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Taking a closer look at media monitoring, AVE and regulation - Part two

By Angie White

21 Sep 2017

In part two of this three-part series based on the media monitoring industry, ROI Africa's Tonya Khoury explains the algorithms she uses, live sentiment tracking and big content.

Tonya Khoury

What kind of algorithms do you use to work out PR value?

Well here’s my biggest bug bear! Three letters that should be a four-letter word. AVE. The industry yells “Death to AVE” and then without skipping a beat, they ask “Where’s my AVE report?” A legacy of bean-counting that is based on a completely flawed measurement technique is the fundamental for the PR industry in South Africa.

I have several problems with the AVE, for example:

A community newspaper runs a very negative story about Car Manufacturer X on their front page. The article states that Car Manufacturer X's cars are dangerous and likely to blow up if you switch on the ignition. The advertising rate for the newspaper is R117 per column per centimetre, so at maximum the full page will be worth R20,000. Is it fair to say the negative impact on Car Manufacturer X is R20,000? Surely not.
There is a beautiful four-page article in the Getaway magazine about the Karoo and on the last page in the last line the article states that the journalist drove a Car Brand X across the rugged terrain. Does Car Brand X's AVE equal four pages? Surely not.
Debatable use of multipliers: AVE multipliers can range drastically – from three to ten! This inflates figures tremendously and focuses more on making internal parties happy over a figure, without providing actual substance.
There is no such thing as an online rate card, so while you can attribute relatively accurate advertising values to print and broadcast, online and social media cannot accurately be measured by advertising value.
Social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, etc.) are overflowing with new users that interact with and follow brand profiles. AVEs don't take into account the dominance of social media, and thus presents a weakness in the measurement of impressions.
Forced equivalency with advertising: Studies have proven that an advertisement and an editorial have very different levels of credibility. It is therefore pointless to draw false equivalence between advertising and PR. In your own journey, I’m sure you “seek out news” but skip ads unless they are relevant, so earned PR is never the same value as bought advertising. After all, anyone can buy an ad on the front page of the Sunday Times, not everyone can get a positive article about a brand in the same place without a tonne of hard work!
And finally, my strongest argument, brands in crisis fight to stay OUT of the media spotlight, the measurement of AVE means that that PR effort, if effective, is worth zero! That’s just rubbish!

The world has moved away from AVE but South Africa holds on by its teeth.

What is live sentiment tracking and how does it work?

The online system uses an algorithm, which is about 85% accurate. This works great on big data, as it assesses content in terms of sentiment perceptions. The downside to automated sentiment is that it cannot distinguish between sarcasm, and sometimes it refers to the sentiment of the article instead of a particular brand mentioned. Humans will always be needed to attribute accurate sentiment.

What is big content and how can companies utilise it?

Being able to tap into public information made up of content from the social stream creates a direct connection to the minds of your customers.

Keeping an eye on big content, can enable a brand of company to:

Ensure that customer queries and concerns are addressed timeously and adequately, before it becomes a PR nightmare. If you achieve successful management of your big content, it humanises your business and shows that you care, which is invaluable to any brand, as it fosters brand trust.
Through the media monitoring of big content, you can track hashtags that are relevant to your business and industry and can thus keep informed on what the public is saying about you as well what’s happening in your industry.
There is a massive opportunity to use big content for lead generation.
Through the monitoring of big content, you are also enabled to interact and liaise with influencers in your industry, which could broaden your network and help build brand awareness.
Probably the most effective use of big content is the so called “Trump Train”, Trump’s electioneering was based on the perceptions of the voters as aggregated by social media.

Very insightful indeed! Don’t miss part three, and the final chapter of this series, for insight into the biggest trends in PR and media monitoring, and more from Tonya. (Refer to part one of the series below.)