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PR News and Vocus Survey RevealsPublic Relations Professionals in EarlyStages of Technology Adoption
 Vocus White Paper
 
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Vocus White PaperPR News and Vocus Survey Reveals Public Relations Proessionals in Early Stages o Technology Adoption
PR News and Vocus Survey Reveals Public Relations Professionalsin Early Stages of Technology Adoption
With the undamental shit in the media landscape impacting both the traditional media and public relations industries, manyPR proessionals are wondering how other PR proessionals organize their outreach and analyze their results? What technol-ogy and services do my peers use to advance their PR eorts? And most importantly, are my current techniques working orare there better and easier ways to do PR out there? In a recent survey conducted by PR News and sponsored by Vocus, theanswers to many o the lingering PR questions were revealed.The survey ndings indicate that the adoption o technology in the PR industry is still in its early stages. While technologiesdesigned or Public Relations are gaining mainstream recognition with Vocus winning the Codie Award or Best Business Pro-ductivity Solutions, proessionals are just beginning to adopt these new technologies. The survey ound that more than 65% stilleither use a paper-based method or generic technology solution to track and manage their media relations and almost 20% othose same proessionals are still using scissors and the local paper to manage and track their news coverage.Conducted in May 2007, the “Media Relations in Practice” survey takes you inside the minds o 713 PR proessionals todiscover the new “tools o the trade” in Public Relations and where you all in the mix. Read below to see how your methodscompare to those o other PR proessionals.
Detailed Results
Success
Finding the right journalist (89%), Tracking News (75%) and Measuring and Analyzing (63%) are the keys to successWhen asked to decide what unctions o public relations are most important to their PR success, not surprisingly, an overwhelm-ing 90% o respondents (644 proessionals) indicated that reaching the right journalist is “very important” and another 9%nding it somewhat important.Also not surprising, the increasing stream o news in the 24x7 news cycle, has also made Tracking News (75%) the secondmost important actor to the critical success o your PR program.What is surprising is that Measuring and Analyzing has taking third place or the most important unction to PR success. Whilein the past many proessionals may not have given much weight to measuring results due to its subjective nature, the surveyshowed 63% o respondents now consider Measuring and Analyzing one o the most important actors to the critical successo PR, possibly thanks to the emerging technologies with specic analytics tools or PR proessionals to accurately measuretheir work.Ranking only slightly lower among respondents were Tracking Conversations with the Media and Producing Clip Books andReports. With 49.5% ranking Tracking Conversations with the Media as important, 5% rated the unction as not important atall to the overall success o PR. Producing Clip Books and Reports was also seen as irrelevant by 11% o respondents.
Media Relations
Less than 30% have adopted an online media directory designed specically or PR proessionalsWhen asked what tools they use to assist in their media relations, some PR proessionals admitted to using some old-schooltechnology or unctions that they determined were critical to their success. The survey ound that less than 30% haveadopted an online media directory to take advantage o the new wave o technology being oered and designed specicallyor PR proessionals.So how are other proessionals targeting journalists and tracking conversations? The majority o proessionals are still relyingon manual techniques. More than 30% use paper-based methods including hardcopy media directories (17%), a rolodex onames and numbers (15%.)A little more than one third o respondents are getting a slight assist rom basic technology to manage their media contacts,
 
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using Excel and/or Outlook (34%.) While not as eective as a tailored PR solution, it is one step closer to an automated toolto help manage their contacts.Only about 28% o PR proessionals are taking advantage o advanced Web-based media directories designed specically tokeep track o their target journalists and maintain their own contact list.And most shocking o all, 5% o respondents indicated that they have decided to ignore managing their media relationshipsaltogether!
 What tools, if any, do you use to track and manage your media relations? (check all that apply)ToolResponsePercentage
Excel and/or OutlookWeb-based Media DirectoryMedia Directory (Phone book style)RolodexManage media contact relationships? What’s that?4984142572107334.3%28.5%17.7%14.5%5.0%
News Tracking/Management
70% o PR proessionals track their company’s news at least once a dayRated another important actor to their overall PR success, news tracking is another area which the survey assessed. The inten-sity and requency with which organizations have begun tracking their news and their competitor’s news refects the responseo the PR industry to the new 24x7 news cycle in which we live.More than 70% o PR proessionals surveyed track their company’s news at least daily. While just over 50% also conductcompetitor coverage searches as requently. In act, nearly 18% o respondents track their organization’s news coverage inreal time and 22% track their competitor’s news as oten.Many PR proessionals are using simple or ree methods, some o which limit results or leave a large margin or human error.Despite the limitations o online news the most popular tools, getting nearly one third o respondents’ votes, were Google and/or Yahoo searches.Almost 20% o respondents are still using outsourced clipping services to track their company’s news.Only 17% o PR proessionals surveyed are using web-based news monitoring services (17%) to track their news coverage,some o which include additional eatures that allow them to archive their coverage and track it back to their media out-reach.And, surprising, another 17% o respondents are still using their avorite pair o scissors and the local paper to track theircompany’s news!
In House v. Outsourced
61% track and quantiy PR internallyWith advancements in technology and solutions designed to make measuring each aspect o your PR program simple, PRproessionals are taking their measurement in-house. In act, 61% o those surveyed indicated that they track and quantiy theirPR internally, while just 17% have enlisted an outside service. An astonishing 12 percent are not measuring their PR at all.And two thirds (67%) are looking internally to conduct their PR activities. Just 19% have turned to an external resource, with13% employing more than one.The results may refect respondents’ opinions that coordinating activities and measuring results with their agencies may be di-cult, with only 13% believing the communication is handled “very well” and 18% weighing in with “OK.”
Vocus White PaperPR News and Vocus Survey Reveals Public Relations Proessionals in Early Stages o Technology Adoption
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