media update’s Nakedi Phala uncovers why businesses need to acquire media monitoring services, if they haven’t already.

Not only did recent world events do a number on the economy, but they also exerted a huge amount of pressure on how brands run their day-to-day operations. This forced many to divert to running their business from home, others to merge and some to, unfortunately, shut down.

The companies that didn’t utilise media monitoring services before may discover that they now need these services to get back on their feet. You need to do what you can to ensure that your brand can withstand these changing times or, at least, have measures in place to survive.

Here’s why your brand needs media monitoring services as soon as possible:

1. Media monitoring allows you to evaluate your competition

Organisations could do with an analysis report that details how their brand is performing in comparison to competitors. Well, with media monitoring, your business can most certainly do that.

The game has changed in 2020; some of your competitors have fallen, some have redirected their business interests and then there are the newbies, which are making their way into the playing field. See why you need a brand benchmarking report? With all these industry players, you’re going to have to keep track of how your brand is measuring up, so you don’t lose the game!

According to brand and media intelligence agency Focal Points, with a benchmarking report, you can identify gaps in the market that your brand trades in as well as take advantage of opportunities available to you that other brands may have missed out on. For example, you can see the places where your competitors are not advertising their brand, which means you can step in and try and capture those audiences.

Insights you gather from these types of reports can also be used to uncover market trends that your competitors aren’t aware of, allowing you to be the first to position yourself as a service leader — an innovative brand, if you will.

2. Media monitoring allows you to discover how consumers perceive your business

Understanding how consumers see and value your brand is vital, as it gives you the insights you need to improve on your strategies or continue doing what you’re doing.

Take, for example, Unilever; a brand trading its products under Clicks. The brand is currently reviewing all marketing campaigns in South Africa after a racist hair ad was released that described black women’s hair as “dry” and “dull”. Both Clicks and Unilever have been met with backlash from consumers on social media platforms for the marketing campaign, and the vast majority of the crisis occurred on Clicks’s Twitter page.

All of this could have been avoided had the brand made use of media or even social media monitoring services.

Media monitoring companies, such as Newsclip, offer solutions that range from brand monitoring, media analysis and brand tracking, amongst other solutions.

To understand consumers’ perceptions, you need to stay informed about your brand’s activities in the media in order to acknowledge what is being said about your brand and why.

3. Media monitoring helps you to improve on your PR strategy

In the world of PR, it is at your client’s benefit to measure the success of their campaigns across print, online, broadcast and social media in case you need to quickly deal with a publicity crisis.

Monitoring services essentially provide PR pros with actionable insights that could help them deal with a disaster while it’s still in its premature stages. However, this solution is not only limited to crisis citation but also output data that can help develop your communication strategy. It does this by providing clients with provable return on investment in a measurable way by utilising the services of media intelligence to develop strategic client reports.

Decades ago, a PR pro would need to wait for the news from newspapers and broadcast platforms; but, with information being shared on social media on a continuous basis by users, going forward, you need to consider monitoring companies that can deliver insights with
in minutes!

Media monitoring services offer insights that can help manage your brand’s reputation effectively. What are your thoughts? Should all businesses be utilising this service? Let us know in the comments section below.

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It is common for clients to have questions about the services they're considering to pay for. If you’re still not entirely sure about this solution and what it can do, then check out our Q&A, where Newsclip answers 10 FAQs about media monitoring.