Why you should be using media monitoring
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Since the internet is a source of information covering any and all topics, as well as home to countless social media channels, gathering the data can be one of the essential steps to success. Data-driven approach to growth is currently taking the world by storm. Such an approach helps companies with getting tons of insights about the market and their business’s performance.
Nowadays, competition among businesses is fiercer than ever, as new startups emerge constantly. For this reason, management has to use up all of the aces up their sleeves to make sure that they’re not left behind. One of such tricks is media monitoring.
What is media monitoring?
While the practice of media monitoring goes well beyond the digital world, it’s going to be the main focal point of this article. Using software to scour through mentions is the best way of acquiring insights and data. Imagine going newspaper by newspaper or TV programme by TV programme looking for your name. Not to mention writing it all down, and then analysing it. This method is outdated, as there are far better ways of practising media monitoring, namely through the use of tools.
Now, media monitoring is all about listening to the right things and sources. A fair bit of the mentions will come from social media. These are mostly posts written by your regular customers, and I think that they’re the most valuable. Next up, there is media coverage. Looking up what the bloggers’ or the press’s opinion on your business is can prove to be useful. And that’s basically it.
How to use media monitoring to your advantage?
There are a couple of ways of doing that, and to maximise the potential, I’d advise you to use all of these methods.
Your company
Setting up the software to track the mentions of your brand is probably the most plain, although it brings the most benefits. Make sure to include all of the possible spellings of either your name or your brand so that you won’t miss anything.
One of the senior associates at LVBet, Andrew Martins, says that media monitoring has been their go-to method: “We’ve been using media monitoring for a few years now, and the insights we’ve gathered both from tracking our brand and our competitors have proven to be vital for our marketing processes.”
Competition
Monitoring your competitors can prove to be tremendously useful in terms of devising your own plan for marketing and digital PR. If they use a particular tactic, the chances are that it simply works.
Industry
Keeping an eye on your industry’s most popular hashtags and topics can get you the information about the newest trends and hot topics. Acting upon that and joining the discussions can improve your brand awareness, as well as help establish you as an expert and find prominent influencers.
What are the benefits?
PR crisis mitigation
The fact that you’re instantly notified of any sudden changes in the sentiment of your tracked keywords lets you react to any crises instantly. Quick response to any blunders can cushion any possible damage that could be caused by whatever has happened. Remember, the quicker you react, the better the chance of nipping the issue in the bud.
Interaction with your customers
A healthy community can make or break your business. Going with media monitoring helps you keep an eye on new trends and participate in the discussion, mostly on social media. This, in turn, can create the image of you being everywhere, hence establishing you as an expert in the industry. This further improves your personal and business brand, as you become more recognisable among your audience.
Being proactive with your customers helps with building loyalty, and allows you to better retain them. Whenever they ask a question, make a complaint, or praise your product, make sure to respond to that to the best of your ability. This makes your clients feel appreciated and taken care of properly. Besides, not doing so can make you come across as not invested in what you’re doing.
Gathering actionable insights and feedback
At times, your customers’ comments about you can provide you with top-quality advice. Whether it’s the issues they’re pointing out, suggestions for features, or simply praising your current product; you can always draw from it. In fact, you are what your customers say you are. Making sure that you can fulfil their requirements and being proactive about can be remarkably beneficial.
Analysing the feedback you get can give you an idea of what features or improvements are the most requested. This can also help you identify your strong sides so that you can build upon them.
Finding out the sentiment
Oftentimes media monitoring tools offer a feature called sentiment analysis. It consists of the evaluation of any mentions of your business and assigning them either positive, negative, or neutral sentiment. This helps with analysing data in bulk. Sentiment analysis can also prove to be helpful when looking up what emotions people feel towards a certain topic. This, in turn, can assist you in finding out the latest trends.
Getting content ideas
Riding the wave of current trends can give you ideas for fresh content. See what your competition and industry leaders are writing about and do the same. Only better.
Audience analysis
Media monitoring is one of the elements of understanding your target audience. See how they behave, know what kind of language they use, and find out what sentiment towards certain things they have. This allows you to communicate with them much better, which is all what PR, in essence, is.
Influencer identification
Looking into who your industry’s most renowned influencers are, opens you to many possibilities. Striking a partnership with one of them is currently one of the most effective ways of promoting your business. See who writes about your competition. If they can write about them, they can write about you just as well; they just need a proper incentive to do it.
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