One of the most powerful developments of the Internet era has been the capability for just about anyone to become a publisher or broadcaster.
While this has given voice to many, it makes the job of proper media monitoring for communications professionals much more challenging.
As the media landscape has fragmented and individual voices have been elevated, it is no longer a simple matter of collating content from a clearly defined list of outlets.
Achieving “content completeness” in media monitoring today requires assembling the right mix of audio, video, and text content from a wide range of sources. As many organizations take a more global view, this can mean assembling content from around the world, including many different countries, cultures, and languages.
Except for the smallest organizations with little public attention (and therefore low content volume), doing this on your own can be quite daunting.
That’s why media intelligence companies like CARMA have built proprietary technology platforms and built global networks of relationships to assemble the right content mix for each user.
What is Content Completeness for Your Organization?
The process begins by understanding what you need to monitor to achieve the comprehensive coverage that you require.
A typical global organization might want to keep track of content and conversations in some or all of the following:
- Print media
- Online publications
- Broadcast radio and television
- Online video, including YouTube
- Podcasts
- Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok
- Consumer review sites
- Message boards and forums
The Importance of Global Content Relationships
It is no simple task to collect the vast array of content needed for a complete media monitoring effort.
It requires relationships with a wide range of publishers, distributors, and technology platforms to capture the full spectrum of information.
Understanding licensing and copyright compliance issues (which can vary substantially from one country to the next) represents a core responsibility for any media monitoring provider and alleviates the needs for clients to become familiar with all of the local rules.
As important, publishers and broadcasters make their content available in a wide variety of different formats, requiring a substantial technology investment to acquire and process the full stream of data.
In some regions, print content may not even be digitized (even today) and that can dictate the use of local human resources to gather traditional publications for proper monitoring.
How do you separate the Signal from the Noise?
A firehose of data won’t do most organizations much good, so there needs to be some method for culling the content to draw the right insights and see the most important items.
The best media monitoring approach uses a combination of technological sifting with expert human curation and analysis to distill the key points.
For organizations with needs that include multiple countries and languages, access to native speakers and experts who understand local cultures and nuances can be extremely beneficial.
In addition, the rise of spambots and fake news sources requires careful scrutiny to ensure that clean data makes its way into your reporting system – something that algorithms alone have thus far proven incapable of achieving.
Without these processes in place, you may be receiving the right quantity of information but you will lack the ability to extract the maximum value from it.
Making your Media Monitoring Results easy to consume and analyze
Content completeness isn’t merely about getting clean, high-quality data. All of that content must be made available in a form that is easy for an organization to understand and utilize.
Typically that means some form of online dashboard and customizable reporting tool like the one that CARMA includes in its Insight platform.
It is essential to be able to view the entire array of media monitoring in aggregate while still being able to drill down to individual pieces of content to ensure that everyone on your team – from the most senior executive to the individuals responsible for day-to-day communications activity – has what they need.
Translations and filtering options can make it much easier for the team to handle the global content without missing a beat.
Many media intelligence platforms even enable you to engage directly with captured social content to facilitate responding to or sharing user-created content.
Conclusion
Once you define your media monitoring plan, you need to work to achieve the content completeness that you desire.
Working with experts who have the knowledge and relationships to facilitate the wide array of media sources available can make your job much easier.
With the right information from the right publishers, broadcasters, and content creators you can evaluate and improve upon your public relations and communications program.
