It's a topic that obviously goes well beyond tone alone, certainly, but humour me for a moment. Automated or not (a whole other debate), what do we/ should we be toning and what shouldn't we? What's meaningful? Where do we cut it off? For example, arguably, one could, I suppose:
- apply an overall leaning or sentiment to a blogger (I've seen this done for political bloggers)
- tone for only the original post
- tone for each comment individually that responds to each post
- apply one aggregate tone that accounts for an overall sentinment of all of the comments (a colleague coined the phrase 'conversation tone'...similarity to conversation index intended...which I think has some merit)
Again, before I get an onslaught of comments and e-mails, I recognize the discussion about measuring blogs is far more complex (traffic, relationship indices, polls linking to biz tangiles, social network analysis etc.) that strictly tone.
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About Alan Chumley
In the newly-created role of Director, Measurement, Alan works with clients from the business development phase all the way through their relationship with Hill & Knowlton, identifying the ideal metrics for defining, and then measuring success. Alan marries his background as a communications practitioner with a deep understanding and experience in measuring communications to deliver measurable impact.
An active blogger and frequent speaker, Alan is also a resource on trends, theories and the latest insights in measurement.
Prior to joining Hill & Knowlton, Alan was the Vice-President, Business Development, at Cormex Research, a Canadian media content analysis and measurement firm. Before this, Alan held increasingly senior positions on both the client and supplier side including: CNW Group (formerly Canada Newswire) as Director, Media Intelligence Services; Bell Canada as Associate Director of Corporate Communication, and ING Canada as Marketing Communications Specialist.
Alan is a graduate of the University of Waterloo and holds a post-graduate certificate in public relations from Ryerson University and an M.A. in communication and culture from York University with research focusing on media effects and uses, audience analysis, reception studies and best practices in PR management and measurement. Alan teaches a course in research and program evaluation in Ryerson University’s post-graduate PR certificate program and is a member of the Canadian Public Relations Society’s Measurement Committee.