LONDON—Two UK-based public relations firms—Lewis PR and Shine Communications—have introduced new measurement and evaluation systems. Lewis PR has introduced LSCORE, a customizable measurement application drawing on the firm’s proprietary assessment methodology. Shine has launched Eric (Evaluating Results in Integrated Campaigns), an evaluation system that links campaign performance to client business outcomes.

LSCORE charts key performance indicators, visualizing progress against communications goals related to volume, depth, sentiment, engagement and conversion. Tailored for each client, LSCORE provides a single dashboard view of progress in both traditional and social channels.

“For years, PR has been measured on the basis of coverage volume, tone and reach,” says the firm. “More recently, the focus has switched to measuring engagement. But as adoption of web analytics has grown, and the need has emerged for meaningful metrics that demonstrate the business impact of PR and social media, it has become important for PR to be assessed in terms of conversions too.”

LSCORE is designed to incorporate all of these dimensions of measurement into a single application, even visualizing data from Google Analytics, URL shortening applications and popular monitoring services.

LSCORE also provides a framework for setting objectives across each channel, and within each category of measurement. A built-in planning module is designed to help internal teams and client contacts set jointly agreed goals.

“Brands want to manage communications with the same sort of discipline and vigor as they do their financials, and leader companies are establishing key performance indicators in every discipline,” says Ian Lipner, vice president of product development for Lewis. “With the ability to measure and visually convey the value they’re getting from their budgets, no longer can PR results be considered ‘soft.’”

Shine’s Eric system, meanwhile, includes a suite of business outcome measures that allow Shine to understand how campaigns impact clients’ businesses. These outcome measures include social media sentiment, awareness change, attitude change and media sentiment change. Additionally, statistical correlation techniques between traditional output measures and business outcomes allow the agency to understand the impact of coverage to a business.

Shine says all the agency’s clients will be migrating away from output and advertising value equivalency measures to the new outcome based measures over the course of the next few months.

The agency has also added a full digital and social media measurement suite called Eric Is Social, designed to deliver measurement techniques that track changes in the online community in real time, identify the most important bloggers for a brand, track website traffic is coming from, gain a real time insight into sentiment on the brand and competitors, and understand the demographics behind the buzz.