By Todd Murphy, Vice President, Universal Information ServicesUniversal Information Services is participating in an awareness and education campaign organized by AMEC, the International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication. These events are sponsored by membership companies and work to better educate public relations professionals on reliable methodologies for measuring PR and media.Each day this week Universal has spotlighted a specific metric. Yesterday we covered Source Quality and Reach. Today we will drill down on why identifying Key Messages before measurement, and locating their placement within your media results, is so important.

Key Messages are the phrases you craft and specifically want to appear in your media exposure. Message penetration indicates the prevalence of these messages, a quantitative measure, across all possible messages.

Tracking Key Messages is particularly helpful when your campaign or organization has multiple messages and you want to see which ones are performing best. From this type of analysis, a professional analyst can determine how the media is responding to your efforts, how widespread your messages are travelling, and what second degree networks are amplifying your message.Amplification of a message, either from traditional media into social media or vice versa, only expands the message penetration and reach of your effort. Establishing key messages is done during the planning stages of a campaign and prior to the start of measurement. Measuring key messages after the fact is possible, but should be established as part of your planning.Tomorrow we’ll discuss Exposure Volume, another quantitative measure that some believe has limited impact of the efficacy of your measurement. You will see how key messages and message amplification impact exposure. Until then, let us know any thoughts or concerns you have related to Key Messages.