Nigeria Content Online

The media is a very
powerful industry and reports on any organisation go a long way in
shaping and moulding public opinion of the organisation’s corporate
image and services. This is because of the media’s role as purveyor of
information. The media sets agenda for public discourse on any issue
and as a result, media monitoring is critical and important.

The media
monitoring service, to a large extent, goes a long way in determining
the media rating of an organisation. It also helps the organisation to
analyse and evaluate its reach in terms of media projection.

A media monitoring
service provides clients with documentation, analysis, or copies of
media content of interest to the clients. Services tend to specialise
by media type, size, geography, publication, journalist, editions, or
content type. Though media monitoring is more often used for capturing
editorial content, sometimes it may also be used to capture advertising
content. Media monitoring covers all media types including print,
online, TV, and radio.

Most companies do
not attach value to media monitoring, while a handful appreciate the
laudable role of the media in setting agenda for public discourse on
their corporate activities. It has also shown from experience that some
companies do not have strategy plan until negative reports are
published on their operations. It thus become essential to monitor the
media to correct any bias or misrepresentation, as well as inaccuracies.

Beyond gauging the
media perception, the monitoring is also a vantage platform to engage
the media on a consistent basis. It is a veritable tool to maintain a
one-on-one relationship with the media and touch base with them. Media
interface is key to delivering unquantifiable results. Some corporate
affairs managers and public affairs directors do not know the address
of media houses, not to even think of meeting the media partners.

Key tasks in media monitoring

Media monitoring
involves a critical and analytical review of media reports as they
apply to the industry of operation. This helps the organisation’s
spokesperson to have a strong base to meet the individual reporter and
have an engagement session to correct inaccuracies or any form of bias.

It gives a factual
account about the perception of the services of an organisation by the
target audience. It is a feedback mechanism to gauge the perception of
the public about an organisation. Media monitoring tracks competitive
analysis and provides intelligence information about the operations of
competitors. It also involves environmental scanning to assess the
impact of the communication of competitors within the same industry,
and regular communication and consistent dialogue with journalists. A
monitoring of some key writers in the industry and a follow-up call to
them or email communication is also a good avenue to follow reporting
patterns and trend of issue analysis.

One good thing about this is that the reporter is always on his toes as he knows that he is being monitored.

Due to the quantum of work and analysis in media monitoring, an
organisation needs the services of independent monitoring firms to
execute professional work. This will enable the organisation obtain an
objective assessment of its corporate image.