Hughes blog post: The importance of media monitoring

In an industry where a major measurement indicator is media coverage, there’s a lot to cover.

Wikipedia claims there are 519 newspapers in Australia, and hundreds more magazines and specialty publications.

And that’s just the print media. When you include broadcast (television and radio) and online (news sites, blogs and social media) – most of which are broadcasting 24 hours a day, seven days a week – it’s no wonder that organisations that have a presence in the media find it impossible to keep track of it all.

At Hughes Public Relations, we use media monitoring tools to track what the media is saying about our clients, their industry, their competitors, and their stakeholders. This requirement to get on top of it all applies to both traditional media and “new media” (online). While the methods used to monitor each type of media differ, the core requirement remains the same – ensure that the coverage is relevant, timely and accurate.

We work closely with one of Australia’s largest media monitoring companies to deliver up to date results on client news – which requires refinement and review as news evolves.

Once we’ve used media monitoring tools to gather mentions of keywords, organisation names and industry news, it’s important to make sense of it all. Questions to be asked include: Does the media coverage show that we communicated effectively to our target audiences? Does the media coverage contain our key messages? Does the media coverage include quotes from our spokesperson, or a competitor?

At Hughes PR, we’re advocates of using a qualitative method to measure media coverage. To say “we achieved X number of mentions” or “the advertising value of the media coverage was X” often doesn’t look at the true “value” of the coverage. Value comes not from quantitative measure, but from analysis of the way the message was communicated.

For us, media monitoring is a vital tool to keep track of our results, report to clients, and keep us abreast of what is happening in the client’s industry.

And for a giggle, here’s a clip from the television program Wilfred, where Adam explains his job as a media monitor. (We’re pretty sure there’s more to it than that.)

- Kate Potter