Cross-posted from the FIR Podcast Network.

The Queen of Measurement, Katie Paine, joins FIR host Shel Holtz to talk about PR and FOFO—Fear of Finding Out. (That is, finding out just how much, or how little, PR contributes to the company’s or client’s bottom line.) Also in this week’s episode:

• An update on employee activism at Google, which has ended mandatory arbitration.
• MOOCs as content.
• Nike’s prospects in the wake of a highly-viewed product failure.
• A study finds that people are more likely to share longer content.
• Most brands wouldn’t be missed if they vanished.
• The marketing funnel is too linear. Say hello to the marketing flywheel.
• AMP pages increase organic search traffic.
• Most ad buyers are shrugging off YouTube’s crisis as just part of the new normal.
• Dan York reports on WordPress 5.1, Augmented Reality news, a Pokemon Go lawsuit, detoxing from your smartphone, and the Internet Society’s global report on the forces shaping our digital future.

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

You can find the stories from which FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog.

About Katie Paine

>Katie Delahaye Paine, aka The Measurement Queen (@queenofmetrics), has been a pioneer in the field of measurement for three decades. She has founded two measurement companies, KDPaine & Partners Inc., and The Delahaye Group. Her books, Measure What Matters (Wiley, March 2011) and Measuring Public Relationships (KDPaine & Partners, 2007) are considered must-reads for anyone tasked with measuring public relations and social media. Her latest book, written with Beth Kanter, Measuring the Networked Nonprofit: Using Data to Change the World, is the 2013 winner of the Terry McAdam Book Award. Her latest company, Paine Publishing is the first educational publishing firm entirely dedicated to making more Measurement Mavens. Its newsletter, The Measurement Advisor, is the industry’s most comprehensive source of information about best practices in communications measurement. In her consulting practices, she designs measurement dashboards for some of today’s most admired companies. Katie was named one of “25 women who rock social media” by Lee Odden’s prestigious Online Marketing Blog. Katie is a Senior Fellow of The Conference Board’s Center for Marketing and Communication. She was also an initial founder of the Institute for Public Relations Measurement Commission.

Links from this week’s episode

• Google will end forced arbitration for employees in all disputes
• Why Does a Private Company Develop and Offer MOOCs?
• ‘They’re going to show it until we die’: How Zion Williamson’s shoe mishap hurts Nike
• Study shows shareability of content can be correlated with word count
• Consumers see 77% of brands as not meaningful, report says
• A Quarter Of Consumers Will Dump A Brand After Bad Personalization: Study
• Say Goodbye To Your Buyer Funnel: 2019 Is The Year Of The Marketing Flywheel
• How the Flywheel Killed HubSpot’s Funnel
• Study Shows AMP Can Lead to Increase in Organic Search Traffic
• ‘It’s the human cost’: Buyers shrug at YouTube’s latest brand crisis
• Brands are finally realizing they’ll never be 100% safe on YouTube
• The PR Industry’s FOFO Problem: “Fear Of Finding Out”

Links from Dan York’s Tech Report

• WordPress 5.1 “Betty”—A Little Better Every Day
• AR Will Spark the Next Big Tech Platform—Call It Mirrorworld
• Apple Taps iPhone Executive to Be First Head of Marketing for AR
• I just tried Google’s brand new augmented reality Maps on a one mile walk through San Francisco, and I miss it already
• ‘Pokemon Go’ Creator Agrees to Tighter Leash on Virtual Creatures to End Class Action
• Do Not Disturb: How I Ditched My Phone and Unbroke My Brain
• Internet Society Global Report: The forces shaping our digital future