before to allow it to have massive mainstream adoption.

So while I wish Quora well, I think those of us that are already dreaming up PR strategies around how it should/could be used need to give it time.

Jon Collins kindly emailed me with some of his thoughts:

“From a PR perspective, what’s needed more than an understanding of the latest, greatest thing, is a model/mechanism which can quickly evaluate the potential of all such tools. If Quora shines like a star for a week before it’s gone, for example, then the smart PR executive may be able to make the most of it. That is a very different mindset than, say, thinking ’do we need a Quora strategy’.”

Give it time

My advice to PRs looking at Quora? By all means look at it, play with it (as you should with all the new shiny tools that come alone), but don’t waste your or your clients time just yet time trying to work out how it might or might not influence what we do in the near or even distant future.

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My PR Week letter

Bit delayed with this one for a combination of holiday and that crazy bank holiday thang of trying to fit a week’s worth of work into just four days!

But, I’m famous! My first ever letter to PR Week has been published.

It’s all on the back of #wolfstargate (you can read more here) and, as the image above (courtesy of my iPhone) isn’t the best, here is the letter in full:

The whole Wolfstar/Paratus/Vodafone incident leaves a bad taste in the mouth. It seems there is quickly becoming a ‘them and us’ mindset in the social media agency versus PR agency debate.

I can see exactly why the ‘social media specialists’ are keen to propagandise that the entire PR industry doesn’t ‘get’ social media, but it’s a short-sighted and shallow argument.

In such a new discipline, mistakes will always be made (by all types of agencies) but, for those of us who believe PR specialists have the underlying strategic and tactical skills to provide effective social media counsel, the future surely seems to lie with agencies that can provide a holistic and integrated approach.

Some agencies in the PR industry might still be catching up, but it won’t take long, so expect to see more big social media wins from more ‘traditional’ agencies soon.

Thoughts? Comments? Violent disagreements?

Too little, too late for the trades?

Interesting post from Wendy McAuliffe looking at how the trade press are (or aren’t) using blogs:

“What’s apparent is that some trade publishers have been nervous about blog content undermining the value of their magazine and online editorial, often failing to grasp where blogging can add value.”

The two examples she cites are particularly telling. NMA and Revolution are titles you would expect to be leading the way, and yet they aren’t. Revolution were very late to the party earlier this year and NMA still aren’t really there (although look out for a newly launched nma.co.uk on Monday…complete with a blog? Who knows?).

But, as Wendy says, there are obvious concerns for publishers whose history is steeped in print.

For me though, it does seem a bizarre and dangerous tactic.

Whilst these ‘giants’ are sleeping, a whole array of ‘amateur’ bloggers are springing up, gathering followers and writing some great stuff. The trad media may still be able to catch up, but what damage has already been done?

The same could be said of the PR industry’s own bible – PR Week. Despite its recent obsession about Twitter and the quoting of blogs in the magazine, the website is hardly 2.0 (and that’s not even discussing the pay wall it has in place – for which I keep forgetting the password!).

And perhaps the problem lies in the fact that these are big publications, ruled by big publishing houses, which find it difficult to ‘change’. And when they do decide to change, it takes time.

Revolution has its new website, Retail Week launched its new site yesterday and NMA has its turn on Monday.

These are all steps in the right direction. But where is the innovation? Are the steps too small and too late?

About

This is my story. I've always been fascinated by the internet. My first passion was music and I studied a music degree at Birmingham University. But once graduated I quickly went back to the web working as a digital marketer. I also ran a web startup for a few years. In the need of a new challenge, I turned to the world of PR and now work as an Account Director at EML Wildfire. My interest is primarily looking at how PR professionals can make the most of the web and digital marketing. This blog contains my thoughts and things I find inspirational.

© 2012 Danny Whatmough - Made by me