Digital has been in SHIFT's blood for over a decade, from being one of the first agencies to embrace social media to creating the social media press release and social media newsroom. One of the greatest challenges to public relations as an industry since the advent of digital marketing and communications is how to measure the effectiveness of PR.We agree on the qualitative outputs of public relations:
- Increased awareness of your company and its products/services.
- Increased trust in your brand.
- Increased desire to purchase or at least consideration of your brand.
These qualitative benefits of PR are as old as the marketing funnel itself.What we don’t necessarily agree on is the quantitative outputs of public relations. How do you measure in reasonably objective numbers the impact of the PR you’ve received? This is a core challenge of data-driven PR.
A milestone reached
SHIFT has taken a significant step forward in this space by entering into a strategic agreement with Google to become a Google Analytics™ Certified Partner (GACP). As a GACP, our goal is to advance the cause of data-driven PR with our clients and industry, to help understand the value of public relations, and to use that data to make PR as impactful as possible. Our platform of choice to help our clients make PR impactful is Google Analytics™.
Don’t just take our word for it: “Google’s Certified Partner Program brings together the best strategic agencies across the globe who advance digital marketing practices for the most respected brands. SHIFT Communications came highly recommended to us, and we expect they will continue to advance the industry’s thought leadership. They are armed with an amazing team, and they have proven themselves very capable to deliver extraordinary results.” said Will Pryor, Sr. Worldwide Partner Program Manager at Google.
The road to Google Analytics Certified Partner
The road to becoming a GACP took over two years, as SHIFT had to implement and document multiple deployments of Google Analytics™ for clients and get members of the staff certified in the Google Analytics™ Individual Qualification exam. SHIFT now boasts multiple GAIQ certified professionals as well as individual AdWords certification.
What this means for you
For our clients, GACP status means that we can be even more helpful in deploying, managing, and improving your marketing analytics programs through Google Analytics™. From the basics of setting up goal conversions to advanced integrations with third party data sources (for example, hooking up National Weather Service data to umbrella sales eCommerce reporting), our clients will gain a competitive edge through better data, analysis, and insights.For our community members and industry, expect to learn more on our blog, in our public talks, and in our resources. As an industry, public relations has so many opportunities for better, more meaningful measurement and metrics. You can get started building your own Google Analytics education with these 5 posts:
- Google Analytics 101: 5 Metrics for Public Relations
- Share Data For A Better PR Program
- Measure the Quality of Your Audience
- 2 Simple Metrics to Measure New Audiences
- 7 Ways to Measure Public Relations (series)
Challenge and redefine
Many years ago, we wrote the aspirational statement that SHIFT's mission was to challenge and redefine the role and impact of public relations.Not only do we still believe that, but with our partnership with Google, we believe we're one large step closer to achieving that mission.
What’s a Rich Text element?
The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.
The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.
Static and dynamic content editing
A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!
How to customize formatting for each rich text
Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.
