Media Monitoring - What it Is, What it Does, How to Use It

Media monitoring is the process of carefully reading, watching or listening to the editorial content of media sources (including newspapers, magazines, trade journals, broadcasters and the Internet) on a continuing basis and of identifying, saving and analyzing content that contains specific keywords or topics.

Monitoring the News Media

Monitoring editorial content of news sources including newspapers, magazines, trade journals, TV and radio stations is by far the most common type of media monitoring. This typicalls is called "news monitoring".

Media Monitoring - What it Is, What it Does, How to Use It

Most companies, government agencies, not-for-profit organizations (e.g. hospitals, universities, associations, etc.) and individuals such as authors and celebrities utilize media monitoring as a tool to identify mentions of their organization, its brands, and executives in news media. Some organizations also deploy media monitoring tools to track the success of their news releases, to find information about competitors and specific issues relevant to the organization, to benchmark performance against competitors, to manage corporate or brand reputation, to gather industry intelligence, to better understand the strengths and weaknesses of corporate communications, to identify new business opportunities, and other purposes.

In addition to monitoring news, many organizations now also monitor social media on the Internet, tracking word of mouth mentions about their organization in social media such as Facebook, Twitter, blogs, message boards and forums. This is commonly known as social media monitoring, word-of-mouth monitoring, or buzz monitoring.

Media Monitoring Profile & Search Terms

The monitoring process starts with the search profile and the search terms or keyword(s) or keyword phrases. The search profile contains the service terms: the media to be monitored, the type of articles and/or mentions to be delivered, the time period of the monitoring, and the method of article delivery.

The search terms are those key words or phrases that must appear in the article such as the name of the organization or its affiliates or brands. An article containing a key word is usually referred to as a "clip" or "clipping," "news clip," or "press clipping." The clips are delivered either physically by mail or as a digital file, usually via e-mail.

While some organizations use in-house staff to monitor news and social media, most companies and PR agencies outsource the function to commercial services. The commercial services can usually provide more comprehensive media coverage than in-house staff using online news monitoring tools such as Google News. Commercial media monitoring services often deliver better results at lower cost than the actual labor costs of in-house news monitoring with staff.

Media Monitoring History

Media monitoring started in the 1800s as press clipping services. Press clipping services (called "press cutting" in Europe) employed human readers to scan articles in printed news publications looking for the key words of multiple clients. The readers marked the keywords in articles, then used razor blades to cut out the marked articles, put the clipped articles into client folders and delivered the clips via mail to the client. Most press clipping services served a limited geographic area - one country, for instance - and monitored publications in only one language. According to studies by GE, Kodak and other organizations in the 1970s, the human readers typically missed 30 to 40% of articles containing clients' key words, largely because the readers were quickly scanning the articles for multiple clients' keywords, not actually reading the articles word for word.

Broadcast Monitoring Services

In the 1950s, specialized broadcast monitoring companies started to monitor TV news broadcasts for mention of their client company key words. Initially, the broadcast monitoring companies used humans to watch programs, write abstracts of the content and log mentions of clients' key words. The development of Betamax and VHS videotape recorders, along with closed caption text for hearing impaired, enabled the broadcast monitors to record the programs and use software to search the closed caption text for clients' key words.

In the United States, that closed caption system is still in use although computers (not videotape recorders) are now used to record the programs. In countries that do not have closed caption text embedded in the TV broadcast signal, broadcast monitoring companies now often use speech to text software to create a character-based document which can be searched for key words. Closed caption text and the latest generation speech to text software are each about 70% to 80% complete and accurate.

Online Media Monitoring

The growth of the Internet and World Wide Web in the 1990s gave rise to online media monitoring services with automated processes to monitor online news. The online services deploy specialized software called robots, bots or spiders running on high-powered computer servers to quickly scan the new editorial content of online news sources and social media and to index all the words in the news content and social media postings. Once the software has compiled the content, it identifies all articles containing each client's search terms (keywords or phrases) and then automatically clips and delivers those articles or social media postings to the client. Unlike human readers in old-fashioned press clipping services, software seldom misses valid articles because it reads the entire article word for word.

Advantages of Online News Monitoring

The commercial monitoring services offer multiple advantages when compared to old-fashioned print-based press clipping services or in-house media monitoring by staff.

Today, with rare exceptions, every print publication publishes its editorial content on the publication's Internet Web site. By monitoring print publications on the Internet (World Wide Web), online media monitoring services can monitor news media sources in all countries in virtually all languages. Online news monitoring services currently monitor between 20,000 and 50,000+ online news sources in multiple languages. Many of the online monitoring services utilize embedded translation software to include instant software-based translation of foreign language news clips.

Whereas the old-fashioned press clipping services required 2 to 3 weeks to deliver clips, online media monitoring services deliver clips overnight as a standard service and usually offer near real time delivery at additional cost. Most clips are delivered by e-mail in text or HTML format but other delivery methods are available including RSS feeds, XML and PDF via FTP transfer. The daily e-mail reports enable executives in client organizations to keep up-to-date with a fast and comprehensive overview of how their organization is being portrayed in the news and social media. The daily e-mail clip report also can provide early warning of brewing issues and problems.

With the use of Boolean logic in client queries, online media monitoring services can meet very specific and specialized media clipping requirements with great accuracy. Instead of delivering "all mentions" of a specific word, the media monitoring service can deliver a specific subset of articles and postings such as:

(Orange OR Sprint) AND (mobile OR phone OR cell) AND NOT -fruit OR Julius OR Crush OR "track and field" within 25 characters.

Because online media monitoring services deliver clips as digital computer-based files, clip storage, management and distribution are far more easier than with old-fashioned paper-based clips. Most online services store each client's clips in a digital online archive that is available at anytime from anywhere by anyone the client authorizes. Using standard database methods, clients can easily organize and manage their clips in the online archive. Most digital archives include keyword search capabilities - that is, clients are able to search their digital clip book for any key word or phrase. Most of the digital archives also make it easy to circulate clips via e-mail to others within the client organization.

Social Media Monitoring

While news is clearly the core content to monitor, most organizations now recognize the growing importance of monitoring social media such as blogs, message boards, forums, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and video sharing sites such as YouTube. What is published or uploaded in these online social media sites has gained significant credence and influence. As a result, monitoring social media for criticism and complaints is now crucial to protect corporate and brand reputation - and to better understand what consumers think about the organization, its brands, and its customer service.

It's possible, but inefficient, to utilize in-house staff to monitor social media using free online social media search engines. For the most part, however, social media monitoring services are more comprehensive and more time-efficient.

Most news monitoring services offer separate or integrated social media monitoring services. As in news monitoring, the key is comprehensive monitoring across a wide range of social media, especially blogs, message boards, forums, complaint sites and Twitter. With over 50 million blogs worldwide, it is not sufficient to monitor only the so-called "influential" blogs. It's crucial to monitor as many blogs as possible because it's impossible to predict where critical information will surface. It's also important to use key words on a continuing basis to monitor social media. Monitoring social media sources for criticism and complaints can be especially effective as a customer service tool - correcting problems and issues and earning the customers' gratitude before complaints spread virally.

Media Monitoring Summary

Most commercial media monitoring services are subscription based with a monthly fee for on-going service. While some services - usually ones that evolved from old-fashioned press clipping services - charge an additional fee for each delivered clip, most of the newer online services do not have per clip fees. To better understand the quality of each service and the differences in services, it's best to use multiple services on a free trial for a few weeks before committing to purchase.

In summary, monitoring news and social media is a vital function to track news release placements, identify other mentions in the media about the organization, manage corporate and brand reputation, monitor competition, stay current on industry issues and other purposes. Commercial media monitoring services, especially online services, offer superior results and lower costs than in-house monitoring by staff.

© Copyright 2010, CyberAlert, Inc.

Article may be reprinted in whole or part with proper attribution.

Media Monitoring - What it Is, What it Does, How to Use It
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Bill Comcowich is President & CEO of Cyber Alert Inc a worldwide online news monitoring and social media monitoring service that offers a no-risk 14-day free media monitoring trial [https://secure.cyberalert.com/ftorderX.html]. The Company was founded in 1999 and conducts thousands of media monitoring searches each day for corporations, government agencies, not-for-profit organizations, and celebrities. CyberAlert offers a private label version of its service to PR agencies and other communications companies.

Beginners' Guide - Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Media

We all are beginners at some point. For the beginners the biggest challenge is to know the advantages and disadvantages of Social Media. Today we are going to talk about the Social Media - Advantages and Disadvantages. Many small business owners have not yet taken advantage of social media to help grow their business. It has become so vital for us to stay connected and convey the right message. To get the best out of this platform here are some tips and guidance for the beginners to know.

First of all some facts and figures of social media sites:

One in every nine people on earth is on Facebook Twitter is adding nearly 500,000 users everyday One in four Americans watches a video online everyday During the second half of 2010, LinkedIn membership base grew, on average, by 1 million new members every ten days

Beginners' Guide - Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Media

Connect: Facebook helps you connect and share with people in your life. Just think what was your life before Facebook invented? Was it more relax, exiting, boring or challenging? In Facebook we can create a personal profile, add other users as friends & exchange messages. If we talk about LinkedIn, it gives us the opportunity to connect with professionals across the globe. Whether you are using it for personal growth or spreading your business. It also gives you the opportunity to connect with business minded people like you. If we talk about Twitter, it is simply amazing! Twitter is a real time information network that connects you to the latest stories, ideas what you find interesting. It gives you an opportunity to know what's happening around the world in 140 characters long tweet!

Interact: With your connections Facebook gives you an opportunity to let people know about you. You can share your photos, stories and create fan page. As a business, Facebook pages are a good source of feedback on your product/services. In LinkedIn you can interact with professionals on one single platform. You can discuss business, resources, ideas, learning opportunities and lot more. In Twitter, tweets are text based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to the followers. On a personal level Twitters allows one to communicate with friends and families. On business level it connects your current & potential customers with your product & service.

Exchange: With the use of Facebook, we exchange joy, fun, sorrows, help and many more things at one place! Facebook slowly also being used like email. So this is one of the cost-effective ways to connected. With the use of LinkedIn we exchange professional expertise along with useful information which eventually enhances our professional brand. It also exchanges stronger business ideas with each other. On a business level, it helps us to exchange feedback, comments which eventually lead to increase business. On a personal level, it helps you in personal development. Twitter is a powerful tool for exchanging information and news as Twitter user often link to useful sites or articles & can be source of alternative news.

Disadvantages: As we discussed the Advantages of Social Media but we cannot ignore the Disadvantages just to be more secure on online platform.

Think about the viral potential of media. When news are negative and bad in taste, the same will happen with that brand. It is hard to undertake damage control when you are dealing with social media. Your name might get spoiled within hours. The best example is MacDonald's Twitter promotion. According to Mail Online news article - Mac Fail! MacDonald's Twitter promotion backfires as users highjack hash tag MacD stories to share fast food horror stories. Opponents accused the burger franchise of making customer vomit, serving pig meat from gestation crates and dishing up a burger containing a finger nail. Another disadvantage is to face threat from fake profile and ID. This is one of the biggest disadvantages of Facebook. People often use fake profile to insult or harassing someone. Students who are Facebook addicted do a bad result on his or her exams. One of the major risks of social networking and the Internet in general is breaches in privacy. These sites collect considerable amounts of personal information, with email addresses being one of the most collected pieces of personal data. Also these social networking sites possibly reduce persons' compassion. You can check Twitter updates from your phone and send messages from anywhere. Social networking sites have the potential of having spreading negative or Anti-social messages. Amongst

As discussed above there are both Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Networking. One thing is clear; it is up to the person how he/she wants to get benefit from Social Media platform. In life we are often subjected to good and bad choices it is only we ourselves, who can decide what we want.

Beginners' Guide - Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Media
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I hope this article helps you to understand the importance of using Social Media in a safe way. If you find this article useful & informative please share amongst your friends&families. For more articles please visit http://pulindave.com/blog and dont forget to drop your valuable feedback.

History of the Media, Radio, and Television

When were the forms of media created? When did advertising first show up? Who owns the media?

Creation of the various forms of media

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History of the Media, Radio, and Television

Newspapers & Magazines ~ 1880

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Movies ~ 1910

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Television ~ 1945

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Cable Television ~ 1980's

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Satellite Television, Internet, Digital Communication ~ End of the 20th century

In 1920, radio was first developed, primarily for use by the military, strictly for sendingHistory of the Media - Old Radios messages from one location to another. David Sternoff, the then-president of RCA, first had the idea to sell radio sets to consumers, or what were then called radio receivers. However, consumers needed a reason to buy radios, so RCA was the first to set up radio stations all over the country. Between 1920 and 1922, 400 radio stations were set up, starting with KBKA in Pittsburgh. Stations were also set up by universities, newspapers, police departments, hotels, and labor unions.

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By 1923, there were 600 radio stations across the United States, and million worth of sets had been sold.

The biggest difference in radio before and after 1923 was that the first advertising was not heard on the radio until 1923. RCA at the time was made up of four companies:

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AT&T

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General Electric

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United Fruit

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Westinghouse

United Fruit was one of the first global corporations, and one of the first to advertise on the radio. The AT&T division of RCA first thought about selling time on the air to companies, which marked the start of "toll broadcasting." WEAF was the first station to operate this way, causing widespread outrage, and accusation of "polluting the airwaves."

Because of this controversy, the practice of selling advertising time was called "trade name publicity." Sponsors linked their name with a program on the air, rather than advertising a specific product in a 30 second "commercial" as we know it today.

Why did AT&T decide to experiment with charging companies for air time?

AT&T was not making any money from broadcasting at the time since they only made transmitters, not receivers. They only made money when new radio stations bought the equipment required to broadcast. They did not make money from consumers buying radios.

AT&T also started the practice of paying performers for their time on the air, rather than only volunteers, which was standard practice for radio content up until that point.

The first radio network

In 1926, RCA set up the first radio network, NBC. They decided it was more effective and efficient to produce shows in New York City, and then link the main radio station with stations all across the country, connected by AT&T (another RCA company) phone lines. (Now television networks are linked by satellite to their affiliates).

This was the beginning of the network affiliates system. The ideal network makes sure everyone in the country is capable of listening to their signal. NBC at the time had two philosophies:

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Radio content was a "public service," whose function was to sell radios.

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Radio content was designed to generate income from advertising.

History of the Media In 1927, the second network was formed. It was CBS, started by William Paley. Paley was the first to think that networks could make money strictly from advertising, not even getting involved in the sales of radios. Like AT&T, CBS did not make radios. From the start, they made their money from selling advertising.

The rising of radio networks caused the Radio Act of 1927 to be passed, which established the FRC, or what is now known as the FCC, to allocate broadcast licenses. The need for such an organization was brought on by the fact that airwaves are limited resources, and broadcasting itself is a scarce public resource. By the 1930's, the structure of radio have been set by the commercial format, although advertising never dominated radio like it would television later on.

In the 1920's and '30's, radio programs were divided into two groups. Sponsored shows, which had advertisers, and unsponsored shows, which did not. The radio station paid for the unsponsored shows. The sponsored shows, on the other hand, were created entirely by the company sponsoring the show; advertisers were totally in charge of the radio station's content. The content became advertising. Radio set the precedent for television, in that the same companies that controlled radio early on went on to control television.

Soon thereafter, television inherited the structure of radio. In the '40's, during the rise of television, RCA also held a monopoly on all television sets sold. By 1945-1955, advertising had taken over all of television. Television was organized around the premise of selling things. The entire television industry was creating a political atmosphere of suspicion and fear. Senator Joseph McCarthy, the founder of McCarthyism, which was based on the fear of Communism, and the HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee, began to question people involved in television about their beliefs and associations.

What affected television in its early stages?

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Politics (McCarthyism / HUAC).

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Blacklists: From almost the inception of television, many writers, directors, and actors were considered to be pro-Communist and/or un-American.

Certain topics were totally off-limits at the time for television, particularly issues of race relations in the 1960's. Overall, networks were not happy with the political situation for television in the 1960's, both in terms of the blacklists, and of the fact that when every show had one sponsor, that sponsor controlled the entire program. Networks preferred to control the program, by way of moving to multiple sponsors/advertisers, where networks would retain control of the show, and advertisers would buy time in between the programming.

In the 1950's, networks decided to eliminate the practice of sponsors controlling the shows with a move to spot selling, or advertisements between programs, as we know it today. What caused the move to spot selling?

1.

Discovery of fraud in the quiz shows on television. Quiz shows were extremely popular at the time, and were liked by the networks, the sponsors, and the viewers alike. It turned out, however, that quiz shows were largely fixed. Charles Van Doren on "21" became a huge star due to his repeated wins, until it came out that the whole thing had been fixed. In the case of "The ,000 Question," the owner of Revlon was personally hand-selecting the winners and losers on the show.

2.

It was becoming financially difficult for just one advertiser to support an entire show.

Around this same time came the inception of ratings to measure a show's popularity. Ratings, quite simply, measure the number of people watching a show. To understand why ratings are so important, it's crucial to understand how the television industry works, through three questions, and their respective answers:

1.

Who owns television? [The networks]

2.

What is sold on television? [Viewer's time, not television shows]

3.

Who are the customers of television? [Advertisers, not viewers]

This might be a counterintuitive concept for some. The networks, which own television, areHistory of the Media - Old Television the buyers of shows, not the sellers. On the other hand, they sell our eyeballs, so to speak, to advertisers. Networks want the maximum possible profit from buying and selling time, both viewers' time, and advertisers' time.

The primary measure of television ratings, which determine the price of that time being bought and sold, is AC Nielsen, an independent company which provides information as to who watches what on television. Currently, about 4,000 households are used to represent the national viewing of television. In the 1980's, only 1,200 households were used. Some households have an electronic device installed on their television which tracks what they watch, while others keep a diary of viewing habits.

There are two measures for determining a show's audience. One is the rating, and the other is the share.

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Rating: Percentage of total homes with televisions tuned into a particular show.

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Share: Percentage of those watching television at a particular time who are tuned into a particular show.

The share is always greater than the rating. Ratings are more important for advertisers, and share is more important to the networks.

Example:

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Total households with televisions: 150 million

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Total households watching television at 8pm on Monday nights: 90 million

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Total households watching American Idol at 8pm on Monday nights: 45 million

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Therefore: Rating: 30, Share: 50

It's important to note how many factors can skew the results. Shows cost producers much more than the networks typically pay them for those shows. The way for producers to make money is by getting the networks to renew the show, in order to have a shot at making money from syndication on other channels, also knows as reruns. That is the case when individual stations (say for example, the Miami affiliate of ABC wants to carry Seinfeld), buy the rights to a show from the producers of that show. Shows that last only one season, for the most part, lose millions of dollars. One of the most important factors in whether shows will be renewed or not is their rating.

This brings us to how ratings can be skewed. For example, if a show has a 20 share, and it needs a 25 share to be renewed for another season, what might the producers do? In principle, they need to convince another 5% of the people watching television when their show is on to watch their show; this is no simple task, as that involves convincing millions of people. However, since the ratings are based on those 4,000 Nielsen households, that means that they could convince just 200 Nielsen households to watch their show, which would increase the share from 20 to 25. This is why Nielsen households must be kept totally secret from the networks. When the Nielsen households have leaked to the networks, one way which they got people to watch their show was by offering viewers a small sum of money for filling out a survey about a commercial which they were told would play only during a particular show. Since they had to watch that channel while their show was on, this would boost the share.

Once ratings are determined, advertising prices are set by two factors:

* The size of the audience.

* The demographics (income, age, gender, occupation, etc) of the audience.

In short, the job of television programs is to collect our time as a product, which they then sell to advertisers. Programs have to support the advertising, delivering viewers in the best possible state of mind for buying when the time for the commercials comes, which brings us to the Golden Age of Television.

The 1950's are considered the "Golden Age of Television." During this time, something called the "Anthology Series," where different actors each week took part in a show gained History of the Media - I Love Lucypopularity across the board...that is, with everyone except for advertisers. The anthology series format was not right for advertisers, as it covered topics which involved psychological confrontations which did not leave the viewers in the proper state of mind for buying the products shown to them between program segments. The subject matter of the anthology series was of the type that undermined the ads, almost making them seem fraudulent.

This brought up the question of what to network executives actually want shows to do? The answer is not to watch a program that makes them feel good, makes them laugh, or excites them, but rather to watch the television for a set amount of time. With so many new shows being proposed, standards began to be intentionally, or unintentionally, laid out for what shows could and couldn't do. Risks could only be taken at the beginning and/or end of shows. Laugh tracks were conceived to tell the audience when to laugh. Programs began being tested with audiences prior to being put on television and/or radio. Show writers now had to write shows that would test well.

Naturally, this caused many of the same elements and themes to appear in all shows. This was the beginning of recombinant television culture, where the same elements are endlessly repeated, recombined, and mixed.

This same culture is what perpetuated the idea that people watch television, not specific shows. While people certainly choose to watch certain shows instead of others, people less commonly choose to watch television instead of other things. People watch television. Regardless of what was on, television viewing rates were extremely stable.

History of the Media, Radio, and Television
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David Pakman is editor/adminstrator of politics and media website Hear the Issues ([http://www.heartheissues.com]), a website frequented and praised by many mainstream journalist and pundits.

What is a Facebook Poke?

Have you ever been poked on Facebook and wondered exactly what it meant? Well, in this article, we will take a look at the meaning of a Facebook poke. It might just mean much more than you think.

Whenever I go on Facebook, I see a little portion of the screen saying that people have poked me. Facebook claims that a poke can be used "to say hello" to your friends. Thus, I see this poke feature on Facebook as a way that my friends are saying, "Hello, I am thinking about you and I miss you."

Thus, I think a poke feels pretty good.

What is a Facebook Poke?

After you receive a poke, you then have the option of poking back. This could be translated as a way of saying, "Thanks for thinking of me. I feel the same way."

However, this is just the surface meaning of a poke on Facebook, but if we dig deeper, we may find that a Facebook poke means much more.

Such was the case with my friend Bob.

Bob recently asked me, "Richard, what does a Facebook poke mean to you?"

I said, "It's an acknowledgment, a friend saying hello."

He claimed that sometimes it can mean much more and proceeded to tell me a story.

Long ago, Bob had been good friends with a girl named Alexandra. Alexandra and Bob often took their relationship passed the friendship level but it never changed into a full blown relationship. Thus, after some time, Alexandra met someone and ended up marrying this man and invited Bob to the wedding.

As it happens when people lead different lives, Bob and Alexandra stopped communicating with each other on a regular basis pretty quickly and then not at all. In fact, they went five years without really talking to one another at all.

And then, Bob received a Facebook poke from Alexandra out of the blue. After not communicating for five years, Alexandra suddenly initiated communication.

Bob wondered about this sudden Facebook poke. Was this just an acknowledgment or was there something more to the story?

Well, it turns out, after Bob checked Alexandra's Facebook profile, she was single again. Bob decided to poke her back and see where things led.

In the end, Bob and Alexandra began dating and now they have plans to marry each other.

Thus, while a Facebook poke is often just an acknowledgment, it can sometimes say a whole lot more!

What is a Facebook Poke?
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Want to know more? Read What Does It Mean To Poke Someone on Facebook and find out how to get on Facebook at school. The author, Richard Tyler, is a technologist, writer, and generally curious bloke!