What Is Media Monitoring?

Decades ago, organizations had to manually sift through countless newspapers, TV, and radio stations to track media coverage of their brand. Today, media monitoring software simplifies this process, allowing you to keep track of thousands of channels at once. However, the complexity of online media makes it essential to use the right tools to monitor and analyze brand mentions effectively.

With media monitoring software, you can easily track how, when, and where your brand is being discussed. In addition, tools allow you to gain valuable insights into online conversations about your brand, competitors, and even industry trends. With these insights, you can craft a more effective communications strategy based on real-time data.

The combined power of monitoring and analytics unlocks a broad variety of use cases, such as:

• Brand monitoring
• Competitive analysis
• Reputation management
• Crisis management
• Influencer identification
• Campaign tracking and analysis
• Market and industry research
• Customer sentiment analysis
• Media measurement and ROI calculation

Why Tracking Brand Mentions is Key to Measuring Marketing Performance

PR and earned media can drive massive amounts of traffic to a website and generate highly effective word-of-mouth marketing. If this results in negative coverage, however, it can be very destructive and spread quickly.

It's also highly beneficial for organizations to track other terms aside from their own brand. By using specially chosen keywords, for instance, organizations can watch areas of interest. So, a non-profit for Alzheimer's patients, for example, can catch all the latest news and chatter on the disease, cures, care, and other related topics.

Organizations may also want to monitor competition. With this information, it's possible to know what competitors are up to, what their target audience says about them, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and who they're marketing to. This knowledge will help organizations compete, but it's also a great way to spot opportunities.

What to look for in a media intelligence or social listening tool

When selecting a media monitoring tool, you want one that provides real-time updates, crisis management features, and audience insights. Look for a solution that allows you to track brand mentions across social media, news sites, and blogs, while also giving you the ability to perform competitive analysis and measure customer sentiment.

1. The type of media that should be monitored

Media monitoring is more than just news monitoring. One of the first things you should look for is the ability to monitor all relevant news sources in real time and across every channel. One free way to get started is using Google Alerts but if you're a larger organization, you'll find that you'll quickly outgrow it.

Most enterprise media monitoring tools allow you to track media coverage in television, online news/blogs, podcasts, and social media channels. Specialty media monitoring tools watch alternative sources such as government feeds to find legislation changes, email newsletters, or even provide dark web monitoring.

2. The ability to provide context

Media monitoring tools need to do more than just find information using a name, keyword, or organization name. They need to provide additional information such as the context the mentions were made in and a link to the source. Some specialty tools, such as PeakMetrics, can also provide you valuable information on how credible a particular source is, the target audiences that are engaging with a particular narrative, or information on the journalist or influencer that wrote a particular article.

3. Audience insights, social media analytics, and earned media measurement

You should look for capabilities around analytics and insights that enable you to understand your media performance, customer sentiment, and industry trends. It may help to independently think about how you need weight particular coverage or media hits and understand the types of insights you require.

For example, do you need to understand the if a particular article is trending on social media? Is tracking volume of coverage over time important to you? We're also particularly fond of share of voice comparisons, so you can track how you perform against competitors.

3. Customizable reports, alerts and notifications

You should be able to receive real-time notifications when your brand is mentioned or when there are changes in your industry or market. More powerful tools allow you to create extremely complex notifications so you can focus on the content that matters. As an example, you may only want to receive a notification when an influential user posts about you so you can proactively respond and protect your brand reputation.

4. User-friendly interface & API availability

Finally, you should look for a media monitoring tool that is user-friendly, intuitive, and easy to use. For more complex use cases, it is also helpful to work with a platform that provides an easy-to-integrate API so you can centralize your marketing data strategy.

In conclusion, media monitoring and analytics are crucial for organizations in today's digital landscape and are more than a tool for public relations professionals.

A good media monitoring tool can help you stay on top of industry trends, monitor your brand and competitors, and provide valuable insights that inform your communications strategy.

FAQs:

• What is media monitoring software?
  Media monitoring software tracks brand mentions across different platforms, including social media, news websites, and podcasts, helping you stay informed about how your brand is perceived.

• How does media monitoring benefit crisis management?
  In a crisis, timely insights from media monitoring can help your team respond to negative coverage or misinformation before it escalates.

In today's fast-paced digital world, media monitoring and analytics tools are essential for staying ahead of the curve. Whether you’re monitoring brand mentions, tracking competitors, or navigating crises, the right software can provide invaluable insights to refine your strategy. Explore how media monitoring tools can elevate your brand’s communication strategy and drive better outcomes for your business.

Looking to implement media monitoring in your organization? Let's connect.