January 2010

The econsultancy blog has a great post on social interaction measurements. It’s worth a read.

Katie Paine also has another post worth reading (she has a lot of posts worth reading). Here, she talks about problems in calculating the value of PR, based on what the equivalent ad space would cost. Measuring that way is so out-of-date, it always surprises me that it is still used. PR is about relationships, educating people about an issue or cause and helping to inform opinion. Comparing it to what an ad would cost is of no benefit.

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Measurement has always been a challenge in the world of PR. Back in the day, it was all about newspaper and magazine “clips” and the quantity. And a lot of PR professionals were forced to use clips to show success because that was the standard. At AHA, we have always approached measurement a little differently, and have been fortunate enough to have clients who listened to our rationale for why we did it our way.

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Webworkerdaily.com has a good post focusing on whether it is possible to be personal and professional in social media. It is a topic that we, at AHA, discuss on a regular basis.

We are a boutique agency by choice. We started that way and it works for us. Now, we happen to believe that you can be small and still deliver the results of a much larger agency. Small doesn’t mean less to us, it means lean, focused and it gives us the opportunity to be a real team. It also allows us to make choices about the clients that we take on. We don’t have to “feed the machine” so we don’t take on everything that comes our way.

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A new year is always good to review what you, as an organization and as individuals, did well the year before and what you could improve upon. Here at the AHA office, we’ve been doing a pretty strong inventory of 2009. We turn seven in 2010 and while it might not be a typical “milestone” number, we’re quite excited about our upcoming anniversary on April 1. (We know, April Fools Day!)

During our period of “taking stock,” I was also given the task of writing a proposal for a potential new client. I love writing proposals and plans, learning about a new organization and, sometimes, a new field. I found myself thinking about some of the key learnings we have taken away from last year as I wrote the proposal.

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