Words or Numbers?

If you’re like me, getting out of high school and pursuing a Bachelor’s Degree in Communication meant not only following my dreams, but also saying goodbye forever to endless math homework and abstract mathematical concepts. That was true for the most part, because in order to meet the credits to graduate I only had to take one basic math class. Yet, when practicing public relations I’ve had to deal with numbers in a variety of ways. While I may never work with strange theorems, angles, and high-tech graphing calculators ever again, I still have found the need to understand the correlation between numbers, analyzing data and performing single math equations to fulfill adequately my tasks.

As public relations professionals, the art of storytelling plays a central role in our daily lives; and if you’re a seasoned PR specialist your ability to sway clients and your target market with your words should be astonishing. Nonetheless, we now live in an informational era, where each day our target market demands more and more information about topics and it’s our job as managers of our customer’s communication strategies to provide this information. Words are not cutting it for people anymore; they want detailed and precise information. This means numbers. Therefore, you need to know how to analyze data and come up with conclusions to include in our press releases and into our campaigns as a whole. We have to build the story with words and support it with data.

Even more importantly, we need to measure our communication efforts, and that’s performed through analytics. This is the biggest situation where math comes to play in the PR world. You need to read data to see if your communication efforts are being prosperous and calculate your client's return on investment. This used to apply only to analyzing exposure in traditional media, but now, with the incorporation of social media, we have more information than ever to audit our tactics and decide which provides the best results for each of our clients. As professionals, we can’t provide our clients assumptions as for what strategy will work best. We have to be able to deliver market research data and media analysis that will support our decisions.

Of course, creativity and storytelling are the heart of our profession because, after all, a well-written press release, buzz worthy public relations tactics and creative efforts, will have better public acceptance. Hence, showing numbers that reflect the campaign’s effectiveness and convey that the client’s message is being showcased through the right media channels.

Regardless of what kind of analysis you’re performing, it’s needless to say that analytics are not the most glamorous part of the public relations industry. Yet, public relations professionals that prove to have great communication skills as well as a strong command of analytics have the best shot of succeeding in the industry. Therefore, those math classes don’t go completely to waste. Instead, they provide us with a foundation to develop a competitive advantage in the industry because, after all, successful public relations campaigns are neither all about words nor all about numbers. It’s about finding the perfect synergy between both. 

To discover more ways in which math creeps into the life of a PR professional, click here.