Current State of the Media Monitoring in the U.S.

This is a Linkedin answer that I found which represents the current state of the Media monitoring in the U.S.

http://www.linkedin.com/answers/marketing-sales/public-relations/MAR_PRR/387436-11951464?searchIdx=6&sik=1233341784144&goback=.asr_1_1233341784144

How to gather media coverage

It seems to be getting harder and harder to gather media coverage these days. I used to pay a lot for Bacons or Burelles and the coverage was pretty good but not very timely. Google searches bring up thousands of hits to search through, but still doesn't catch all of it. Lexis/Nexis only gets a fraction of it and Google News is useless because it is so sparse. I've looked at several online services but most use Lexis/Nexis as a basis. What solutions others are finding useful, especially in the technology space. No vendor sales pitches please. I would really like to hear from end users who have found a great tool or series of tools.
Thanks

Robin: This is a very good and timely question. There has been a fragmentation of the news monitoring industry, in some regards. There has also been a "refocus" of sorts for the larger monitoring companies. The hard question, for you, becomes, "what do you want to do?" If you need comprehensive press clipping service, then you need to work with a true press clipping service...on-line monitoring will not suffice. If you need to know what truly aired on TV and radio, then you need a real broadcast monitoring service, not a firm that monitors broadcast media websites (much of what is posted never airs and vice-verse). If you need to track the internet, then you're going to want a solution that can target your stories AND filter the results so you get valuable information.

Beyond the news tracking components mentioned above, you'll also need to decide if you have the need or budget for media contact management/releasing and media analysis. The first component will more effectively help you get your story out. The analysis service will let you correlate your results to your effort, plus definitively show the value and impact of your media results.

Our company specializes in providing these solutions. Bacon's (now Cision) and Burrelle's/Luce both have very good services as well. Beyond the companies I've mentioned you have a great number of services that specialize in one or two components mentioned above. If I can assist you, or if you'd like to speak with someone in my office, feel free to call.

Good luck.

Todd Murphy


Todd Murphy is a good friend, and the big man at Universal Information Services in Omaha, NE

Media Monitoring Traditional vs New Media the rule of 40-40

It is the Rule of 40-40… 40 % of the papers in Mississippi have websites that are updated regularly, of that 40% they only include 40% of the content. Now this is an average, and as we papers progress there are more and more websites for newspapers. But the newspapers are protecting their content & subscription base from the web by not publishing everything that they have so that they will retain some of their subscribers.

40% of 40% is 16% ---------So only 16% of what is published actually makes it to the web.

The methodology that I used to get these numbers was taking a single newspaper and clipping every article out of the paper and searching for those articles on the website.

I automatically excluded ads (Advertisements are completely different on the internet than they are in print)
I automatically excluded AP stories (Associated Press stories can be included on website, but the paper must pay for those stories to run there -
I automatically excluded classifieds (Classifieds are different that what is on the internet, and frankly classified revenues are going down the tubes since the advent of craigslist and eBay)
I included what was left, original articles, sports news, TV listings, entertainment and Calendars from that paper only are an average only 40%. Realistically the hard news is only about 20% of the paper’s original content.

I have not done such studies with TV and Radio websites but they have to be much lower than print. So in a sales call or a reply to a blog posting, I respond with the following. This is a typical explanation for why marketers and PR professionals need to include newspaper clipping & broadcast monitoring services in their tool belt in addition to Google / Yahoo alerts and other online monitoring services. But know you as well as I do that perception of what the client’s needs are different from reality.

Actually Google only monitors and indexes about 4500 news sites with Google alerts. The reality of matter is that as the newspaper industry is fighting with how to create revenue and fighting the online new media threat they are actually holding back many of the stories from their websites. The truth of the matter is that not every newspaper has a website with content it is actually about 40% but growing of that 40% they only post 40% of the content. You must exclude AP stories, ads, classifieds, and most sports stories. So 40% of 40% is 16. 16% of what is printed actually makes it to the paper. The same is true with TV sites as well, but even less of the coverage is on the web. Radio stations mostly have promotions and contest and virtually no news content. Twitter is easy to monitor but not understood by 85% of the population. You do the math. Is an online monitoring service with FREE tools going to compare with media research professionals that actually know the news. I don’t think so. Check out http://newsmediamonitoring.blogspot.com or http://www.magnoliaclips.com for more in-depth information about this topic.

News Article about my Company

FindArticles - Magnolia Clipping: scissors, glue sticks--and cutting-edge tech
Mississippi Business Journal, The, Mar 17, 2008, by Northway, Wally

Fundamental shift in Media Monitoring

As communication in our world becomes more and more depend on computers to transmit messages, there is a shift in communications. The way that we get our news from the Main Stream Media (CNN, FOX NEWS, HLN, ABC, NBC, CBS, and NPR) and Daily and Weekly Newspapers is moving towards the online world. Like most people the first thing that they do at the office in the morning, is check email, and open up a browser. On this browser page whether it be Yahoo, MSN, iGoogle, or another, the news is one of the first things that they read.

As a Media Monitor, this directly affects my business. My company will have to adapt and shift the paradigm from monitoring traditional media to monitoring online media, blogs, RSS feeds, Newspaper and Television Websites. That is not to say that there is no need for traditional media. People are tactile creatures, we like to touch the newspaper turn the pages, flip them over. There is a sense of accomplishment once you have read the entire newspaper. Sure there is Wifi at the coffee shop, and news websites, and Amazon’s kindle, but the fact remains that newspaper are still printing papers. Not all of this content is online, therefore how will you monitor this? With a traditional newspaper clipping service that is how. Magnolia Clipping Service as been around for nearly 70 years, that is before TV news, which my great grandmother was worried about way back when. Nothing is going to change the fact that people still want newspapers, and that the Local 6 PM newscast will remain indispensable at least not in the near future. TV website have some of the content on the website, but usually it is only the package that they post, not all of the segments from the 5, 6, 10, and the two hours of AM shows. One thing that will not go away are the ratings from the TV, PR professionals will still need to track it, measure it, and make sure that they can count that towards their ROI stats for the PR campaign.

Currently there is a thrust of companies to try to get into blogging, and trying for find their place in the blogosphere, and again, this does not mean that they will not need to also follow the old ways too. This will be a gradual transition, as people and companies have different learning curves for the Social Media.

As always I welcome any comments you may have on this topic.

Is there a Print Monitoring Alernative?

Recently a colleague post an interesting question to which I do have an answer. "Is there and alternative to Cision or Burrelle's for National Print Media Monitorig Service?"

The short answer is Yes & No. Let me quickly try an explain the current climate in the print news monitoring. You have Cision which does nation, but not all papers, only large markets, or only dailies, and key weeklies. Similarly you have Burelle's which also the same thing, in addition they have teamed up with the publishers and now get something that is not quite an Internet feed, and not quite the same as the printed article... it is something different. Then you have the small independent clipping bureaus like me, Magnolia Clipping Service (magnoliaclips.com), Universal Information, and Louisiana News Clips. Yes we can somewhat fulfill a national order through the network, but Burelle's owns some of the state clipping services, like Minnesota, and a few others. Then you have states that do not have an independent clipping service. These states like Tennessee, have press association that have internal clipping services. The problem with those services are that they do not read all of the papers, only the papers that belong to the press association. So technically through a network of press clipping services you could place your order with each. By doing this you would get the most thorough coverage currently available. Then you would then have to have the compile those clips once sent to you. Since there are a number of services, the quality, cost, and service levels would differ from one company to another.

The alternative to print monitoring, is a digital online internet news monitoring service. Vocus, Cyberalert, Custom-Scoop, and Meltwater excel at getting the online clips from newspaper and TV websites. What they miss, and fail to disclose is that not everything is on the internet. Last time I checked in early 2007, only 40% of the papers in my market had websites. When I compared the actual content from the paper, less that 40% of the content made the websites. As important and easy to use as these services are there is huge amount of print that is being missed from these services.

Regarding a traditional media strategy in the Web 2.0 World

I recently read an post on Kevin Bondelli's blog, and was prompted with these ideas.

I will have to preface this by stating that I own a newspaper clipping service. One thing that PR Professionals should realize, is that everything is not on the internet.

Anyone interested in finding out everything about a particular media campaign should already be aware of this. Next, everything realize that not every reads blogs and even knows what an RSS feed is. Now we get to content. As a newspaper clipping service, and broadcast monitoring service, I am keenly aware of what content from the traditional sources are available on the internet. I did a study about 8 months ago. Every newspaper that I subscribe to as a clipping service does not have a website. Less than 40% of the papers have websites. Some have full content, and others have a simple pamphlet page, or a subscription sign up page. So for one week, I clipped every article out of the major paper, in Mississippi, then compared the clips to what I could find online. I found less than 40% of the content from the papers actually made it to the internet. Some of the things that are in the paper but not on the internet, are advertisements, sports box scores, classified ads, obituaries, AP stories, and a few other things.

Next television, and radio are again not on the internet. While every television station that provides it own news content does have a website, not all of the content makes it onto the internet. The top stories are just about all that makes the cut. Radio stations will have a website most of the time, but you will be hard pressed to find a radio station that stores the news as podcast or even less that have a text feed of their news. So all of that being said, PR professionals will continue to need some one to read the newspapers, watch and log the TV news, and Radio until they are completely gone. (a very long time from now) One other critical thing to mention is how to effectively measure the audience, ad rates, and publicity values. This is simple enough in
traditional media, but can be costly. If this left to monitoring service or a clipping service, which do these things everyday, you can save a bundle by utilizing their resources. I admit that the online world is growing a lot and web 2.0 is becoming the new way to distribute press releases, and make an impression on the new media.

To address a few of the other things in this article Google alerts, and RSS feeds. Google alerts are often as many as 10 days late on indexing. Google alerts also have no boolean search syntax. This means there is not way to get a specific phrase without having to get all of the rest of the just that goes along with those keywords. Typically only 1 in 5 hits on Google Alerts will be the results from your press release. RSS feeds are not available for every news source on the internet. Again with this you must wade through the junk to get to the relevant material. To effectively monitor the media you must monitor all forms of media, Print, TV, Radio, Internet, and Web 2.o social or conversational media.

Traditional monitoring services like magnoliaclips.com can get most of if not all of the materials that you are looking for. By getting this from a one stop shop you save significantly, rather than having to pay 5 different service.

Twitter and Business Development; What I have learned in a two week twitter trial

Twitter and Business Development
In merely a week using twitter, I went mad following people, by doing a search for “PR”, “Public Relations”, “Media Relations”, and “Media Monitoring”. Typically when you follow someone they follow you. I have found that 2 out of 5 people I follow started following me. This is a good thing since the message I wanted to send was targeted specifically to an audience that has a need for monitoring service. Without being to self promotion, I posed questions to my twitter followers such as,
“Are you happy with your traditional media monitoring services?”
“Do you wish that there was an alternative your current service provider?”
“What is the best new product that Media Monitoring services have introduced recently?”
“Have you found that the measurements of media monitoring service to be accurate?”
“If you could change the way media monitoring services work, what would you change, how and why?”
There were a few other question, but most of the responses I got the best results from were questions. I also threw out there a few things that were more like pitches. Most people did not respond to that. I believe that the best way to engage the twitter community is to participate in the conversation. Asking who they use, why, what is good or bad about them.

Most people in the twitter community want to believe that online is the only thing out there and that traditional media no longer exists, or has become irrelevant. This is not the case. Statistics that I have found are that only 8% of people in the U.S. are actively engaged in Conversational Media. By far the audiences are still going to traditional sources, Newspapers, Television, and Radio for news. That being said the online communities and social networking sites are growing, and building a momentum. Social Networking Sites like Facebook, and LinkedIn are good for measuring your sphere of influence, and creating a social graph of people you know and who know you, through how many degrees. I will admit that the mainstream media sources are now referring back to online sources more and more. Nielsen’s ratings show higher numbers than online communities.

When attempting to use twitter to get people’s attention, you have to be subtle, not to “in your face” about marketing your product. If you are then you just become a spammer, another used car salesman, another furniture store with a crazy gimmick. Twitter is a wonderful means to grab the attention of a specific market. People who are using twitter have several attributes that many real world people do not have, but the twitterverse has to cross over into the real world somewhere.
They are aware of new technology
They know how to use this technology
They are willing to try new things
They know that they “the people” are the influencers now
They are aware that their words DO have an impact on others thoughts, behaviors, and attitudes

The main thing to remember is that it is a two way conversation. Pitches, and traditional sales techniques do not work in the conventional sense, but some of the traditional sales techniques can be altered, and then they become a real force. It is more about the art of conversation, a way to steer your audience, or your listeners into wanting to know more. In many ways it is good speech writing, or good written salesmanship that creates curiosity. You have to believe in the product or service that you are selling. You have to be willing to share what you know about your area of expertise in order to win people over. Twitter does not get you more business, it is the proper use of twitter and tying that into a blog, by the use of link bait that gets traffic, readers, and more eyeballs on you material that is the driving for of twitter in the business world.