The Digital Age
The digitalization of the media industry in the last couple of years has led to a major increase in the number of publications produced on a daily basis and rapidly-changind media consumption patterns. Facing the endless sea of information one of the biggest challenges for modern-day PR and marketing specialists is how to monitor, measure and analyze all the content out there that is relevant. It’s impossible to track manually all broadcast, online and social media mentions and conversations. That’s why companies appreciate the value of media monitoring services. But how to choose a media monitoring tool that suits your needs best?
Why You Need a Media Monitoring Tool?
If you want to make sure that your collaboration with a provider of a media monitoring tool would be a success, you need to set clear goals and expectations for this partnership.
Do you want to know what people are saying about your company and products? Do you need to know more about your competitors or even the whole industry? Are you curious to detect the opinion leaders and influencers in your industry? Or maybe you need an accurate evaluation of your marketing and PR campaigns?
Once you know your “Why?”, find a provider that has a solid track record with cases similar to yours. Тhe best providers on the market would easily serve all your needs.
Choose Your Coverage
Traditionally, media monitoring solutions are separated into three major groups:
- Online media monitoring that covers websites, blogs, and forums
- Social media monitoring that works with data from social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
- Traditional media monitoring that is based on content from traditional media sources such as TV, radio & print media outlets
Furthermore, you should also consider the geographical coverage of your provider. Even though most of the companies cover the most popular languages and markets, when it comes to more specific niches the coverage between one provider and another would most likely deviate substantially.
Luckily, there are solutions such as Sensika that cover all of the available media channels that are relevant to you. At the same time, you can feel confident that you never miss a relevant piece with our wide language coverage of over 160 languages and constantly updated list of more than 450k sources.
Media Monitoring Tool or DIY?
Depending on the size of your team and the complexity of your media monitoring needs, you could either go for a self-service media monitoring tool or opt to receive complete media monitoring reports, prepared by a team of specialists.
Most media monitoring providers have in-house teams of specialists who could dive deep in certain topics and apply their comprehensive knowledge about the media landscape to give you the answers to all your questions.
During your selection process, look for a company that has dedicated domain experts, experienced in your specific field.
Money Talks
When you are choosing your provider, make sure that what you get really offers you the best price-performance ration. After all, as the saying goes “money doesn’t grow on trees”.
The coverage, the number of topics, and the complexity of your needs are some of the things that would have an impact on the financial parameters of the offers that you would get. However, a thousand more hidden benefits go under the radar, such as ease of usage, customizability, and the possibility to rely on a team of experts who would guide you on every step of the process. Make sure that you also consider these when you are choosing your media monitoring tool as they could be a game changer.
P.S. One Last Thing
Remember that when it comes to media monitoring tools one size does not fit all – explore and compare all of the available solutions on the market. We would be more than happy to show you the capabilities of Sensika, so go ahead book your demo and let us impress you with Sensika’s capabilities.
