Turning News Into Knowledge

For our December newsletter, we asked our employees for their top tips for 2010. It was such a hit with our subscribers, I thought I’d share it with our blog readers as well. Enjoy!

A new year is a great excuse to change your ways and work on improvement. This year we asked the MediaMiser team for tips to improve measurement efforts, here are our top ten:

“Define your company/communication values of your company, understand them and then plan your media goals based on your values. For example, if you’re planning on being proactive to consumer feedback, aim to capture and analyze the media from the feedback.”
Stephanie Luedee, Senior Analyst

“When defining your goals, make sure they can easily be measured. Ask yourself if the end product can be evaluated like the number of mentions in a press clipping.”
Sophie Jodoiun, Analyst

“Prioritize all your tasks in a numbered system to know what you should be working on at all times.“
David Kalec, Junior Developer

“Colour-code your tags and folders in your email client. In an application like gmail this makes it easy to find topic-related emails in your inbox.”
Jen Hogan, Analyst

“Leave all emails in your inbox until you’ve addressed them – once finished with them, delete or file into a folder ALWAYS.”
Sarah Smiley, Analyst

“Understand that everyone has a different definition of success, so treat each account or client individually.”
Samantha Ingram, Analyst

“Set and evaluate outcome objectives with your audiences. Also measure your outputs.  They can help you determine why you did — or did not — achieve your desired outcomes.”
Claudine Wilson, Senior Associate

“Start benchmarking your efforts against competitors, it’s not as scary as you think.”
Kelly Rusk, Manager of Marketing & Communities

“Put your PR efforts on a measurement diet. Write down results, compare over time and take notice of when you gained or lost.”
Chris Morrison, VP Client Services

“When in doubt, ask us for help.”
Bill McGuiness, Sales Director

Think of one we missed? Leave a comment below!

Don’t miss future articles like this and others on PR and social media measurement by subscribing to our monthly newsletter, MediaPulse.

One of the great dangers of social media is not saying too little, but saying too much.

Being a decision-maker and founder at MediaMiser, not only do I have intimate knowledge of where my company is going, but I also feel I have intimate knowledge of where the industry is going.

MediaMiser has a lot of credibility in its space and that opens the door to many different relationships. Plus, since a lot of my time revolves around technology and the operation of my company, I’m exposed to many leading-edge concepts.

There is so much I would love to communicate, but can’t. If I did, I could alienate partners and clients, and provide our competition with an edge.

This should not be just my dilemma, this should be everyone’s.  “Keep your cards close to your chest!”

So the question is, how do you give back and provide value so you are relevant?

The answer is there is no right answer.

It’s a tight rope walk that you need to struggle with and there maybe times where you make a mistake.  Hopefully, it’s not a big one. Keep in mind, when you say too much, you are not just hurting yourself, you could be hurting coworkers, partners, investors, etc.

Tips to avoid saying too much:

1. Don’t get emotional and always keep your ego in check: This is tough, especially if you are naturally competitive like most entrepreneurial people are.
2. Think of the consequences of communicating something and remember you can’t take it back.
3. Try to vet your information through someone else, especially if you are unsure. I personally do this a lot. It is not a weakness to know your limitations.
4. Provide a reason ‘why’ or an objective to posting information. If you can’t answer why, maybe it’s not a good idea. Warning: if you have a reason, make sure it doesn’t conflict with point 1, ‘don’t get emotional’. Some ideas seem good at first. Also, when justifying something, deploy point 3.
5. Wait a day before communicating something. This helps flush out ideas based on pure emotion.
6. Have a clear idea what your target medium is designed for. This may also aid in preventing abuse.
7. Develop a social media usage policy for your organization.
8. Develop internal social media networks. This has the potential of also creating a new set of problems, but at least in theory the damage will be limited internally. This also allows people to get familiar with social media. Practice makes perfect.

These tips aren’t designed to remove spontaneity or to stifle creativity.  However, it may be a side effect. This is why I wrote, “it’s a tight rope walk.”