What’s the best way to monitor media coverage?
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By Kayleigh Fitch, guest blogger
While there are several tactics you can use to successfully monitor media coverage, the method you choose will largely depend on the media you are targeting.
For large-scale campaigns targeting national print and online media, professional monitoring services like BurrellesLuce or Cision are the most effective and time-efficient way to monitor print coverage from thousands of newspapers, magazines, newsletters, web sites and blogs. These services can be costly, but considerably less than the time you will spend monitoring thousands of newspapers, magazines, web sites and blogs. Professional monitoring services are also a good option if you plan to monitor international publications.
If a professional monitoring service doesn’t fit your budget but you still want to monitor print media coverage, focus your attention on the most influential publications for your target audience. Maintain a detailed media call log with records of communications to reporters. If a reporter plans to run your story or has interviewed your company’s spokesperson, you can ask when the story is set to run and order a copy of the magazine or newspaper.
If your media relations efforts are primarily focused on online media, use online tracking services like Google Alerts, and Google News. Be sure to include quotation marks around keyword phrases, names or multi-word company names. Search for keywords you believe may appear in the article’s headline. Also, try searching for your spokesperson’s name or company name in quotation marks. This is a cost-effective approach, but not necessarily foolproof; you will not capture all the coverage you are looking for and you will have to wade through lots of extraneous coverage that does not apply.
For media relations campaigns focused on radio and television stations, use a broadcast monitoring service. National services like VMS Digital will monitor for selected keywords at no cost and provide you with the video/audio clips when they are identified; however, the clips can be expensive.
When developing a strategy for monitoring media coverage, consider the types of media your campaign targets, costs of professional services, the time you are willing to invest and how important it is to obtain copies of every media clip.
For questions or help getting and monitoring media coverage, contact me at 440.333.0001 ext. 105 or kayleigh at sweeneypr.com.
