Three ways to integrate media monitoring into your PR strategy

28 Aug 2020

Industry Insights
Have you ever found yourself in the midst of a PR disaster, where you are left wondering, ‘how did I wind up in this position and how can I prevent this from ever happening again?’ Enter media monitoring

This solution utilises machine learning, keyword tracking and sophisticated algorithms to track and organise media mentions. In a PR context, however, this just scratches the surface of the many ways media monitoring can be integrated into your strategy.

Ready to learn more?

Here are three reasons why media monitoring should form part of your PR strategy:

1. Media monitoring can help you measure the success of your PR campaigns

The first way that you can utilise media monitoring in PR is by using it to measure the success of any campaigns you have running. 

This is done through campaign keyword tracking, which allows you to track the keywords surrounding campaigns and product launches. This is helpful because you can chop and change your strategies based on customer feedback and the insights you gain from the data monitoring provides. 

Assessing your performance is crucial to your growth as it helps you to gain insight into what’s working and what isn't. This insight is important because if you are not receiving the desired results from your efforts, something needs to change. 

2. It can help to improve your client relations 

Caring for a brand’s reputation is a responsibility that falls largely on the shoulders of the PR department.

A brand’s reputation goes hand-in-hand with how successful they are, as this is what helps consumers decide whether they can trust your brand or not.

Media monitoring services can help you build a good reputation because it allows you to understand the public perception of your brand.

Additionally, media monitoring can help you to elaborate on your reputation management plan because the data acquired from brand tracking offers insight into what your audience is saying about you and where this conversation is taking place.

This allows you to proactively mitigate any crises smoothly as you are able to stay on top of it and the discourse around it.

This is done via media monitoring services and content analysis, which analyses where content has been placed, what is being said about it and the time at which discussions about the content were held.

And, as mentioned in the first point, corporate keyword tracking provides you with further insight as it monitors mentions of your company, giving you an idea of how consumers perceive your brand.

3. It helps you identify influencers and journalists

If you are struggling to identify which journalists would be most receptive to your press releases, or which influencers you should target for future campaigns, media monitoring may have all the answers you need.

Utilising these services can help you to keep track of all editorial coverage surrounding your brand. 

Additionally, technologies such as natural language processing and sentiment analysis help you gain insight into your targeted audiences’ sentiment towards a particular topic online, and whether it is positive or negative.

Once you have this information you will be able to identify:
  • Journalists in your market or industry and whose opinions are valued with your target audience
  • Influencers with large followings in your industry
In essence, media monitoring and public relations go hand in hand and utilising these services will just help to strengthen your public perception and build a stronger brand over time.
For more on the dynamic between PR and media monitoring, be sure to check out Three reasons why all businesses need a reputation management plan.