PR agencies, how are you judging a blog’s social reach?

PR agencies, how are you judging a blog’s social reach?


Everything happens for a reason
, even in the world of PR.

Consider this small but odd coincidence... Small, yes, but it has big power to confuse.

  • The fact that “PR” stands for PageRank as well as “public relations” is pure coincidence. The name “PageRank” was given to a Google algorithm while honoring their CEO Larry Page in the same breath. Loved and loathed in the SEO world, the PageRank algorithm - or “PR” for short - has nothing to do with public relations. (Historically, PageRank was loved for providing a convenient "score" but loathed for a huge list of reasons)
  • To make matters worse, some public relations firms use PR as an indicator of a high quality website. Coincidence again! And not in a good way.

Is it silly for PR firms to use PageRank to judge a website’s reach?

  • Yes, it's silly. Point blank. If you’re only now beginning to use PageRank in 2014, sorry, but you’re a johnny-come-lately. UPDATE AND EVEN MORE PROOF!: As of October 2014, many digital marketers and webmasters now won't bother at all with PageRank because even Google doesn't seem to care. (I'd like to thank Gail Gardner for the news update. Here's the source: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-toolbar-pagerank-dead-19256.html) Just know that PageRank (a.k.a PR) was never "custom designed" for the public relations industry, contrary to what some PR people think.So saying a site is PR7 or PR5 or whatever means nothing (Okay, it can mean a site was created before January 2013. So what?) If you say things like PR7, PR8 today, depending on context, it can come off sounding foolish.
  • We mere mortals are only allowed to verify something called “TBPR”. In other words, we can never see the "true" or "real" PageRank of a site. Only Google has that data. Sadly, tons of public relations agencies are completely unaware of TBPR. Of course, not every public relations agency is a "laggard", but laggard agencies do exist, and they're often notoriously behind in other trends. TBPR is just one example.
  • There's a saying about public relations. They're the last to know and first to blame. Hearing this makes me glad I'm not in the agency world, but as a journo, I interact with tons of agents. Yes, their field is under growing scrutiny and I'm sympathetic to that, but I won't throw anybody a pity party. Why? Because I know there's a growing movement to elevate public relations. Everyone in PR - CEOs, interns and everyone in between - needs to care about the issues and solutions. Just look at the 6th annual AMEC conference held in Amsterdam this week. A lot of great ideas for agencies were discussed there and published.

MozRank is better than PageRank

  • The much smarter trend this decade is the growing popularity of MozRank. Many agencies haven’t caught on, seemingly. And now there's also Majestic's Trust Flow metric. I recently heard a PR professional say the marketing world lacks metrics for reputation. Why on earth would he think that? His statement is more false than it is true. This was a senior PR person too, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised.
  • Agencies need to know there are even more tools for judging blogs besides MozRank. Examples are DA, also called Domain Authority, and -- for judging a subdomained blog -- PA, also called Page Authority. These 3 metrics (MozRank (often seen written as "mR"), DA and PA) are assigned by Moz.com to every website on the internet. If a subdomained blogger deceives a PR person/agency and gets invited to a client's promo event because his/her blog is misread as having equal prominence and social reach as a DA 95 site, then chances are, an intern somewhere dropped the ball. But in defense of the intern, was he/she given proper guidance? Sadly, the answer in most cases will be "no". (Example: NYtimes.com is a DA 99 site. Subdomained blogs don't have DA (Actually, they do, but for subdomains it's a completely irrelevant metric), but subdomains do have PA. If an intern isn't given training in this kind of info, do you think they'll just magically know??? Most colleges don't teach this stuff. Update: July 2014: I applaud Cision for trying to lead by example with its new metric product, which they named "Digital Reach") What you don't know can hurt you and the people around you. Data points that are mysterious to PR agencies will naturally be mysterious to (and misread by) interns.
  • From what I can sense, many agencies are using antiquated ways of judging blogs. Clients deserve better. Bad blog outreach and "guesswork" client reporting are easy to avoid if agencies know how to use efficient methods, suggestions/menus and guidance from leaders like AMEC. Using MozRank instead of PageRank, and using PA (not DA) to judge subdomained blogs would be steps in the right direction.
  • If you care about elevating the PR industry, even if you don't work in it, please share this article. Even though the next AMEC conference (2015, in Stockholm) is several months away, it helps us all to keep the discussion flowing now.

 

I'd love to hear your opinions, especially concerning these questions below:

Some key names worth following because they're (1) aware and (2) they care: Samuel Scott of The Cline Group, Katie Delahaye Paine, Sally Falkow, Carrie Morgan, Rand Fishkin, Adam Singer from Google, Heidi Sullivan, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman, Joseph Thornley, Shonali Burke, Andy West, Richard Bagnall, Peter Sigrist, Sharam Fouladgar Mercer, Ellis Friedman, Joseph McKeating, AMECorg.com, Raf Weverberg, Michael White, Sarah Evans, Kevin York

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About the author: My name is Alex Yong. I'm a journalist for Small Business Trends and a friend to PR agencies. I report on announcements from corporations like Facebook, Acer, IHS and Paychex. In 2015, I was named a must-follow PR resource in Cision North America’s list of the top 50 Twitter influencers utilizing rich media alongside Ann Smarty, Lee Odden, Guy Kawasaki, Michael Stelzner and Gini Dietrich. Contact me if you want to brush up on metrics and tools. As an ethical journalist, I don't provide "positive editorial" for you or your clients as part of my value prop; that's just scuzzy. Don't ask. Don't even think about asking.

Visit my Twitter account here. All of my Linkedin articles as an author can be found here at: LinkedIn PULSE. 

Best method to contact: alex.yong.nyc@gmail.com , or all over the web at http://hello.SocialAlex.Live

 

 

 

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Resources:

"PR Redefined" Google+ community: https://plus.google.com/communities/109190628428063132798

#MeasurePR monthly Twitter chat hosted by Shonali Burke: #MeasurePR

"Inside PR" podcasts with Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich, and Martin Waxman: https://plus.google.com/communities/112349929544876511942/stream/3be2c147-47b9-4974-ad01-a36515f3b9b1

Steve Ollington

SEOer. PhD Candidate. ADHDer.

7y

Just so you know - all of those metrics are based on the quantity and "quality" of other pages linking into them, which are passing equity from pages linking into them, which are [and so on]. Since not all quality pages get links (at least not right away), and not all pages are crawled by Moz, etc... these metrics are still not really anything more than a VERY rough guide, which should not be used alone. In other words don't discount something with low metrics, and don't assume something is good which has high metrics. But while on the subject, it's worth mentioning there are Cemper Power & Trust metrics too, in a similar vein.

For measurement to add any value PR companies first have to be measuring the right things Alex Yong

For measurement to mean anything, agencies have to measure the right thing.

Scott Guthrie

Influencer Marketing Trade Body Director General, event speaker, podcast host, author of the Creator Briefing newsletter

9y

Thanks for the tip re Heidi Sullivan Alex Yong. Re: "the majority of people in PR" hopefully this is only based on your experience in the US. Though I'm currently based in Sydney - where the PR industry does seem to be stuck in media relations mode - I know that in the UK significant inroads are being made in pushing the PR profession forward by: (i) making it more professional (ii) creating an urgency surrounding the need to adapt and adopt new technologies - borrowing them, perhaps, from the digital marketing space. This lead has been helped as the current president of the CIPR – Chartered Institute of Public Relations, Stephen Waddington, is also the Digital and Social Media Director at Ketchum in Europe. Stephen spoke earlier this month at Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). Thanks again for the mention of www.prredefined.org its ambition is to help public relations practitioners and academics make sense of the industry and equip it for the future - a future state where Richard Edelman sees the term Marketing Communications being turned on its head in deference to an era of Communications Marketing. .

Scott Guthrie

Influencer Marketing Trade Body Director General, event speaker, podcast host, author of the Creator Briefing newsletter

9y

Insightful article Alex. Thanks for the mention of www.prredefined.org as one of your resources. Sadly, I agree with your saying about public relations: "they're the last to know and first to blame." It reminds me of another line, sometimes attributed to Eric Hoffer: "In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists." Your article provides a clear example of one area in which the public relations industry must embrace and embed new technologies and disciplines.

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