Keeping track of media across traditional printed, televised, broadcast, social, and online media outlets has become increasingly important in our content and data-driven society. Tracking and analysing media seems like a daunting task, but monitoring and measurement offer a range of opportunities to simplify these efforts.
Media monitoring has been used since the early 1800s. The first monitoring company was established in London in 1852. Founded by a Polish newsagent named Romeike, this agency eventually became Romeike & Curtice. Before it was referred to as monitoring, the practice was called a clipping service or press clipping service as the industry revolved around extracting and compiling clips from print news sources. In the 1970s PR Data, which was established as part of a General Electric operation, became the first company to utilise analysis programs from computers, such as punch cards.
With the advent of new technology that emerged in the last century, clipping services evolved into full-service media monitoring and analysis companies that provide important insights for their clients. With the emergence of social media and blogging sites in the early 2000s, companies began monitoring these new resources and social listening was born.
Lack of understanding and awareness are some of the biggest challenges facing monitoring and measurement. Media monitoring and social listening will improve your communication by understanding which messages resonate the best with your customers and target groups. It will also aid you in gaining market intelligence and insight by tracking your competitors and key topics within your industry. And through analysis, media monitoring will deliver an understanding of which influencers are having the most impact on your brand.
Professionals in the PR, marketing, and communication industries often hear about the importance of integrating media monitoring and measurement into their work. Calculating the return on investment (ROI) of public relations and other communication activities is a notoriously difficult process. Ultimately, the objective of PR is to win hearts and minds. How do you measure that?
Tracking media coverage and analysing this data offer distinct benefits by automating the collection of mentions and gauging the success of campaigns. Drafting a budget and strategies that will provide the greatest insight to your organisation may appear challenging at the outset. With these difficulties in mind, Carma Asia, a leading global provider of integrated media intelligence solutions, produced Getting Started with Media Monitoring and Measurement, an eBook to assist professionals looking to improve their media intelligence activities.
Although online and social media tends to be a large focal point of modern monitoring efforts, companies continue to provide monitoring services for traditional media outlets, such as radio, television, and print resources. The results from the digital and traditional media outlets get compiled and archived for reference by users. The gathered clips possess virtually no value, however, unless they undergo analysis to reveal trends, sentiment, and insights. The analysis of the compiled clips marks the intersection between monitoring and measurement. Measurement involves analysing and evaluating media and PR efforts to understand effectiveness and trends.
Peter Bowall-Jensen works with media monitoring as Analyst for MediaTrack Pte. Ltd. in Singapore and Business Development Consultant with Carma Asia, a global media intelligence agency.
Paul Poole (South East Asia) Co., Ltd. is an independent marketing consultancy based in Bangkok, Thailand specialising in commercial sponsorship and partnership marketing, working with both rights holders and brands - acting as a catalyst by bringing them together and maximising the relationship.
We have packaged, sold and managed sponsorship and partnership opportunities for a wide range of rights holders and worked with many of the world’s leading brands to source and engage the right sponsorships and partnerships for them to maximise.
