BOSTON, Mass. – February 21, 2013 – PAN Communications, a public relations and digital media leader driving communications strategy for technology, consumer and healthcare industries, announced that Jessica Payne (@jpaynebu), the firm’s Director of Digital Strategy, was selected to be a panelist at the PR News’ Digital PR Summit (#digitalpr) taking place in San Francisco on Wednesday, February 27.

The session, titled “Measure the Effectiveness of Your Social Media Programs,” will be an interactive how-to discussion around setting goals and measurable objectives for social media programs, with a focus on the impact of social media instead of on vanity metrics and developing ROI models that will help get budgets approved.

Also sharing the panel with Jessica is Jennifer Burnham, Director, Social and Content Strategy at Salesforce.com. Together, they will speak about:

• Aligning the impact and value of your social media initiatives with organizational objectives
• Defining social media outcomes in advance, spanning multiple business goals
• Limiting the definition of “ROI” to measurable financial impact
• Calculating value in positive returns (sales, reputation, etc.) or avoided negative returns (risk mitigated, costs avoided)
• Developing KPIs & balanced scorecards to connect social media impact to business results/language
• Integrating analysis (social, search, Google Analytics) to provide a richer environment for insights

“Digital measurement and proving ROI remains a provocative topic steeped heavily in theory and not practical advice,” said Jessica Payne, director of digital strategy at PAN. “I’m thrilled to participate in a practical discussion focused on providing a hands-on, how-to approach to measurement.”

About PAN Communications

With an expertise in content creation, PAN Communications is an award-winning public relations agency that utilizes all media and disciplines to increase awareness and opportunities to achieve our clients’ business objectives. As an integrated communications partner to innovative companies that lead their industries or those that aspire to, PAN drives strategic public relations for consumer, technology and healthcare brands. For more information visit our website at www.pancommunications.com, follow us on Twitter (@PANcomm) or call 617.502.4300.