Measurement isn't Pain, It's Paine

So this begins our second blog post specifically about Katie Paine and her book Measure What Matters—which as all of my loyal followers should know that the topic of this magnificent tool is used to measure social media.  In her fifth chapter, titled, in capital letters, "HOW TO MEASURE MARKETING, PUBLIC RELATIONS, AND ADVERTISING IN A SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD", she explains just that. Clearly, Paine is going for clarity and not linguistic flourish. Within the measurement of these three in a social media world, she lists out four new rules for PR and social media.

1. You're Not in Control—and Never Have Been: I hope that for most people, this is common knowledge, especially in 2018. This is one of the obvious nuances of social media that really change the playing field. The way information spreads (and the opinions inherently attached to that information) is much like a wildfire—hot, dangerous, quick and out of control.
2. There Is No Market for Your Message: I think this important and I think a lot of brands new to social media don't realize. She says that the likelihood of penetrating the clutter of social media with a corporate message is not very. What this means is that is does not matter how many people you reach with your message, what matters is engagement and what happens after that message has been received. 
3. It's about Reaching the Right Eyeballs, Not All the Eyeballs: This is obvious when it comes to targeted messaging. However, it is also important to reach those people that will gladly receive your message as well as passing it on, which is ultimately measured in engagement. 
4. It's Worse to Not Be Talked about at All: I feel like we've all heard it in some vague context where someone does something bad but: MOST publicity is good publicity. Her goal in saying this is that if you and your brand are not apart of the dialogue on these platforms, then your competition (maybe even your person rival) is hamming it up. You're missing valuable insight on what the marketplace and buyers think!