Public relations and strategic communications are great fields to be researching and practicing in. My students have worked on various campaign plans for clients where they have to go through the complete process of research, SWOT analysis, strategies and objectives. But one area that seems to always be hard to address is the evaluation phase. We see this even in social media practices – people are sometimes overly excited about the various possibilities some of these technologies hold but forget the ask the important question – how are we going to evaluate these?
One of the sites of course that is becoming one of the primary focuses for PR professionals presently in 2012 is of course Pinterest. Here is a video that shows five creative marketing campaigns that have used Pinterest so far this year to reach their audiences and extend their brand presence, including one for Kotex:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVCoM4ao2Tw[/youtube]
Of course, like with any campaign, you have to evaluate whether or not you have accomplished your set goals and objectives for the campaign. So, the question is – how do you measure this on Pinterest? There are some rising social media analytics tools that are being showcased to measure and evaluate pins that are shared and uploaded on the visual bookmarking site. Pinerly, PinReach, Pintics, PinPuff, Repinly, and many others can be explored when you are looking at evaluating Pinterest shares and pins for a particular campaign or client.
What we have to be aware of too is not just to focus on photos and images, but think of the possibilities of quotes and videos that can also be shared through Pinterest as well. This raises the question of course – what is more valuable for PR – a video or a photo? What are the pros and cons for measuring this? In addition, what we have to be aware of here is not only the evaluation and measurement for brands and clients, but individuals as well. We have to look at the other possibilities of the site for individuals to accomplish a specific objective, like landing a job, which is how one professionals did this by transforming her Pinterest board into a CV. Very creative. There are many possibilities here, but we need to explore each of these in a bit more detail. Here is another link of some useful tools specifically for Pinterest you all might want to check out.
We have to continue having the discussion of what it really means to have a like on a particular update, a RT for a tweet, or a pin on Pinterest. All of these current platforms need further discussion on the long term impacts this has not only on PR and strategic communications, but long-term engagement and relationships with our audience members in the digital global community.
Hope you all are having a great day!
Best Wishes,
Karen
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