There are three parties in PR, the company, the subject matter influencers (editors) and the readers. The simplest measurement of PR is through the amount of coverage received in targeted media. A one level deeper metric is to also assess the type of coverage on some kind of “positiveness” scale based on being on message, or based on the type of coverage, such as case studies, customer testimonials, product news or awards.  Another metric is counting the amount of coverage, but then comparing this against the coverage for the competition. By doing this one arrives at something called PR mind share. Mind share is simply the amount of coverage received as % of total coverage (total being your + competitors) in your targeted publications for the products you compete. This metric can for obvious reasons be a hard sell if you’re a small one product line company, comparing yourself against a multi product line large company, due to brand halo effects. For PR in print publications the amount of PR coverage is sometimes compared to the equivalent cost of advertising for the same space, multiplied with some factor based on the notion that PR is more credible that advertising, but industry experts seem not have found an agreement if this is a good measurement or not.

Digital marketing and web 2.0 in particular have brought some new positive measurement practices for PR, and some new opportunities, but also some challenges. On the “what value does PR provide”, PR SEO with its potential to increase web site inbound link equity is a something that PR professionals should become familiar with. In addition, how much PR is driving web site traffic in general, can be easily measured, and if web site engagement activities are valued and also traced to its source, this can provide another way of estimating ROI for PR. The largest change for PR is probably the fact that the third part of the PR puzzle – the reader, who used to be a passive recipient (or probably not entirely passive but there was no way knowing what the reader thought,  has now also become a contributor through social networks, blogs, review and comment boards. This has completely changed the landscape of PR, and PR professionals now need to carefully monitor what is being said about them in numerous places, participate and respond as required. Companies are forced to move into the area of reputation management, whether they like it or not, depending on the type of discussions taking place.