9 Things You’re Not Doing (But Should) With Media Monitoring Software

Editor’s Note: This post was updated on 03/27/18.

Do you know what clients and prospects are saying about you in real-time? How about the media, bloggers or influencers?

If you answered “no” to either question, you may be missing a media monitoring software in your communication strategy, or underutilizing your current platform.

But these aren’t the only tasks a monitoring system can help you complete. Check out the following ways you can get more out of a media monitoring solution.

1. Gain Actionable Competitive Intelligence

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Input the names of your competitors into a media monitoring system to get a pulse on their presence, key audiences and coverage. Do a brand vs. brand analysis of Share of Voice month over month to show progress towards mindshare or continued dominance.

Lose mindshare? Analyze the conversations your competitor is leading that differ from what your brand has been doing, and identify ways to improve. Unusual increase or decrease in coverage? Monitor competitive coverage to keep an eye on their presence and brand happenings, identifying what in their comms strategy that is working or not working for your industry.

2. Find “Buying Signals” And New Selling Opportunities

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With a little creative keyword searching, you can easily find people looking to purchase your product or service. Simply identify terms people may use when they’re in the different stages of the buying journey: Awareness, Research, Consideration, Comparison, Purchase, Advocacy, and input those as searches.

For example – say you’re a luxury cosmetics brand. Here are some possible prospect conversations that might occur on the web:

• Awareness: “Anyone know of a high-quality, cruelty-free and organic makeup?”
• Research: “What’s the best high-end cosmetic brand?”
• Consideration: “Just found out about [Cosmetic company name]. Anyone use it? Like it?”
• Comparison: “[Your cosmetic company name] versus [Competitor cosmetic company name] – which is better?
• Purchase: “Just bought my first lipstick from [Cosmetic company name] and I can’t wait to try it!”
• Advocacy: “Loved the hydrating texture of the [Cosmetic company name] lipstick and shipping was quick. Now my new favorite brand!”

In order to capture those conversations, you would input the following search terms (and as many related search terms as possible) into your media monitoring system to capture prospects at those stages of the buying cycle:

• Awareness: “luxury cosmetics” or “organic cosmetics” or “organic makeup” or “cruelty-free makeup”
• Research:“best cosmetic brand” or “best makeup brand” or “preferred cosmetic brand” “favorite makeup brand”
• Consideration: “experience [company name]” or “like [company name]” or  “use [company name]” or “know about [company name]”
• Comparison: “[Company name]” and “versus” or “vs” (or simply input your competitors’ brand names)
• Purchase: “bought” or “purchase” or “buy” or “buying” [company name or industry or product category]
• Advocacy: “like” or “love” or “happy” or “great” or “glad” etc. + [company name]

Find someone in the Awareness, Research, Consideration or Comparison stage? Those are now prospects you should reach out to. Find someone in the Purchase or Advocacy stage? Those are clients — put them in an advocacy program to keep them coming back for more.

3. Track Sentiment

Brand reputation management is a critical part of any PR strategy. By accurately documenting the percentage of positive, negative and neutral conversations associated with your brand, you can identify whether your messages are resonating (positive), opportunities to resolve an issue that might be affecting prospects or clients (negative) and generally just if audiences are talking about you (neutral).

Keeping the negative percentage steady or decreasing while the positive percentage is steady or increasing should be a priority.

4. Identify Trending Conversations

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Media monitoring isn’t just useful for your brand and competitors. You can also use it to find industry conversations that you may be missing out on or emerging trends. Maybe there’s a new term, or hashtag, for your industry that’s getting popular you aren’t aware of, or a new need that’s arising from your target audience. These conversations can hold new media, influencers, competitors and prospects to engage with.

5. Monitor Shifts in Media Channels And Audience Platforms

Your media monitoring platform should dissect for you which platforms the conversations you’re monitoring primarily take place on, giving you valuable insight into which networks or mediums you should dedicate the most time to.

However, over time the platforms may shift due to the changing preferences of your audience, and emerging new audiences or networks. Use your monitoring platform to regularly conduct a media channel analysis. Identify these shifts and adjust your monitoring and engagement strategy accordingly so you don’t miss any relevant conversations.

6. Correlate And Replicate Activities That Drive Upticks in Conversation

When you see spikes, an alarm should go off in your head that tags that as an opportunity. Why did conversation spike, and what was the topic? Was it positive or negative? Who or what was involved?

Take lessons from that peak in conversation and create a follow-up campaign that aligns with your objectives but borrows tactics from that event to create more peaks and more conversation.

7. Discover New Influencers

Media monitoring can reveal influencers, bloggers and media not currently on your target list as relevant to conversations happening about your industry or brand.

If you see someone engaging in related content that you haven’t yet researched or engaged, add them to a new media list. Then, discover more about them and start creating a new relationship through engagement.

8. Look Closer at The Demographics of Engaged Audiences

Demographic information provided by your media monitoring system can help you build personas for your clients and prospects. Getting a grasp on not only age, gender and location but also occupations, interests and preferences can inform your content strategy and help you hone in on messaging that resonates more with those personas.

9. Don’t Forget About Unbranded, Industry Searches

Don’t just monitor for your brand name. Also monitor for key industry terms, their volume, and take note of any shifts in conversation. Those changes could indicate an evolution that needs to happen in your comms strategy to resonate with the right audiences.

You can also do an industry mindshare comparison that shows how much total industry conversation there is, and what percent of that industry conversation you “own” as a brand. Document the change in percentage month over month while focusing on increasing your brand’s percentage of mindshare to demonstrate growth.

When monitoring what’s important to your brand, don’t forget to analyze the data and look deeper. What do the trends and themes mean? How can what was measured last month be used to guide strategy for the following month? Keeping an agile mindset and adjusting your PR strategy in real-time will keep you on top of conversations that garner media coverage and new revenue opportunities.

Does Your Media Monitoring Software do All of This?

To accomplish these tasks you need media monitoring technology that delivers. Download The Ultimate Media Monitoring Buyer’s Guide to find the solution that’s right for you.