Media monitoring now an essential service

What is media monitoring, and why is it important? It is the task of monitoring the output of print, online broadcast and now digital (social) media. 

For most organisations with a public profile, this is a vital step. In managing one’s public (or brand) image, organisations are now compelled to track not only their own and their industry news and activity but also their competitors, but also the comment of opinion leaders, influencers and reviews and comments of customers/public. 

Organisations use media monitoring services to track media for news, ads and mentions on the economy, markets, brands and competitor activity. 

You can no longer be in the dark about anything going on in your industry and market. You need to understand how your organisation is perceived and received; but also be aware of your competition and general trends and activities of your industry. 

This service has grown to become an essential part of the marketer’s and PR manager’s armoury that several companies have emerged to cater to this need.

While several established research organisations offer media monitoring including Survey Research Lanka, AC Nielsen (now replaced by Kantar) both global players, the leading local media monitoring service is Lanka Monitoring Agency (LMA). 

LMA stores this data in a secure, state-of-the-art web archive that holds an astounding amount of media clippings spanning a little over 10 years which is available in its entirety even to new subscribers.

A string of analytical tools help evaluate, compare and arrange data analysis for use in marketing, forecasting and spotting trends in industries, competitor activity and media presence. 

LMA’s web archive contains media from all the way back in 2008 for selected industries, which presently include many players from numerous industries: apparel, automobile, banking, cosmetics, dairy, education, environment, film, food and beverage, healthcare, hospitality, insurance, leasing and finance, mobile and web app development, IT, pharmaceuticals, politics, PR, real estate, rideshare, security, telecommunication, tender notices, tobacco and alcohol and many more. 

However, the archive is only added to at the behest of clients, thus while the archive for the above-listed industries is wide, there are industries that are yet to be added to the archive. 

For those already available, there are a host of analytical tools such as looking at the amount of investment a company has put into their ads, size of ads, news and PR coverage of competitors and the sector, such as branch openings, etc. The archive tabulates them chronologically, putting all into clear and easy graphs which are mailed to clients or printed. 

While this is a service that can be done internally, the benefits of using a third-party service is invaluable as not only is it a much lower cost, it is done in a very systematic way that has been polished and perfected over the years. 

It also allows you to get an outsider view of the company and have data that is 100% accurate, easily tabulated and effortlessly analysed. Furthermore, the archive is updated daily as soon as the information becomes available, making all this information accessible to subscribers at record times. 

This is a tool that has yet to become widely available with companies who offer media monitoring services, making this an invaluable method of measuring your own success compared to the investment, looking at your competitor’s success compared to their overall investment - as well as media selection insights – giving you ample opportunities to adjust and adapt your strategy accordingly.