Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

A tried, tested and proven means of generating compelling content, securing consistent quality media coverage and enhancing organisational reputation is creating a research-based index – featuring headline grabbing statistics and insights – then providing expert insight on the findings.

The research can be market research, where a specific group of people are questioned on an aspect of their knowledge, opinions or behaviour, or it can investigate phenomena which already has underpinning data in existence. The latter might include the behaviour of mining shares from Australian-based companies over a period of time, factors which are impacting on home lending or the population movements and trends within a specific country.

For the best possible credibility, an organisation would commission a 3rd party to undertake the research (the 3rd party can be paid, but it must be a reputable 3rd party), so as to make it known the findings were generated without bias or to meet the commissioning organisation’s preferences....

Using digital technology to tell stories can help charities with impact assessment, says Kieron Kirkland...

Using stories to evaluate results? Quantitatively??!! You bet!!

Here is a fabulous article after my quantitative heart.

The author Kieron Kirkland talks about how the organization, Nominet Trust, worked with the org story company Cognitive Edge to capture stories and then have the story authors rank what their stories are about on a scale.

Once the story was captured, there were several types of scales the storytellers ranked their stories on -- generating big data!

See -- storytelling and evaluation can be done effectively if constructed properly.

This article goes hand-in-hand with newer qualitative evaluation processes for arts-based techniques (like storytelling) talked about in one of my favorite books, Method Meets Art; Arts-Based Research Practice by Patricia Leavy (2009).

If you struggle to connect stories about your projects to quantifiable results, then run to read this article. 

Having helped organizations articulate measures so they can see progress, the first critical area to tackle are which measures are going to be used that are the most meaningful, given the project's objectives. 

This article will give you several ideas for how to get started.

Enjoy!

This review was written by Karen Dietz for her curated content on business storytelling at www.scoop.it/t/just-story-it ;

[A must-read for storytellers who need an ROI ~ Jeff]

In today's world, market research is essential to you and your brand’s long-term success. From product planning to customer service needs, assessing what's happening outside of your four walls is essential for your roadmap.

Because the market is in a constant state of change, knowing what makes your customers tick is key to keeping you ahead of your competitors. Market research is the best way to do this.Entrepreneurs from YEC were asked what tools they liked most for conducting market research. Here's what they said....

The testing phase is one of the most important stages for us—not only the “what to test” but also the “how to test.”

We’re grateful to have learned some helpful lessons about testing best practices as well as a host of ideas of what to test in our social media marketing.

I’m happy to share with you what we’ve learned so far and what we’ve discovered to be worthwhile variations to test. Maybe something might catch your eye here? Keep reading to see our list of possibilities (with a clickable menu to jump to any section). And I’d love to hear from you on any testing tips you’ve picked up in your experience!...

What, you ask, is that crashing noise? It's the sound of consumer resistance to mobile shopping crumbling. “Every single transactional property on mobile—whether that's Uber, or Hotel Tonight—is lowering the barrier to make significant transactions on your mobile phone,” says David Tisch. If you can hail a ride and book a room, why would not also want to buy a car or lease an apartment?

That's what Tisch is betting on, anyway. He and his brother Alan are the co-founders of Spring, an app that debuted this fall trying to bring the entire world of fashion—high and low—to your phone. Of the more than 250 brands represented on Spring, most are middle-of-the-road, labels like Reformation and Vince, and almost half of the products Spring carries fall into the $100-$500 price range. Unlike a lot of other entrants into the mobile e-commerce (aka "m-commerce") space, however, Spring also offers a deep selection of offering from the low and high ends of the fashion spectrum, from Levi's to Carolina Herrera, putting Spring in a class virtually all its own....