Developing global standards for social media measurement, further education of the PR profession, and new work on the ROI of public relations emerged as the top priorities by delegates at the 3rd European Summit on Measurement in Lisbon last week.

Measurement professionals, PR agencies and clients from 33 countries attended the Lisbon Summit to chart a course for the future of public relations research, measurement and evaluation.

Nearly 200 delegates created the Measurement Agenda, 2020, a series of action steps to build upon the outcome of the Measurement Summit a year ago, in Barcelona, where a similar international group of delegates created the Barcelona Principles of Measurement. Both campaigns are led by AMEC and the Institute for Public Relations, the organisers of the Summits.

AMEC’s Chairman, Mike Daniels, said: “The Summit identified some significant challenges for the PR profession to address by 2020. However, what we also accomplished in Lisbon beyond setting the priorities was to harness the commitment and energy of the industry to agree what we need to do together.”

Dr. David Rockland, Global Director of Research & Measurement, Ketchum, who ran the Lisbon Measurement Agenda session said, “In Barcelona we created immutable principles about how you evaluate PR. Now, in Lisbon, we have set a course for the future and where this field needs to head in the next several years.”

Five industry organisations took part in the Measurement Agenda 2020 debate in Lisbon: Public Relations Society of America, ICCO, Institute for Public Relations, AMEC and the Council of PR Firms. They were joined by speakers from top global corporations, including FedEx, Microsoft and Philips.

Delegates voted from among 12 issues, or priorities, as to what is most important to focus on in the years ahead. The top vote-getters in rank order were:

1. How to measure the return on investment (ROI) of public relations (89%)
2. Create and adopt global standards for social media measurement (83%)
3. Measurement of PR campaigns and programmes needs to become an intrinsic part of the PR toolkit (73%)
4. Institute a client education program such that clients insist on measurement of outputs, outcomes and business results from PR programs (61%)