Your account team is an important part of your monitoring programme
Media monitoring and analysis is the foundation of a solid public relations and communications program. The ability to monitor, track, and analyse traditional and social media effectively informs PR strategy, works to shape messaging, and is essential whenever a crisis arises.
When searching for a new media monitoring service, most firms focus on either price or attributes of the platform. An overlooked component is your account team.
This is unfortunate because your account team really is—or can be—a major component of your monitoring service.
Their guidance will help you to get the most out of your media monitoring, and with budgets tight and PR teams asked to take on even more work, your monitoring service can become an integral part of the group. Communications and PR are being asked to do more than ever—adding new clients rarely means more internal hires these days. When it comes to monitoring and analysis, having access to professionals who are well-versed in the details, setup, and are able to provide advice can be invaluable.
With the right team, they can help to work through problems when necessary, and show you features that can help to improve reporting and analysis. They are the experts, with inside understanding and experience, on the features and flexibility of the platform.
Here are some questions to consider asking as you search for the right monitoring fit.
Account team
How will I be working with my account manager/team?
Your account manager or account team will be critical to your success. From setup to getting the most out of your monitoring tool, to answering questions or troubleshooting when it is needed, you will want either a single point of contact or a trusted team.
Having a dedicated support team can be very important, especially if your monitoring needs are global or complex.
What is the knowledge area and background of my account manager/team?
Customer service can be a significant differentiator. If your brand is global, you will want to make sure you understand where the support systems are based. For example, if your brand experiences a localised issue and needs to adjust keywords just for a region or certain publications, how will this request be handled? Can your account team review content in French, Arabic, or Bahasa?
Features and Flexibility
What features does the monitoring tool have?
Thinking about how you hope to use your monitoring service will allow you to select the features that are “must-haves”, and which are nice to have but not deal-breakers if they are missing.
Determining how you hope to use information provided by the service is helpful in selecting a tool that will meet your needs. Think carefully about how you pull together information for reports, for instance. If there are metrics that you are required to provide to key stakeholders, ask how the system will generate that data.
Can data be exported and manipulated by the end users?
You may want or need the ability to export certain data to Excel, for additional analysis or processing. Can the system do this? If not, is there a way to provide the information you need within the tool? Can you easily access and use data?
Ask your account team about new feature rollouts, and what they have on the horizon. Are they investing in improving the user’s experience? Choose a monitoring tool that your organisation can grow with over time.
Conclusion
A media monitoring company is a service provider, but the best ones act as partners, not just vendors. The objective is to have team stability and the potential for a long-term engagement, the benefits of which are considerable. A consistent media monitoring team can also help to alleviate staffing pressures as communications and PR companies are asked to do more with less.
Most importantly, you have a partner that not only understands your goals and can provide helpful advice when establishing your account, but also one that considers how your organisation uses the technology and can advocate for improvements that would make your monitoring easier or reports more effective—or both.
