In the past 10 years, public relations professionals have discovered that when it comes to measuring public relations strategy and tactics, volume metrics alone don’t tell the full story. The problem with relying solely on volume metrics is that they don’t tell you whether your program is delivering the right message, bringing the right kind of audience or compelling anyone to action. Fast forward to the arrival of social networks, and it’s suddenly possible to measure whether people have seen your content or shared it with others. Today’s measurement tools make it possible to track every click a communications program inspires, and helps determine the source of the traffic, its context and sometimes, even the point of interest within a piece of content.

In this week’s PRSA “Friday Five” post — an analysis of the week’s biggest public relations and business news and commentary — we take a closer look at how public relations professionals are using measurement tools to make better business decisions, eliminate spam from skewing the results, add value that clients can see and establish industry standards. We also look at how speaking measurement as a second language and understanding what measurement terms mean can increase the validity of your analysis.

Cyber security is a big and growing problem. Not just hackers trying to get at your hard drive through sneaky emails and other phishing schemes. There are bad guys out there who want to do things like take down the power grid or bring transportation systems to their knees. The threats are real and many.

The advertising industry has been and continues to be an industry in the midst of radical transformation. Traditional mass media advertising is augmented by nontraditional approaches, such as product placement, viral marketing, direct marketing and virtual community marketing on the Web. Given these dynamic changes and the increased reliance on social and digital media, practitioners must confront the challenges of the new advertising world daily to remain relevant to their consumers.

In this week’s PRSA “Friday Five” post — an analysis of the week’s biggest public relations and business news and commentary — we explore the evolving role of advertising as it pertains to the public relations and marketing industries. We will look at examples of how advertising is facing more regulations set by FCC, Facebook’s struggle to be seen as a strong social advertising platform, and how the advertising model is changing as a result of companies seeing the value behind getting to know their customer demographic better.

We hear a lot about the diverse use of social media in the public relations world, but how are other industries leveraging the power of social media? Companies in the health care and sport industries are beginning to understand that their richest source of insight, ideas, data and information is within their business-to-consumer (B2C) engagement via social media. These industries, among others, are learning the value of social media engagement and strategy that traditional public relations and marketing companies have already proven to be so successful. 

In this week’s PRSA “Friday Five” post — an analysis of the week’s biggest public relations and business news and commentary — we will explore the use of social media by other diverse industries, and look at what some of the top executives from Silicon Valley are predicting for the future of social media. We also will feature tips that will help you become more social media saavy by making your social media engagements count.

When Ozzie Guillén, manager of the rebranded Miami Marlins, inserted the proverbial foot-in-mouth during an interview with TIME magazine, where he stated, “I love Fidel Castro,” I immediately began to question the Marlins’ management strategy.

I thought, “Clearly this guy has no understanding of local politics. Clearly he has no understanding of what so many of us lived through in a Fidel-Castro-Cuban regime. Clearly the Marlins management doesn’t necessarily know what it’s doing to the brand.” I wasn’t alone.

To give you some quick background: What Guillén said is highly offensive to many Hispanics of Cuban origin, especially to those who are older. Cubans did not come to the U.S. looking for a better job or a better economic opportunity. Many lawyers, doctors, engineers, journalists and professionals left their homes, careers and even families because of political oppression and the sheer lack of simple human rights — all attributed to Castro and his followers.

Just as recently as last month, during the Pope’s visit to Cuba, he reiterated how important it was to keep in mind human rights above all else in the island. He urged the Cuban people, “that you may strive to build a renewed and open society, a better society, one more worthy of humanity.”

Having been personally affected by this communist regime, I was taken aback upon hearing about Guillen’s remarks. The fact that he was suspended for five games for his comment didn’t seem like “enough” to me initially. Then, I thought, “How could the Marlins public relations team not have provided such important market-sensitive information?”