3 Reasons to Implement a Media Monitoring Program Before It’s Too Late
Understanding your media presence is critical for all organizations, from massive consumer companies to tiny B2B consultancies. Read on for some compelling reasons to implement a media monitoring program today.
Media monitoring: The basics
By media monitoring, I mean a regular program to monitor discussions in the news that are relevant to your organization. Until recently, “media” referred to the newspaper. Today, the breadth of media that you should be tracking includes broadcast news, podcasts, social media, and yes, the old fashioned newspaper.
As a media strategist, I’m looking for the following in a basic media monitoring program:
Mentions of your company
Mentions of your competitors
Pertinent topics impacting your industry
How often you collect this data, what media you track, how it’s reported out to leadership, and how many resources you dedicate to this activity will vary by organization, but no matter what, everyone needs a media monitoring program!
Why You Need a Media Monitoring Program in Place
Reason #1 - Deer in the Headlights
A huge risk to your organization is being caught off guard by your name in the news. The risk isn’t limited to your brand either: I’ve seen people fired for failing to flag to the C-Suite that their company was depicted in a prominent news outlet in a very unfavorable light.
If only for your own job security, at a bare minimum, you must monitor your company’s name in the media in real time. Ideally, your organization has a thoughtful program in place where this job is a clearly defined internal or outsourced activity. If your company doesn’t have a plan in place, don’t be the victim of a lack of preparedness. When a media crisis arises, anyone’s job can be on the chopping block. Don’t be the deer in the headlights!
Reason #2 - Competitive Intelligence
News and social media are rich, timely sources of intel on your competitors. And that information can impact a number of departments in your organization. Let’s take an ice cream shop as an example - yes, even a mom-and-pop ice cream shop should be monitoring the media!
A local newspaper reports an area competitor is opening a new ice cream shop within a few blocks of your flagship store. The story generates buzz on social media; posts express excitement over the new store, citing a lack of good ice cream options in the area.
What did we learn? First, a new competitor in your area is going to impact demand for your ice cream. Whoever is in charge of financials needs to know this information ASAP to adjust budgets and projections. You’ll probably want to order less product in the first month the new store opens in anticipation of a drop in demand.
Second, by monitoring the reaction on social media, we learn that our store has a branding issue. People either don’t know we’re in the neighborhood or they don’t view us as a “quality” ice cream option. You need to correct this image problem before the competitor opens shop.
Without a regular media monitoring program in place, you’d lose precious time to react to this kind of competitive development. If you wait until the new store starts running ads for a free scoop on opening day, you’re too late.
Reason #3 - Newsjacking
When a news story or social media trend arises that relates to your business, you have a very small but highly effective opportunity to use the narrative to your advantage. Especially when news journalists are involved, the fact that they are reporting on your niche space means they have freshly researched your industry and demonstrated willingness to write about your issue. You can capitalize on this moment and get your organization’s perspective in the limelight, if you react quickly. Here’s an example of how this could play out for a an animal shelter:
A national news outlet publishes an exposé on puppy mills in your neighboring state. Everyone loves puppies and most people dislike puppy mills, so naturally this story is trending. Meanwhile, your organization implemented a novel puppy mill rescue program two years ago that had a meaningful impact on the number of mills in your state, but unfortunately the journalist did not make mention of your positive work in the space.
Strike while the iron is HOT! Just as with the ice cream example, you have a very, very small window to tell your anti-puppy mill story while the world is paying attention to your issue. People move on from these kinds of news stories within a day or two, because the news cycle moves quickly. If you have a media monitoring program in place, that news piece will reach your desk in time to do something about it and you’ll already be familiar with local and national journalists and influencers covering the topic - reach out to them right away and tell your story. If you wait for the news to organically show up in your Instagram feed, you will have missed the boat.
You’re convinced, now what?
Putting a media monitoring program into action isn’t easy, but hopefully these few examples highlight the value of those efforts. If you’re ready to implement a plan, you have options. You can bootstrap it with free tools like Google alerts, pay for software designed specifically for this kind of work, or manage it all by hand.
If you’re interested in doing it all in-house, but don’t know where to start, talk to a strategic media firm like ELM Communications for a consultation on setting up the best plan for your business. Or if you’re ready to outsource the whole shebang, we can help with that too.
