Data-Driven PR: Buzzword or Essential Tool? with Dr. Devin Knighton

Data's role in public relations – is it the linchpin of modern-day PR or is it just a buzzword? Ever pondered how PR professionals can amalgamate data to weave unique narratives that enthrall audiences? Tune in for a riveting discussion with host Peter Woolfolk and Dr. Devin Knighton, APR, a distinguished assistant professor of public relations at Brigham Young University. We scrutinize the term "data-driven" and its usage in the PR industry, and delve into the likelihood of data washing – a phenomena where data is dismissed as a jargon rather than an indispensable tool. Using an extensive analysis of 150 articles from PR Week and data from Muck Rack, we aim to unveil the reality behind the buzz.

Our conversation with Dr. Knighton doesn't stop at just evaluating the current landscape; we explore the future potential of data in PR. We underscore the importance of query formation and using data to shape strategies, and how university partnerships can be a cost-effective solution for robust data intelligence. The discussion takes an exciting turn as we explore the rise of AI in the PR world, its potential to assist with math-related tasks, and how it amplifies the importance of data-driven PR for organizations. So, hop on this journey with us and Dr. Knighton, as we explore the realm of data-driven PR, its significance, and the myriad possibilities it unfurls.

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Transcript

Announcer: 1:11

Welcome. This is the Public Relations Review Podcast, a program to discuss the many facets of public relations with seasoned professionals, educators, authors and others. Now here is your host, peter Wolfolk.

Peter Woolfolk: 1:30

Welcome to the Public Relations Review Podcast and to our listeners all across America and around the world. Now I'm very pleased to announce that, as of September 2023, apple has ranked this podcast among the top 1% of podcasts worldwide. So let me say thank you to all of my guests for providing the great content that makes this possible, and to my audience for your continued support.

Peter Woolfolk: 1:56

Now, communications professionals increasingly rely on data. Data helps communications teams predict and mitigate crises, understand key audiences, identify trending content and more. Now, better data also makes more influence in the C-suite. A team at Brigham Young University's Public Relations Intelligence Lab set out to find out how data is being used and discussed in the public relations industry. They turn to various resources, including 150 articles in PR Week published between 2019 and 2022 that discusses data in the industry. The team identified trends around the discussion of data, monitored earned media in MUCRAC and explored agency websites to identify top tools and data methods. So the question becomes although this report explores how data is being used and discussed in the PR industry, it raises the question is the PR world now facing data washing, that is, using data as a promotional buzzword rather than actual practice?

Peter Woolfolk: 3:08

My guest today will discuss the matter of deciphering the role of data in public relations. Dr. Devin Knighton APR is an assistant professor of public relations and the School of Communications at Brigham Young University. He is an experienced communication strategist who spent more than 10 years working with technology companies, leading one through an initial public offering and another through a 76 million dollar acquisition. One of his campaigns resulted in more than 1 billion impressions on social media and more than 1000 news articles, and he joins me today from Provo. Udall Devon, thank you for being on the podcast.

Dr. Devin Knighton: 3:49

It's my pleasure. It's great to be here. Thank you for the invitation.

Peter Woolfolk: 3:53

So let's start at the beginning. What led your team to decide to do research on how data is being used in public relations?

Dr. Devin Knighton: 4:02

Yeah, we saw that during the pandemic, as many public relations professionals went remote, that a number of the large PR agencies in our field began launching data intelligence arms or data intelligence services, and as we saw these come into the market, we started to wonder what is the role that data is playing in public relations, and, specifically, is this just a feature from some of the larger agencies that are unique to the pandemic, or is it something that other midsize and store agencies boutique agencies are also pursuing? And so that led us to say let's figure out where this is going, because we've been living in a world that began in media relations, moved into content with social media, where we started to integrate more with advertising, and now we've entered this third phase, which is more to be data driven, and so we wanted to know where we're currently at.

Peter Woolfolk: 5:01

Now, how did you get started? What did you do to begin to identify what was going on as far as data was concerned?

Dr. Devin Knighton: 5:09

Yeah. So the first thing that we wanted to do was take a look at articles written about public relations industry and figure out how many of these we're talking about data, and so we looked from 2019 to 2022, so about a three year span and granted, just so all the listeners know, this is just before chat GPT started to take the hearts and minds of many communication professionals, either in excitement or fear. So this was 2019 to 2022, and we collected 150 articles from PR week that discussed data in the industry, and then, once we collected those articles, we went through and started to code them to find out what were the trends around data, what was the discussion and what was happening, and we coupled that then with what we saw in terms of earned media coverage in Muck Rack from other places that were talking about public relations and the data industry.

Peter Woolfolk: 6:10

So, now that you've begun to accumulate all this data, what are some of the things that you that popped up from that research?

Dr. Devin Knighton: 6:20

Yeah, there are a few key findings. One is that data-driven is by far the most common way that data is discussed in the industry. But just because we say that this is a data-driven report or this is a data-driven campaign or this is a data-driven insight we found that term gets thrown around quite loosely. It turns out that there's a lot of folks that mention in the press that they're doing data, but there's not a lot of evidence as to what that really means, and so as we dug into that, we thought wait a minute, is there data washing that's going on. There's an effort to create a perception that they're using data, but they're not really, and so we decided to take a deeper dive into this, beyond just coding of these articles.

Peter Woolfolk: 7:16

Okay, Now how did you go about deciding how to separate those who are just doing data-driven or had data intelligence, if you will?

Dr. Devin Knighton: 7:27

Yeah, one of the things that we wanted to see was when it comes to doing data. Were they doing social listening, were they doing news analysis, were they doing audience analysis, or were they going a step further? I mean, some of those basic things of social listening and collecting news articles and then surveying audiences are forms of research we've all been doing in the industry for a while. But if we're really being data-driven, does that mean that we either use artificial intelligence and we have a dedicated branch towards data analytics? Do we have a data analyst that works at our firm or our agency? And, by the way, when I say are we using AI, I'm not talking about chat GBT, because this was before that. We're talking about AI in terms of artificial intelligence for data analysis. And so what we found is that most organizations were doing some social listening, they were collecting news articles and periodically they might do a survey of audiences, and that's how they said they were being data-driven, but there weren't these more advanced approaches and techniques yet.

Peter Woolfolk: 8:45

So how did, how were you able to distinguish, or, better say, how would an ordinary person be able to distinguish whether someone is being presented with a data-driven research or data intelligence research?

Dr. Devin Knighton: 9:00

Yeah, so if you are using data on the end of a campaign to evaluate how it performed, when you're not being data-driven because you're not collecting it on the front end to drive strategic decisions, so that's one difference is to try to find out is data used to justify the performance or is it used to guide strategy. And then, second, the question is are you doing just social listening and news analysis and some audience analysis those basic three or are you looking at having a dedicated research team inside of your organization? Do you have someone with some data expertise, a specific person or a team that can focus on that human intelligence or some predictive intelligence for your organization?

Peter Woolfolk: 9:57

Yeah, I guess this raises the question in terms of, yes, because data is important Even in my podcast I use it on occasion for a lot of different reasons but distinguishing how far we need to go with data to achieve our ends or understand our outcomes, and that sort of thing, because what I'm hearing you say when you say having a team on your staff, that's a whole new ballgame for some organizations that are employees and that sort of thing. Yet we still want to get it. But how can we still have accurate data without necessarily having to have that large an expense on our hands?

Dr. Devin Knighton: 10:36

Yeah, that's an excellent point that we got to be careful about our expenditures. I think one of the things that we started to see. So we did this report that you're talking with me about. But we have also gone out.

Dr. Devin Knighton: 10:50

We've taken students outside of the university and visited agencies on the coast and seen how different agencies approach data usage, and one of the things that we've seen is that there are agencies that now have some of their senior partners that are paired up with specialists on research, people who can build dashboards, people who can analyze surveys and develop statistical insights, and those teams are conversing at a different level.

Dr. Devin Knighton: 11:23

They're talking about how to create message journeys for their publics and audiences that are more compelling. They're talking about not just how to generate awareness, but they're talking about how they can establish credibility, how they can help an organization develop a loyalty with their audiences that resonate with its core mission and values. They're talking about how to take a stand on social issues and all of that. They're starting to have those conversations when they're paired with somebody with this data expertise. So, going back to your original point, it may seem difficult to justify the expense of adding in a person with data expertise when there's already so many different places to put the money. But as we started to see what's happening with some of these leaders in the field, those that do invest in some data capabilities are able to have a more strategic discussion with their clients around messaging and around outcomes than the ones that don't have that capability.

Peter Woolfolk: 12:31

So I guess that brings me to another question. In terms of services data services that one can hire if you will, or bring on board for a particular campaign Is that also a viable option?

Dr. Devin Knighton: 12:49

Yes, absolutely. They don't have to always have someone in-house. They can go work with an organization, they can work with a freelancer, a consultant, they can work with someone else, but what they need to be careful of is trying to solve the problem just with a tool. I think, as a public relations industry, we have been overly excited about the technology that's been developed, feeling as though if we just get the right tool, that then we'll have the right data insight. But what we need is to be able to look at the information out of the tool, because some tools look at social media data, some tools look at earned media data and we need to figure out how we can then run some deeper statistics on it and come out with insights in who we're really trying to work with our audience and what is really going to be that compelling, distinctive message.

Peter Woolfolk: 13:46

The other thing I'm hearing here is that the planning needed to decide how much data we actually need in our particular programs, projects, because obviously some may not be as intensive in terms of their requirements as others might be. So how does one go about making that decision? Or how would we always decide yes, we could use some, but not all of it those kind of decisions that people have to make.

Dr. Devin Knighton: 14:15

Well, we've talked a lot up to this point about how data can be used on the front end to develop strategy for the organization.

Dr. Devin Knighton: 14:24

But there is another way in which data can really be useful and that is as an agency.

Dr. Devin Knighton: 14:29

If you're going in to work with a client and you need to help the client to do thought leadership, because product PR doesn't work the way it used to it's difficult to get earned media placements on product PR alone then you may go into them and say okay, executive team, what are some of these key areas that you want to bring fresh, novel, relevant insight to your industry?

Dr. Devin Knighton: 14:57

And once we know that, then we can go back inside of our agency and say this is the data we are going to need, and we're going to need it to be able to equip our clients with data points that they can take to the media, that they can take to events and speak to on stage, that they can put onto their social media platforms. And so when you say we're trying to determine how much data we need, part of that is are we going to use this data to develop a strategy? Are we going to use this data to develop thought leadership for a specific client, and those are two different ways that you can get some parameters around how much data you need.

Peter Woolfolk: 15:36

And, depending on who you are, both are hugely important as well.

Dr. Devin Knighton: 15:41

Yes, absolutely. I mean, we live in a noisy world right where it's the attention economy and it's difficult to get not just the media but our publics and audiences to pay attention to us. But when we have a fresh insight that's backed up with evidence either meaning action that our clients are taking or data that they found about the industry then people want to start to pay attention. We're very good storytellers in public relations. We're kind of more scared and afraid generally of the data side, but if we can combine both if we can bring stories and we can bring fresh data insights then we have a potent, powerful combination that will help our audiences and pay attention to our messages.

Peter Woolfolk: 16:32

Going back to sort of the gathering of data what are some of the, let's say, relatively inexpensive ways of gathering it, and I guess that also generates the other question is what sort of data do you need for your particular project?

Dr. Devin Knighton: 16:48

Well, I would say one of the best things to do if you're a public relations professional, you're at an agency or you're in-house and you're trying to figure out how to get data and you're new in this world, then the first thing you wanna do is say what are some questions that I would love to get some answers to, not necessarily what are some arguments that you need data to support, but really what are some questions that you really want to get answers to. And then one of the great places that you can start is at a university. We have here at BYU a data intelligence lab. We call it the Public Relations Intelligence Lab, and we have, at any given point in time, 70 to 80 students working down in the lab on projects for agencies, for organizations, for nonprofits, collecting data, interpreting it and bringing it back. So that's a great, inexpensive way to get started is to go to any one of the local universities, look into their public relations programs or their data science programs and see if they can have some students that can work on some projects for you. But if, in addition to working with the local universities like ours, you can also work with different types of market research firms and explain to them.

Dr. Devin Knighton: 18:07

Here's some questions I have. What would be some ways that you could collect data? Would you need to do a focus group or a survey? Or would you be able to look at social media signals and do some interpretation on what are messages that resonate on social media? Or could you collect data about how YouTube videos are performing and see what it is about the stories that resonate on those YouTube platforms? So there's a lot of ways that you can collect the data, but I would say, first start with who will you partner with, and either partner with the university, partner with a market research firm or partner with a freelancer who specializes in data intelligence.

Peter Woolfolk: 18:46

You know, that brings up a thought. When I asked that question, I remember I don't know, maybe about a year ago I did a podcast with a university and what made me do that was I saw an article in a public relations magazine that this PRSSA class at the university had won more awards than the professionals did. So I said what was going on over there? So I actually tracked them down and called them up and, yes, that's exactly what they did, that they went into and helping out. Some businesses around the city did that kind of analytical work. You know what's the problem, how can we go about fixing it, what are we? You know all of these sort of things that generate the kind of information and details that helps people make better decisions. So I think the idea of reaching out to colleges that have the capability of doing that is a very, very smooth move and smart move because it benefits everybody.

Dr. Devin Knighton: 19:46

Well, yeah, and you know students, they are hungry to learn, and one of the advantages of having them get into the data is that they learn to check their assumptions.

Dr. Devin Knighton: 19:57

They may come to a situation where they don't know the answer to something, but by having the discipline to go out and gather data and look at the evidence, then that means when they graduate and they go work at your agency or they go work with your company, they're going to be more confident in approaching ambiguity and they're gonna be prepared to go find answers to some of the questions you have. So we're just a decade or less away before there'll be a lot of professionals on the market that have some of this statistical background in their arsenal, who have gone through some of these quantitative classes and have developed a communications degree. So it's a great opportunity for you, as an agency or business, to partner with the university and say that, hey, we would love to partner with you, let's do this research project or the state intelligence project, and then out of it you'll find some of the rising stars that you can look at hiring as interns or professionals to work inside your company.

Peter Woolfolk: 20:59

You know it's not a small world, because probably my last episode or so, I did an episode on how millennials, if you will, are changing the way things are done, companies being run because they are so much more focused on research and access to that kind of information through computers and that kind of information, so that's right up their alley, no question about it.

Dr. Devin Knighton: 21:27

Yeah, it absolutely is, and when we looked at this study with PR Week that I was telling you about, where we said let's look at all these articles in a three-year span, there were over 650 mentions in PR Week articles over those three, four years about data. That's a lot, and so it implies that if you, as an organization, are not starting to use data or knowing how to use it, it's time to get going, because your peers are doing that and it will become a competitive advantage for them if you're not looking into how to use data to keep up.

Peter Woolfolk: 22:06

Well, I certainly support you on that. There's no question about it. I know that. Is there anything that in this research and this project that you haven't covered, that you think we should know about?

Dr. Devin Knighton: 22:16

Yeah, I think that one thing that I would say is that data-driven PR is still emerging, and so that's building off what I just said before there's interest. It's still emerging. People are still getting started with this, and now with ChatGPT even though ChatGPT mostly works with language and large language models, we're feeling how that's affecting us with content development as an industry. The AI is going to pretty soon get good at math. It's just a matter of time where you won't have to necessarily know how to do all the formulas in Excel, you won't have to know how to do all the hard details of quantitative work inside of a data table, but you'll be able to partner with an agency and also use AI to help you.

Dr. Devin Knighton: 23:07

So, as you look at how data is driven, pr is emerging still. It means there's still opportunities for people to become leaders, to differentiate themselves. There's an opportunity to watch what's happening with AI and as soon as AI starts to get better with math, pull that in to help you with your math, since a lot of us started as writers and we started as storytellers. So I think this is a really exciting time for us in public relations. It's a time when we can use data in a different way than marketing, has used data. We can use it to help work with all types of stakeholders, from investors to employees, to customers and partners, and we don't need to be afraid of it. The road is open before us, if we just want to start to take it.

Peter Woolfolk: 23:55

Well, that was music to my ears. I really appreciate hearing that and let me say this, I really appreciate you coming on when you and I talked after I read this information. I was excited to see it because I think it is hugely important and the use of data is, as you said, is in growing and at a very, very rapid pace. So we need to be we being PR practices, need to be prepared and up to speed with it.

Dr. Devin Knighton: 24:22

Well, thank you so much for inviting me on and having this conversation with me. It's exciting here on a daily basis for me to see the students who, at first class, are a little nervous about data, just like you mentioned other professionals might feel. But once they get going with a project and they see how cool it is to develop an insight about an audience or to find a winning message that should work, then they see the power of data. So these are incredible students and I've really enjoyed being able to work with them and come on and talk about their work on this podcast.

Peter Woolfolk: 24:58

Well, thank you for being here, and let me just say thank you again. My guest today was Dr Devin Knighton, an API, who's an assistant professor of public relations in the School of Communications at Brigham Young University. The idea of having data, of particular data that's accurate and useful, is continuing to grow. If you enjoyed the program, please give us a great review and also share this with your colleagues and, of course, turn in for a tune in to the next edition of the Public Relations Review Podcast. Have a great day.

Announcer: 25:31

This podcast is produced by Communication Strategies, an award-winning public relations and public affairs firm headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. Thank you for joining us.