When looking for a media monitoring service, most PR practitioners are correctly focussed on the functionality of the tool itself. But before you sign up for a service, it is important to understand parts of your agreement, such as how renewals are handled, security features, and how the firm sources the media materials it provides.
These areas of consideration probably will not impact your day-to-day use of the platform, that is true. However, they could impact your relationship with your media monitoring vendor. Time spent wrangling with your monitoring vendor over an unanticipated—and large—bill that was automatically renewed is time that you are not spending on meeting your business goals.
Here are some important elements of your contract and terms to consider and ask about, before you sign a contract.
Terms and Renewals
How is content sourced?
Data quality is paramount, and how information is sourced matters. There are two basic methodologies of content sourcing: either a monitoring company uses its own technology to source data, or it uses an off-the-shelf program that feeds into its platform. A company that uses its own technology will have more control over things such as search frequency, or adding new sources. Using an off-the-shelf program means that the monitoring company is dependent on a third party—so, ask how quickly outages are resolved.
What is the costing structure?
Some monitoring service providers charge based on the number of users within an organisation. For example, if you have between one and ten users, the cost will be $X; from 11 to 50, $XX; with the number of seats and subscription prices increasing up to large, organisation-wide levels.
Others base their pricing on usage, with basic, mid, and enterprise categories, with increasing features and solutions. The challenge with this structure is that if you are a smaller company, but need enterprise-level features like reports, you must pay for the most expensive option—there is no room for customisation.
Finally, there are tools that work with you to design a solution that best fits your needs, with pricing based on the features you use.
How are renewals handled?
Every organisation has a budget, and needs to effectively plan. Whilst automatic renewals might work well for some, it can be an unwelcome surprise for others.
This is especially true for large organisations who may be spending $100,000 or more a year for a monitoring service. With big numbers on the line, some monitoring companies bury renewal terms deep within their contracts.
Pay close attention to details like this, so that the renewal date does not come and go before you have the opportunity to either scale back, cancel, or otherwise modify the terms of your agreement before being charged and locked-in for another annual term. Better still—find a service that checks in with you periodically and does not use this particular client retention tactic.
How does the software handle application programming interfaces?
APIs are what allows software applications to “talk to” one another. When a monitoring tool pulls information from a social network to then display the content on a dashboard, it is repurposing that platform’s content. One way to do this is by “web scraping”, which pulls raw data; another is to use an API, which allows a firm to access the data directly from the platform.
Scraping is typically considered an unauthorised means of pulling data, whilst the use of an API requires an agreement between the two companies.
A monitoring platform that is fully vetted and authorised to pull data will have the capacity to work with that company if there is ever a problem. Although this might sound like worrying about something that may never happen, it is important to remember that even small programming changes—like necessary security patches—can lead to potential issues. If (or when) that happens, it is far preferable to have an agreement in place with the data source, so you can work together to find a fix.
Conclusion
While the primary focus of attention when looking for a new media monitoring tool are the features and use of the platform, do not overlook the details of your agreement.
How a media monitoring organisation is set up, whether it uses its own technology or leases off-the-shelf products, licensing terms, and how renewals are handled—all these elements matter. Having a good sense of the terms of your agreement will impact your satisfaction with your monitoring vendor in both the short- and long-term.
