Comments

What Big Data Is (From a PR and Communications Perspective) and Why It Matters — 4 Comments

  1. Forrest, this is a very well written article that points up the importance of Big Data for communicators who want a seat at the business leadership / strategy table. The apps and tools that store and distribute the data are one piece of it. More important are the human heads who understand how to interpret the information and use it to strategize in support of a business’ success.

  2. Hi Sue.

    Thanks for your great comment, and I couldn’t agree more.

    While Big Data is an extraordinary resource, it’s how managers use the information that will make a difference to how well organizations succeed. While people who want to gain and use insights from Big Data don’t necessarily have to be data scientists themselves, they do need to know enough to ask questions that can be reasonably answered by the data and help the organization and its communications. This means having a basic understanding of Big Data.

    Florian Zettlemeyer, the Big Data Guru at the Kellogg School of Management suggests taking a data scientist to lunch. I think that’s good advice. But the basic thing PR people need to be doing is asking what Big Data can provide that can help their organizations achieve business (and supporting communications) goals. Then they need to get that information and use it.

  3. Forrest, thanks for posting this. It’s such an important topic in our industry right now. Communicators are, for the most part, just beginning to get their hands and heads around the use of data in marketing and PR.

    Up until recently on the PR side, data has been very esoteric – using possibilities (impressions, circulation, AVE) instead of actual outcomes to gather information and align it with success. We’re at a precipice in our industry – and the use of data is crucial to formulate truly strategic campaigns. We can now go beyond “experience hunches” and use data to repeat what’s working and pivot from what isn’t.

    It’s surprising that so many PR executives have not yet embraced real data points to measure success, evaluate ROI and predictively plan. Hopefully, as folks like you continue to help educate and guide them, data will be at the forefront of every PR campaign by the end of 2015.

    At SeeDepth, we’re trying to help move that goal along as well, by making access to measurement data automatic, instant, and easy with our PR analytics platform. But Susan is right, the tools alone are not enough – PR practitioners must spend time with the data to analyze, draw correlations and interpret the information for future strategies.

    Christine Perkett
    http://www.seedepth.com
    http://www.twitter.com/SeeDepthInc
    http://www.twitter.com/missusP