7 ways to ensure you get and keep clean data for PR metrics
Measuring information, especially figures culled from the web, can be challenging. Corrupted or irrelevant numbers can undermine even your most diligent efforts. Here’s how to proceed.
How dirty is your data?
Good data from media metrics can help industry pros uncover valuable insights and demonstrate PR’s importance to their organization.
Inaccurate or corrupted “dirty data” can lead to wildly incorrect conclusions, tainting presentations and even ruining entire campaigns.
Follow these expert recommendations for collecting, maintaining and measuring data:
1. Use Excel rather than Word. Excel enables you to divide data by category into rows and columns that can be cross-referenced and dissected with pivot tables, says freelance media analyst Steph Bridgman. List each new media item in a new row, and divide coverage up into categories. Organizing data into rows and files makes it easier to produce valid analytics about media coverage.
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