I’m with you, as long as the statement above can be supported by quantifiable ROI. That’s the real promise of social media from a PR perspective — the ability to put metrics around PR, which was previously impossible so the ROI was always fuzzy.

You need to document how you are contributing to the bottom line — lead gen, cost savings, deal capture. If you’re doing it just for conversation, just as another channel for media outreach, you’re missing the boat and your efforts will not be respected come budget time.

Measurement is not only a great way to demonstrate ROI, but it can help open the eyes of organisational leaders to issues that are just as, if not more, important to stakeholders. By focusing on some issues, we can become a moral and social conscience for an organisation, a role I believe we should be more assertive it taking up.

You should visit Sean Williams’ (who comments above) site for a recent discussion on PR agonising over measurement. I think you’ll be wryly amused…thanks for adding value to this discussion

Despite all the good social media commentary in the rest of the entry, I kept coming back to this, especially the word “potential.” Without the backing of key decision makers, social media and other PR tactics will be marginalized in an organization. This is all the more reason to measure ROI of social media. PR credibility ultimately is in the numbers, not the theory.

As I have said before, get Jim Grunig in a room with you and please provide the transcript!

Yes, Judy, I read the Grunig interview a while back and I know you are aware of his article on PR/social media in Praxis, which is also pretty interesting.

Penny, I think a main responsibility we have as PR pros is to constantly prod organisations to open up and evolve to be more aligned with the best interests and hopes of their stakeholders and society in general. Not easily done, but as someone once said…’we can.’ (Make a difference, that is.)

Thanks for your generous comments, everyone.

PS I was introduced to your blog via LinkedIn and agree that it’s a great resource, particularly for communications professionals.

Engaging (and grilling) the social side of James Grunig: http://www.prconversations.com/?p=478

I think you will find my questions (at least) of use and interest, as I found some crossover with this post. But do note that I was (gently) chastised for using the term “targeted” publics….

Sean, Pottery Barn & Crate and Barrel Facebook pages may be hugely successful…but the companies are still placing their Social Capital in a third-party platform, which appears hellbent on sharing data with other third-party marketers and advertisers. Not to mention the fact that if your information and community primarily exists on Facebook, you lose all of that Search Engine Optimization that should/would be driving traffic to the company’s *own* properties (website, blog, etc.).

Public relations’ most potent and potentially meaningful characteristic is its ability to transform organisations so that they are more aligned with their stakeholders’ needs and wants.

Dr. Grunig would be so proud! Mutual Change Lives!

Ironically, social media is the ideal mechanism to foster two-way communication between organizations and publics — but as we saw in our research, that’s not a usual thing at all. Even dialogue seems dismally low, let alone dialogue not focused on persuasion.

Persuasion continues to be the primary objective — it’s anyone’s guess how soon that will change.

I, too, attacked LinkedIn with relish, and eschewed Facebook for business. That is, until it seemed like literally every professional colleague I knew “friended” me on Facebook. BTW, for evidence of how Facebook is of huge relevance, see Pottery Barn and Crate and Barrel pages there. The numbers and conversations are amazing.