Public relations is the art of shaping the public’s opinion of a brand. Publicists create a positive brand image by publishing press releases, seeking out sponsorship opportunities, and executing media strategies. Back in the day, measuring the effects of public relations was nearly impossible. Thanks to technology, however, there are many ways to measure the success of a public relations campaign today.
Media monitoring
Monitoring your brand’s coverage across all media platforms allows you to measure success effectively. To do so, you can track press hits, calculate media impressions, and analyze the content of any brand mentions. However, it is not only essential to know who mentioned your brand and how many people were exposed to it, but also if your brand’s key message was communicated.
Social listening
In addition to monitoring brand coverage in the mass media, it is also important to track mentions, follower counts, and consumer engagements on social media. It is common for people to publicly share their opinion and following the accounts of brands that they love. Therefore, monitoring activity on social media platforms helps us learn how the public perceives a brand and its message, maintain a positive image, and react to negative feedback.
Lead sourcing
A well-executed public relations campaign increases brand recognition and drives sales. To determine if your public relations campaign shaped consumer behavior, ask customers how they’ve learned about the brand. To do so, you can provide partners with sponsorship codes, giveaways, and use affiliate links to track user engagement.
Website traffic and SEO ranking
Another way to track the success of your public relations campaign is by measuring traffic to your website. If the campaign is successful, you should see an increase in website traffic and improved SEO ranking. Google Analytics is a free and straightforward tool that generates analytics about visitors to your website and keeps track of the inbound links that affect your SEO ranking.
If you want to learn more about performance tracking tools, click here.
