*A version of this post originally appeared on Inside PR and was posted on November 22, 2012.
This week, Inside PR (hosted by Martin Waxman, Gini Dietrich and Joseph Thornley) features another interview from the PRSA International Conference in San Francisco. This interview is with Shonali Burke, VP, Digital and Marketing at MSL Washington and creator of the Waxing Unlyrical blog. Shonali talks about one of her favorite topics - measurement - and why it’s important to communicators.
She advises us to shift our mindsets from output to outcome and embed this type of thinking into our programs in order to demonstrate how our work actually achieves business goals.
She encourages communicators to perform measurement tests and present the results to clients as a way to educate them on how PR and social media programs can correlate to business outcomes.
Looking ahead, Shonali thinks we must all pay more attention to measurement and understanding analytics; we should focus on storytelling – going back to what PR is really about. She also advises that we must learn how to become community managers and tell our stories directly to the audiences we’re trying to reach.
