(In the video, Frank Ovaitt invites PR scholars to share useful, practical findings with the IPR audience.)
This year’s IPRRC included exciting studies. Since it is safe to mention conference findings without disqualifying anyone from having their studies considered in an academic journal, I’d like to highlight one of the many presentations I am thinking about from IPRRC.
We know from Tina McCorkindale, Marcia DiStaso and Hilary Fussell-Sisco’s research that a “like” on an organization’s Facebook fan page doesn’t equal engagement.
Considering Groundswell’s social technographics, we know that even spectators can be engaged (i.e., people who do not “like” or comment).
So how do we measure engagement in a way that includes spectators and excludes people who might click “like” but do not have a real connection with the organization?
Minjeong Kang offers an answer with her public engagement scale, which has three components (alpha=.91).
1. Affective commitment (alpha=.89)
- Feel emotionally attached
- Feel like part of the family
- Feel a strong sense of belonging
2. Positive affectivity (alpha=.89)
- Interested
- Attentive
- Excited
- Enthusiastic
- Proud
3. Empowerment (alpha=.89)
- Can make differences
- Determined to develop the organization
- Have a control over the organization’s decision making
- Confident about the ability to improve the organization
- Collaborate with the organization
There were many other great studies! You can see highlights from a handful of them, thanks to Constantin Basturea, who has aggregated highlights from the #IPRRC Twitter feed.
Also, you might enjoy reading my highlights from IPRRC two years ago.
IPRRC attendees, what was one of the studies that interested you at the conference?
Thank you for the shout out, Tiffany – and for taking the time to blog about this study. I added the blog post to the Storify page. I was wondering if the list of accepted papers/presentations is somewhere online; I’d like to add it to the page, if possible.
Thank you!
Thanks for creating the Storify page for the conference. IPRRC will publish proceedings from the conference, although they might not be ready for some time. I’ll let you know as soon as they are.
Thanks, Constantin!
I had several studies which interested me, and yours was on the top
However, I still read the presentations, to some of them I couldn’t be present …
Thanks, Diana! It was wonderful getting to meet you and getting to hear your thoughts about ghost blogging. I look forward to continuing the conversation.
The public engagement scales are insightful and interesting! I help moderate and manage the FaceBook page and other social media for my current job. I like how it informs me of the traffic the page receives, but I have never thought of measuring the engagement though its empowerment, positive affectivity and affective commitment. Hopefully FaceBook will create ways for moderators to easily measure engagement according to these scales.