Media Monitoring for Brand Reputation: Why It matters

Technological advances over the years have allowed online dialogue to revolutionize brand-consumer relationships, establishing an equilibrium in communications power between them. This has imbued a new vibrancy and multi-dimensional character into branding itself.

Modern media platforms have become powerful tools that can make or break a company’s reputation in the blink of an eye. A single negative review or Tweet can cause a PR nightmare, and potentially damage the bottom line.

“It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.”—Benjamin Franklin

Having a strong brand reputation is an invaluable asset for any business. It can open doors, create goodwill with customers, and generate trust when mistakes are made – as long as these missteps are managed well. As such, cultivating your firm's good standing should be high on the agenda to ensure ongoing success!

But you might already be aware of all this… so let’s jump to: How Does Media Monitoring Help Protect My Brand?

By tracking all the mentions of your company, you can get a pulse on what people are saying about you at any given moment. This allows you to quickly identify and address any negative sentiment before it has a chance to do serious damage. It also allows you to take advantage of any positive sentiment by amplifying it through your own channels.

It's important that when working with media monitoring platforms you choose your tool kit strategically. In order to make the smartest decision, you'll need to consider all angles - price range, messaging goals, sector-specific knowledge and your team's capacity. Taking these elements into account will equip you with everything needed for a successful outcome.

Select a comprehensive media monitoring tool that supports your needs. For example, if your communications strategy is entirely around social media, a good social media listening tool would be your best bet. But, if you want to go further in the analysis, and access audio and video content across the media, you can be sure you’ll get covered with MediaCatch Pulse. With Pulse you will be notified whenever there's coverage in TV, Internet, radio, podcasts, and video streaming.

So, after choosing your monitoring tool, to effectively track mentions related to your brand, it is critical that you select the search streams carefully. For example, imagine you work for a beer company. You might want to look for terms such as “beer” or specific types of your product e.g., “dark beer” and “red beer" to address related topics to your industry.

Also, “Your Company Name”, and your competitors' names- "Competitor A", "Competitor B" etcetera. So you'll have a benchmarking of media performance and act accordingly. Keeping track of multiple keywords based on a shared criterion, such as brands or product types, can be an overwhelming task. To make life easier, invest in a monitoring platform that enables you to organize your search streams into easily distinguishable categories. With active media monitoring, it's important to set up multiple alerts and notifications. That way, you can make sure your brand stays on top of all potential mentions—and no detail is left behind! Real-time notification ensures that even the slightest change doesn't go unnoticed so any appropriate reactions are taken immediately.

Last but not least, evaluate your brand's reputation by selecting metrics which will help you uncover the answers to questions like:

• How well-known is your brand online?
• Are people talking about you? What are they saying and where are they saying it?
• What is the underlying sentiment behind the perception of your brand? Do your customers and potential customers view their interactions with you in a positive, neutral, or negative light?
• How does your brand reputation compare to your closest competitors? What are they excelling at and how can you improve your brand with that in mind?

To ensure your brand's success and maintain its integrity, it is vital to take proactive steps in monitoring, measuring, and optimizing the communicational system. Choosing a reliable partner can make this process much easier by providing you with timely data that’s invaluable for managing reputation.