We recently conducted a series of polls on LinkedIn to determine how professionals read news.  You can download the full report here.  The key findings showed that while news sites continued to dominate, search engines and aggregators were a major source of news.  On the mobile side, news specific mobile applications (such as the WSJ app on the iPhone) were even more important than a mobile web browser.    Our bottom line finding, based on these polls and third part research such as Hitwise’s list of top news web sites (which found both news sites and search engines in the top ten), is that major news sites along with search engines and aggregators still need to lead the way in distributing information.  Social media then provides a measurement of how well the news was received as well as an amplification effect.  Key findings included the following:

1. Shoppers just don’t care about corporate reputation.  People buy because they like the product and trust the store they buy from.  Just about all the attacks on Wal-Mart (e.g., by watch dog groups, unions) were unrelated to these core areas of consumer interest.  We hear about the terrible behavior of diamond companies but still buy plenty of diamonds.  Basically, unless the product is  overpriced, broken or comes with terrible service, shoppers are less likely to shift their habits.

2. Wal-Mart aggressively got it’s story out.  After being attacked on core issues like health care and wages, Wal-Mart showed they were far better than average on these two issues than most other companies.  Maybe they weren’t the best, but they were far from worse.  I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of conscientious shoppers made note of these facts.

3. Wal-Mart had their employees tell their story.  Instead of corporate spokespeople, Wal-Mart had employees talk about how they liked working for the company in commercials.  This is one of the fastest ways to neutralize the opposition.  Show how at least some of the audience they claim to speak for is on your side.  It immediately questions how much support they really have.  I once worked on a campaign where we faced the teachers union.  We ran commercials featuring teachers speaking out against the teachers union messages.  We saw an immediate shift of support to our side of the issue.

So does this mean all that negative publicity doesn’t matter?  Absolutely not.  Overtime, I still believe corporate level negative publicity can erode both shopper and investor confidence as well as lost politicy support (as Wal-Mart has already seen).   I think survey’s like this show that it’s not necessarily an immediate effect and may also be a sign of success of Wal-Marts communications program to defend against attacks.

 

 

Likewise, what measurements of success is more likely to capture management’s attention: 1) a statistically significant audience survey that shows how new messaging and types of outreach impacted a company’s reputation; 2) share of voice, ad equivalency and other metrics that focus on quality and quantity, but don’t actually talk to the end audience.

Instead of focusing our bottom line PR measurements on metrics like share of voice, why don’t more corporate communications and marketing PR teams engage in this type of audience research?  While share of voice and similar measurements are important, they measure the tactical success (how much ink did we generate) and not the strategic (what was the reputation impact).  I’m not going to guess at the answer but I will make some points as to why this type of research should be standard practice.

The a core counseling role of public relations teams should be to determine and forecast the impact a management, product and marketing activity may impact a companies reputation.   While an opinion should be educated and valued, an opinion backed up by hard research is hard to ignore.  Owning this type of research means being able to accurately represent how core consituencies will react to companies move.  This puts companies in a better position to make marketing, business and communications adjustments…all based on research conducted by the communications team.

For example, let’s say a company restructured its corporate communications function to be more research and senior counseling centric.  It might look like the following:

1. Corporate communications conducts monthly surveys to determine how audiences are viewing the company, the impact of company moves, and message testing for potential near future company moves.
2. Research is presented to management team along with businessI recommendations on how to address any negative perceptions or enhance positive receptions.  This may include changes to how products are rolled out, adjustements to how senior executives commnicate to media or new messaging for advertising and media outreach compaigns.
3. Following research then captures these changes and shows the bottom line impact on audience perception. 

The last point is the real value of public relations.  When we put recommendations into action and then measure the impact based on audience opinion , it shows that we are doing is having a bottom line impact on how the company is perceived.   Such an approach is far more meaningful to senior executives who, while they might appreciate the fact that the PR team raised share of voice, are much more concerned with how key audiences perceive the company.

Of course, I should take my own medicine.  To that end, I will be conducting a survey of management executives to see what measurement metrics would have the most impact on how they view the importance of treating PR as central counsel (critical to any public business decision).  If you are interested in participating, send me an e-mail at cohen@ fortexgroup.com.