media update’s Aisling McCarthy looks at why media monitoring is a good investment for anyone working in the PR industry.
What is media monitoring?
Media monitoring is the process of reading, watching or listening to the content of media sources on a continual basis. Although media monitoring is traditionally used to capture editorial content, it can also be used to track the publication of adverts and social media.
As different mediums in the media become more digitised, media monitoring services have had to adapt to the changes and offer traditional media monitoring, as well as digital and social media monitoring.
Media monitoring offers you the hard data; that is, the number of mentions online, where your adverts have been placed and when your editorial content has been posted. By using this information, you can analyse the data to find insights about your content, your industry and the brands that you manage.
Media monitoring can help you:
1. Manage your brand reputation
Do you know what people – including your potential clients – think of your brand or a brand you are managing?
With so many media channels to keep track of, it might seem impossible to know exactly what people are saying about your brand.
A media monitoring service solves this problem by notifying you of all mentions of your brand on media channels. It tracks not only print and digital publications and websites, but also radio and television broadcasts – so you’re fully in the know.
Business reputation doesn’t happen accidentally. With the information you gain from the monitoring process, you’ll be able to identify if there is a need for more publicity. This is your opportunity to create and distribute content that will change how media audiences perceive your brand.
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2. Measure your PR strategy
A good PR strategy will ensure that your brand gets publicity, help build your brand’s reputation and prepare your team for addressing any PR crisis.
Media monitoring provides you with information that you can use to improve every aspect of this strategy, including:
Your brand messaging
Is your brand message coming across correctly in the media? A look at the media coverage that your service provider found will show you if reporters are referring to your brand and solutions correctly.
This information allows you to tweak your PR strategy. If the media is not relaying your brand messages correctly, you need to incorporate initiatives into your plan that will help your messaging come across more clearly.
Your reach
Media monitoring will allow you to see if you have reached the correct media titles, target audience and regions.
How does it do that? It will show you which media titles published your press release, allowing you to easily identify the publications and stations that didn’t publish it. Use this information to modify your press release distribution list and ensure it aligns with your target market.
A good service provider will also show you exactly what was published. You’ll be able to see if the media title cut down the information in it significantly. If this is happening, you might need to re-evaluate the way you write your press releases. Are you including too much jargon or technical information? Could your press releases be shorter and punchier?
With media monitoring, you’ll also be able to find out if you’re reaching the right regions. If your coverage did not get to all the communities you targeted, you’ll need to consider expanding your media contacts list or building stronger media relationships in relevant areas.
Multi-channel coverage
If you reached out to media titles across different media channels, but your content is only being featured in one or two of these channels, you need tweak your strategy.
Adapt your PR content so that it will appeal to the media channels you’re not getting coverage from.
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3. Track your PR campaigns
How do you know if your latest PR campaign met all its objectives? To start, you’ll need a comprehensive view of all the media coverage your campaign generated.
A media monitoring or brand tracking service can find all the mentions of your campaign and marketing messages across traditional media channels and online websites. Use this information to check if your brand is generating enough publicity, getting coverage in the right media titles and if it’s being portrayed positively.
Tracking your campaign can help you identify if it’s meeting all its required targets and, if it isn’t, allows you to make changes mid-campaign.
Without tracking the progress of your campaign, you’ll miss out on any spikes in media coverage and you won’t know which elements to replicate or avoid in future.
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4. Drive crisis communication
When a PR crisis strikes a brand, it can take many different forms:
- Customers disliking your new offering,
- Consumers taking offence to your marketing material, or
- News breaks about a problem in your company or a scandal involving an employee.
Knowing how to communicate to the media and the public about these incidents is vital. Before you can contain a crisis, you actually need to know that it’s happening.
This is where media monitoring becomes
extremely helpful.
Detecting a looming crisis
A good service provider will deliver articles, blog posts, audio and video clips mentioning your brand to you as soon as the information is made public.
This helps you detect negative coverage as the news breaks, giving you a head start on containing the crisis and minimising damage to your brand.
Addressing a PR nightmare
At times, a PR nightmare grows despite your best efforts to stem the flow of information from newsroom to newsroom or blog to blog.
Don’t stop tracking your coverage! You need to keep up with the story as it evolves and make information available to the public as new facts and rumours are reported.
Learning from your experiences
Your media monitoring service can also help you prepare for potential crises. Use it to see how much negative media coverage you received and whether media outlets picked up your crisis communications.
Use the lessons you learnt to improve your crisis communication plan, outlining best practices and media contacts that have proved helpful in sharing your announcements.
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