As we embrace another summer with scattered showers, atleast in this part of the world (Gurgaon), I’m reminded that it is the middle of the calendar year and a time to look at the milestones. This week I write my 260th non-stop weekly column since I began writing for MxM India on June 3rd in 2013. My first column is here. The column has had two homes over the past five years. I remain grateful to Pradyuman Maheshwari who nudged me to start this column. I took several months to agree with a fear that there would not be enough to write about. But when I look back it is amazing that I have managed to type over a hundred thousand words.
This week also marks six years after we began seriously planning for the first PRAXIS, it marks three years after we moved into our own office and it marks one year after we began the first Reputation Today newsletter. All of the above make it indeed a week and a time of milestones. We will celebrate that with an international webinar at the end of this month. At conference after conference in the last few months I have been steering a new concept to measure Reputation called GREAT. In this system brands and organisations need to drive themselves to a new model of measurement of their Credibility or in other words better Public Relations, whereby the focus is on GOODWILL, REPUTATION, ENGAGEMENT, AFFINITY and TRUST.
Every few months I will write about this.
The goal of every brand should be to have –
- Increased Goodwill among all stakeholders
- Higher Reputation among peers
- Positive Engagement with former and future customers and employees
- More Affinity with existing customers and employees
- Deeper Trust among all stakeholders
There are various tactics and strategies brands employ to achieve some or all of the above. But the moot question is, how are brands measuring, if they have achieved GREATness.
For us at The Promise Foundation and at SCoRe – two ventures that I am associated with we measure the three key platforms differently.
We measure events by the increase in number of attendees based on a minimum guarantee that we set for ourselves, higher interest from partners and a quicker response from our potential speakers. We measure our content engine, Reputation Today based on the requests we get to contribute, the increase in our Twitter followers and the analytics tools we use to gauge readership and views. For the school we look at the increase in number of applicants, the quality of these applicants when interviewed and the number who pays the fee and takes admission. All of these are linked to Goodwill, Reputation, Engagement, Affinity and Trust. All of that does not happen overnight but is a factor and function of not just doing the right things but doing everything right, basis a set of written and unwritten policies.
When I look back at 2012 when the seed of PRAXIS was sown, or at 2015 when the tiny plant called Reputation Today and then SCoRe was planted, it gives me immense joy to note that a community has been built around very simple ideas. I remain grateful.
He is also the Founding Dean of the School of Communications & Reputation (SCoRe).
He can be reached at @amithpr on twitter.
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