In the era of the digital age, the media landscape is both more dynamic and more challenging than ever. Companies are faced with the task of not only tracking their presence in online media, but also understanding how this presence affects their image, products and competitiveness. Which media are reporting on your company? Is your product being talked about on social networks? What is being said about your competitors and how do they appear in the media? To communicate successfully for your company, you need answers to these questions. Good media monitoring will help you to find them.
What is media monitoring?
Media monitoring involves analysing and evaluating a company’s presence in online media and is an essential part of a modern communication strategy. This involves systematically analysing various online media such as news portals, magazines and online versions of daily newspapers, as well as print media, radio and TV. As part of media monitoring, these media are searched for defined keywords in order to collect relevant information for the company. This information is crucial for adapting online marketing to current developments and the needs of the target group. Questions such as:
What is the media presence of my company?
How is my brand or product being reported on?
How is my campaign being received by my target group?
And which topics are currently relevant?
In the digital age, the way in which media monitoring is carried out has changed considerably. Whereas press reviews used to be compiled manually in the early hours of the morning, companies now use digital and partially automated processes. These digital methods collect relevant information and news and present it in clearly organised snippets. This gives the company a comprehensive overview of important events and reports.
Why is media monitoring so important?
Customer and stakeholder analysis
A strong brand identity is a valuable asset. Media monitoring helps companies to understand what people think about their brand and how high their brand awareness is. Real-time reports make it possible to track the distribution and reception of their brand messages. These insights are crucial to continuously optimise communication and make it more effective. By analysing feedback, companies can better respond to the needs and expectations of their customers and stakeholders and build and maintain long-term relationships.
Reputation and crisis management
Media monitoring plays a crucial role in crisis management. By tracking positive and negative discussions, companies can react quickly to potential crises. Monitoring tools notify you immediately via alerts when your brand is mentioned in journalistic or social media so that quick and effective action can be taken. This allows you to minimise potential damage to your reputation and maintain customer trust.
Trend and competition analysis
Media monitoring allows companies to stay informed about the latest developments in their industry and recognise future trends. Good monitoring often includes competitive intelligence, which allows you to assess your own performance, identify strengths and weaknesses and learn from the best practices and mistakes of your competitors.
Methods of media monitoring
Companies can carry out media monitoring themselves or commission an external service provider. If a company’s media presence is manageable, the costs for a service provider are usually not worthwhile. However, if there are regular and frequent mentions in the media, a service provider can save a lot of work. Free tools such as Google Alerts and Talkwalker Alerts are useful for simple media monitoring, but can quickly become confusing for more extensive requirements. CURE Intelligence offers comprehensive monitoring of relevant channels, identification of trends and deep-dive analyses for a better understanding of your online reputation.
In a classic press clipping, for example, the analysts use monitoring tools to check in which media the company has been mentioned. These results are thoroughly checked and categorised according to relevance and priority. Relevant results are then compiled by the responsible employees in a media review. These clippings contain a short excerpt of the article or post with date and source. The finished media review is made available to the company, either by e-mail or dashboard, as required. Press reviews and analyses can be created at different intervals – daily, quarterly or annually – depending on individual information requirements. The scope also varies according to customer requirements and can be customised.
Step by step to successful media monitoring
Media monitoring can be carried out in various ways and depends on the requirements of a company. The following steps should be considered for successful media monitoring:
Defining the objectives: What information should be captured? Which topics or events should be monitored? Which questions should be answered? Defining the objectives helps to determine the focus of media monitoring.
Selection of sources: The next step is to select the relevant media sources, such as print articles (printed newspapers and magazines), online media (social networks, blogs) or radio and television stations, and divide them into groups if necessary.
Recording media content: Nowadays, the capture of media content can be automated using specialised tools and platforms. The selected sources are searched for relevant information.
Filtering and categorisation: Media content must be filtered and categorised either manually or with the help of algorithms and AI-supported tools. Filters such as date, source, topic or companies mentioned can be applied here to facilitate the analysis.
Analysing the media content: The captured media content is then evaluated using qualitative and quantitative methods, such as sentiment analyses or topic clusters.
Creation of reports: Based on the results of the analysis, reports are created that summarise the most important findings. These reports are used internally to provide information on media presence and perception or for external reports that are presented to customers or stakeholders.
Conclusion
The media landscape is subject to constant change, which brings both challenges and opportunities for companies. Media monitoring enables companies to feel the pulse of the media landscape and recognise trends and developments at an early stage. Modern technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning make it possible to analyse large volumes of data faster and more precisely. This makes media monitoring more efficient and less error-prone than in the past. Companies that utilise these technologies can strengthen their brand identity, respond better to crises, identify market trends and continuously improve their communications. Ultimately, effective media monitoring is essential for any organisation striving for long-term success.
