PR industry developing social media measurement standards

With hundreds of service providers who offer secret sauces and black-box solutions, how can a PR pro know if his results approximate reality? How does he compare reports from one vendor to the next?

There is good news. Thanks to a cross-industry collaboration of PR trade bodies—social media analytics, advertising and word-of-mouth associations, and a handful of blue-chip client companies—the industry is definitely making progress.

Tim Marklein of W2O Group and Katie Paine of KDPaine & Partners—who are both leading the charge—gave an update at the 4^th Annual AMEC European Measurement Summit a few weeks ago. (See www.smmstandards.org.)

The work follows the AMEC Barcelona Principles in 2010 and the AMEC Valid Metrics Framework in 2011, both of which established preliminary methods to measure social media.