Measurement, the new mantra of all things PR and advertising, now has some allies. Researching that illusive notion, Buzz, I found that buzzmarketing is moving forward –beyond the quirky ‘subservient’ sites.

Buzzmetrics has some interesting ongoing work, and Jonathan Carson, President & CEO made some important observations about how those leading the charge –the PR agencies and the Advertising agencies—are adapting to it. In my recent interview for an article, Carson said that:

“PR firms are very good at building relationships, and that is a major part of word of mouth marketing. Because this is a channel that consumers control and is relationship driven, a lot of the core competencies of PR play right into what is necessary for successful word of mouth marketing.”

On the other hand –maybe he was being polite about this—Ad agencies, he said are good at: “processing consumer insight, and then developing strategic plans to reach consumers in the right place with the right message. This extremely important to WOM marketing, and it’s a skill that I think most PR firms would admit they are not very good at.”

He did suggest that PR people have it in their DNA to work on Buzz, because of their one-to-one relationships.

I alos noticed that ImpactWatch, a division of the Bivings Group, is doing similar tracking. Their media management tool can analyze and measure print, broadcast and online buzz in real time. It can even monitor the movements what competitors, spokespersons, analysts etc are saying. In this age of RSS, we’re going to see many businesses crop up that help us manage/monitor/measure all this content cascading around us!