If your reaction to the headline was, “what on earth does Web analytics have to do with my job?” you probably weren’t alone. Web analytics might be thought of as the realm of SEO pros and online marketing teams, but it can be an incredibly valuable tool for PR teams too. In fact, Web analytics can give you insight into the value of PR and the types of business outcomes it helps drive in a way that hasn’t been possible ...

I saw a provocatively titled post on the PRSA wesbite yesterday, called, "Analog vs. Digital: Traditional Media Fights to Remain Relevant". Like everyone else, I've seen a lot of these stories lately and it seems that mainstream media has been pronounced dead. But, based on what I've seen in our own research on traditional and social media, calling mainstream media dead or irrelevant seems very premature and it misrepresents the actual dynamics and information exchange between mainstream and social media. The ...

Forrester and Google announced the results of their study on trends in enterprise web analytics yesterday and the results suggest that companies are starting to realize that analysts, not software, produce useful insights. The study, which surveyed the web analytics decision makers at 198 companies with annual revenues of at least $500 million, found that 60% of respondents believe that web analytics analysts are more valuable than software and that 52% prefer free tools because it allows them to invest ...

We were curious to read the recently published study correlating social media engagement and financial performance for the world’s 100 most valuable brands (per Interbrand), published by the Altimeter Group and WetPaint, since it covers an issue we are particularly interested in: how do you link a brand’s social media activities to bottom-line results? To add to our interest, the study used very similar methodology to the one we used in a study we released earlier this year, where we ...

Context recently completed an ROI study for a client, tying online media analysis (e.g., sentiment, key message penetration, product mentions, etc.) to their web analytics. I thought I would share a really top-level finding here, showing that many types of earned media have produced higher conversion rates than Google AdWords. Given most marketers’ strong faith in the highly-targeted nature of paid search, I think these results will surprise some people: // // PR: wait... I: wait... L: wait... LD: wait... ...