3 reasons why you shouldn’t measure PR

Being a measurement evangelist feels like really hard work sometimes. On the one hand, I haven’t been at it long enough to complain—witness the indefatigable Katie Paine and Angela Jeffrey, who’ve been toiling in the trenches for, well, a long time.

But aren’t there situations where measurement is unnecessary?

Take Walmart, for example. Its stock is suffering, there are employee lawsuits, and one of its stores has been destroyed by a tornado. How much measurement does it need to know media coverage is, well, tortuous? It’s likely that no amount of proactive management is going to turn the story around, at least not meaningfully.

Banks are another example. Yep, the titans of capitalism are currently getting the lion’s share of blame for the financial crisis. Can’t you make an educated guess about its coverage?

Aside from my personal financial stake in getting Walmart or a big bank to hire me to help them with measurement, I’ll give you three reasons why you should not measure—and three reasons why you should.

Forget measurement when: