Early in my career, I'd declare I'm part of the creative class, in part, because of my dislike for math. Today, I still wouldn't trade my career for anything. But I've learned to love math.
The silos between art and science dissolved long ago. And every public relations professional should love math and, more specifically, data. Here are just three reasons.
1) Inform Strategy: Since hugging it out with data, I've been able to show clients exactly why I'm proposing a specific editorial strategy. It's all thanks to insights mined from search queries and social data.
Searches tell us what content an audience is looking for and social data tells us what content they're talking about. This is just one way data can inform strategy.
2) Create Content: We've been talking about this for years. And you may love or hate infographics at this point, but they remind us how data can fuel very visual content. Data is everywhere, it doesn't have to come from primary/expensive research.
Mappos is my all-time favorite example of how Zappos uses, without violating customer privacy, the zip code and item numbers from each order to create killer content.
3) Measure Success: Out of respect, I should just put a picture of Katie Paine here and call it a day. But first, I'll remind everyone in this data-laden world, the key is not just measuring...it's measuring success.
That requires agreeing on what success looks like before you get started. And there is a difference between progress metrics and success metrics. Progress metrics show a plan is working. Success metrics show the plan worked.
4) Optimize Content: A fourth reason? Hey, I told you I loved math, I didn't say I was good at it. We've discussed the need to tap data throughout the research, plan, execute and measure process.
Once we publish our client's (data-informed) content, we support it with paid discovery to drive audience to it more quickly than organic search. Performance data from this is layered with web analytics to see how the content is reasonating with our audience.
A follow-up check of search and social data makes sure nothing new has emerged. And each batch of content improves based on what you've learned from the previously published stories.
Art x Science = Innovation
When I started in content marketing, it was called custom publishing. And the big difference between then and now is how we've moved from 100 percent art-driven projects to projects driven by a mix of art and science.
Hopefully you've seen above that by tapping art and science, you'll make something better than either side of your brain could create by itself.
:: Kevin Dugan, @prblog
photo credit: B Tal via photopin cc
I totally agree with the idea that art multipled by science becomes innovation. A good example I want to mention is a creative message from "Gone With The Bullet", the new coming film of Jiang Wen. Months ago, the production of "Gone With The Bullet" released a picture in which ten important figures are demonstrated in a vivid way to introduce how this film was made out. Figures include the numbers of actors, shooting days and pieces of costume, etc. By this tactic, viewers were hooked and the amount of positive voice of this film rose. It is innovative to see the film making process from a scientific perspective. With technologies, PR people have easier access to data. Usually, people feel overwhelmed by too much data, but PR people have to overcome this natural instinct to patiently dissect data, find out the indications behind data and think how data can be used.
ReplyDeleteGreat list! I couldn't agree more on using data to measure success. I use data to not only determine how successful my monthly projects are but also to identify areas where my creative process can be improved. Not learning to take advantage of your data can be a costly mistake. Thanks for sharing Kevin.
ReplyDeleteUnderstanding and using data to your advantage is one of the best ways to prove ROI to company executives. We want to believe that our best social posts come from our gut, but the fact is that only the data proves success (and shows where you have the most room for improvement!)
ReplyDeleteUnique perspective! I never thought about how math could help PR people do better job, probably because I'm quite poor in math. I've always see public relations as art, art of strategic communication; and math is definitely science. Combining arts and science -- strategic communication and statistical datas -- will make impressive work. Maybe I should start catching up my math now.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you, data has become a large part of what gives PR professionals some ground to stand on. Speaking to a company about a strategy you will use in their PR campaign will be better received with data backing up your point then just blind trust that this will work. The more data you have on a topic the more you will be able to predict an outcome and feel confident that your plan will work for a company. Company executives are worried about crunching the numbers and making sure hiring you will benefit the company so with data you will be able to prove to a company before the plan commences and show after it has come to a close that you truly did make a difference in their company. Thanks for the great tips!
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