ImpactWatch Blog

Every Friday I bring you the top SMMM (Social Media Monitoring and Measurement) articles of the week.

So, here are the goodies.

10 ways to measure social media success – eConsultancy Blog

300+ Online Reputation Management Resources -
Todd And

Social Media ROI – Zygote
Little heavy on the graphics, but his point needs to be made every day until we’re all wearing the t-shirt – Media programs and metrics must be specific to YOUR organization.

Slice like a pro: Top 6 tips to switching media monitoring providers – Slice Media (Yes, I realize I’m linking to a competitor’s site, but good advice is good advice).

Measure Your Social Media Campaigns Using Block-and-Tackle Attribution – Forrester Research

Managing Your Reputation Online: A Primer for CIOs Who Don’t Get It – CIO

An Analysis of the Increasing Impact of Social and Other New Media on Public Relations Practice – Institute for PR. If you mean serious business, this is the 22-page PDF for you.

Calculating a Return on Investment (ROI) – PRSA

When Brands Get Punk’d: Social Media Remediation – Jeremiah Owyang – Web Strategist

Social Media Maturity Index: Finding Social Media Engagement Leaders – PR Communications

Jack in the Box feeds the social media beast – Los Angeles Times

Hey Marketers, Stop Being Control Freaks – Silicon Alley Insider

For more fascinating tidbits, follow Hannah on Twitter. Well, really @impactwatch has the killer news feed, but follow me anyway.

Photo by CogDogBlog.

What is media monitoring?

Media monitoring is making sure you know everything that is being written about you and read by others.

Until recently, media tracking was really only employed by big companies who wanted to know which print and broadcast outlets were mentioning them. With the explosion of the internet, much smaller companies began generating greater coverage via websites and blogs, so online monitoring became commonplace.

Social media means that even the Vacant Video Store by my house is being talked about online (see, that was a media mention right there). So even small, local businesses now have an interest in tracking their brand.

Why should I track my media coverage?

The first thing we need to get squared away is that a one-size-fits-all approach is not going to work here.

Every company, from Krispy Kreme to Vacant Video, must sit down and evaluate their individual needs, resources and objectives. Don’t worry, don’t worry! I’m going to tell you how to do that, too. Jeez.

There are lots of strategies for using media coverage from passive to proactive.

Under-the-radar B-to-Bs may want to:
-Keep track of competitor press releases/coverage.
-Monitor industry developments and technology.
-Follow relevant regulatory action and legislation.
-Quickly identify emerging issues.

Companies looking for growth can:
-Analyze reporter/publication trends to target pitches.
-Place/track public relations message tags.
-Use media monitoring to find/target market segments.

Businesses ready to engage will:
-Thank customers for mentions/recommendations.
-Reach out to solve problems and provide support.
-Connect with potential customers to form pre-sale relationships.
-Become thought leaders in their industry.

The main reason to track media coverage is control. You will be aware of what reporters/customers/competitors/analysts are saying about your company and it’s products. You will know if you have an existing, or developing, reputation problem and will have as much time as possible to formulate a response.

If appropriate, you can also use your coverage as a basis for outreach initiatives: to increase brand awareness, expand or grow markets, and improve customer service.

What media are we monitoring exactly?

It depends.

Generally, the bigger the company, the more traditional media mentions (print and broadcast) it gets. So, your Fortune 500ers will have plenty of newspapers and tv shows talking about them, whereas my beauty salon – The Chop Shop – will not.

It works out well because monitoring traditional media costs $$$ while monitoring online media is cheap or free.

Depending on where you are getting mentioned (and where you’re trying to be mentioned!), you can track:

1. Print media

Is the Wall Street Journal constantly trashing your debt buyback programs? If so, you may be interested in monitoring your print mentions. This and broadcast coverage can actually be quite costly, especially if you want to distribute the information to all your friends on the Fed.

2. Broadcast media

The other pricey content. There are many broadcast monitoring companies that offer transcript and audio/video clip options. You can pay per clip or per month, so you’ll want to start out by determining the frequency of your mentions.

3. Online media

These are websites that are run by media organizations online – newspaper and magazine websites, and web-based news services. This content is either free (DIY or through free service) or can cost up to a few hundred a month to buy a coded feed to your monitoring software (this lets you sort and organize easily).

4. Blogs

Same deal as the online media. You can get your blog coverage free or pay for more data flexibility.

5. Social Media

Aren’t blogs really social media? Is there such a thing as social media?

Questions for another day, kids. We separate them because aggregators and content providers tend to do the same.

Social media such as Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and others are often the most important platforms to monitor because it’s where a lot of customers hang out to spread their opinions of your products and services. Even the smallest of business can be talked about (and get heard) on social networks.

Like the other forms of online content, social media mentions can be mined by hand, by free service or by paid service.

Do I need media monitoring?

I don’t know.

Is the media talking about you? Do you want them to be talking about you? Then yes.

The best thing about media monitoring is that it’s very scalable. You can start out with some keyword searches and automated emails. When you get more media success or decide to start a publicity/PR/outreach initiative, your media monitoring efforts can grow with your program.

If you have an advertising budget that could be someone’s salary or your company has a known reputation issue and you’re not tracking your media, you need to call the ImpactWatch emergency hotline. Stat!

What should I be monitoring?

No idea.

This is the most customized part of media analysis. Basically, you need to determine what you want information about. Who/what might be the target of a media discussion that you want to know about?

Some common themes:

1. Your company: who is talking about your company and products?

2. Your competitors: what coverage are your competitors achieving?

3. Your industry: what are the trade pubs talking about?

4. Your efforts: are your PR/outreach efforts reflected in your coverage?

How much is this going to cost me?

Another good question…that I don’t have the answer to.

I would say the two most important variables in cost are quantity of coverage and level of analysis.

If your company is getting a few dozen mentions a month and you just need to read and respond, your investment can be easily limited to time spent. If you’re Krispy Kreme and you get 500k mentions per month (made that up), it might cost you $50k per month (made that up, too).

My point is that monitoring budgets are all over the place. You can get the Pinto (Google Alerts) or you can get the Ferrari (custom software solution). And guess who has to figure out what model you need? It is you! You’re going to be good at this.

Media tracking costs depend on:

1. Time: More mentions + more analysis = more time expenditure.

2. Staff: Do you have a large family or lots of idle interns? If not, you may need to shift resources or hire help.

3. Data: Copyright for print, transcripts/clips for broadcast and quality of data for online are potential costs.

4. Software: How organized do you need to be? Do you want to send coverage emails or generate reports? Do you want graphs or a searchable archive? There are more than 150 media monitoring software products in the market to suit every need and budget.

How do I get started?

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First, you need a plan.

Follow Hannah on Twitter. If you dare.

PHOTO CREDIT: annnna

I have a whole media monitoring routine that I go through every day. Media analysis is what we do and I even use our product, ImpactWatch, to do it. I see who has mentioned us on Twitter, who is talking media tracking on blogs, what new articles have been published about our competitors or industry. I try to track and read every single relevant post, tweet or update.

I read all this stuff to learn about advances in technology, to steal ideas (kidding… sort of) and because we have to. We are an internet company and our entire universe is online. Our product is online. Our media coverage is online. Our customers are online.

Media monitoring companies also look pretty incompetent when they miss their own mentions.

But not every company needs this level of media tracking. Some don’t need any at all.

This morning, while reading through industry blogs, I came across a post about a tweet by Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com. He stopped by The Burger Grill but they didn’t have Swiss cheese for his burger. Understandably peeved, he tweeted it.

Now, the point of the blog post I was reading is that The Burger Grill is in big trouble if they don’t get a handle on this negative online publicity. Who would even go to a burger place that doesn’t have Swiss cheese?*

Well, probably the 99.9% of Americans that don’t use Twitter. The fact is that for a small, offline business the potential damage from a few negative online comments is minimal. The vast majority of their customers are local, many of them not active in social media and none of them likely to happen upon a few random comments about this brand. If The Burger Grill had an issue severe enough to affect business – hideous décor, atrocious food or filthy bathrooms – customers would likely start mentioning it in person.

Do I think The Burger Grill could benefit from an online presence? Certainly they could:

-promote their business, increasing brand awareness.
-engage customers, bringing online contacts into their real-world restaurant.
-research their industry, reading comments about what people want/expect from a restaurant experience.
-develop an online mailing list of customers for promotions.
-provide online info, menu, specials (I personally love an online menu).

I encourage every company to take advantage of the web and social media to expand their business. And part of that is brand monitoring. But I’m also tired of the alarmist social media proponents insisting that this is critical for every company, and that if you’re going to do it, you have to do it all.

Media monitoring, measurement and engagement takes time and that means it costs money. Many small and/or offline businesses would find that the time involved to read coverage, to find someone who understands how to set up monitoring, to buy a computer (?) wouldn’t be worth it to address customer concerns that are few and far between. For them, focusing on a quality product and solid customer service is not only a more critical use of their time, it also serves to reduce or eliminate the very concerns they would be trying to monitor.

And, my dear Chicken Littles, when these companies do perceive a need to join the internet age, they will start with a program that fits their business – presence where their customers are, metrics that track what matters to their business, according to their needs and resources.

Zappos.com vs The Burger Grill perfectly highlights the two ends of the brand monitoring spectrum. Most other companies will fall somewhere between the two and must determine the right media tracking program for their business. I’ll be posting some tutorials that will hopefully help them out with that.

*The general availability of Swiss cheese at The Burger Grill remains unconfirmed. This may have been a temporary shortage.

For more cheesy goodness, follow hannah on twitter.