Media monitoring for large enterprises

Why are large enterprises different?

Small businesses and start-ups (SMEs) can get away with implementing simpler media monitoring processes. They’re often too small to require comprehensive systems to inform their public relations (regardless of how beneficial having one is for a business of any size). Meaning small enterprises can depend upon free services such as Google Alerts and social listening tactics like building Twitter lists.

Large enterprises (LSs), on the other hand, demand proficient media monitoring services with access to extensive global reading lists. But why is media monitoring for large enterprises so different? And why do they require significantly more advanced PR and media tracking platforms?

Whether it’s to inform their large PR teams or to help with the management of their far-reaching reputations, when it comes to large enterprises they need to be all-seeing. Here we discuss the three primary uses large enterprises have for media monitoring.

Public relations

The first reason why media monitoring is important for large enterprises is an obvious one. Like any business small or large, it’s to inform their PR strategy and enhance their day-to-day public relations work. From putting out press releases to collecting competitive intelligence, large enterprises spend a lot of money on their PR teams. So it’s imperative that these teams are given the right tools to be able to perform to the best of their ability.

As such, the advent of the 24-hour news cycle means that media monitoring has become a fundamental aspect of PR. One that is an absolute necessity to stave off bad press, especially for large enterprises. The bigger you are the more media institutions and publishers you are going to touch. As a result, the impact of a large enterprise’s PR strategy, campaigns, and outreach is so widely felt that constant monitoring is required.

PR professionals

Now we’ve established that media monitoring is absolutely necessary for the PR of large enterprises, surely that’s it? But no, there’s more. Media monitoring isn’t just beneficial for those working directly with the PR strategy – although they are the most affected by it. But it is valuable for both for the PR team and C-suite at large enterprises.

The first can measure the effectiveness of their efforts and benchmark the business within their sector. It allows them to track whether the business is receiving positive media coverage, market Share of Voice (SOV), and campaign results. These metrics will ultimately help them to improve the PR strategy and prove their value to the business (beyond the traditional functionalities of a Press Office).

C-suite

The latter also benefit greatly from media monitoring reports. By having a comprehensive media monitoring strategy that tracks certain metrics, PR teams can easily compile useful PR reports for the C-suite. This not only provides executives with a better understanding of why investing in their PR team is necessary, but it supplies them with the opportunity to directly influence the PR strategy.

There are various other facets of PR within large enterprises that are positively impacted by the implementation of media monitoring. One directly effecting the C-suite, is the use of media monitoring metrics to inform and conduct media training with key stakeholders and media facing spokes people. Utilising quote detection and sentiment analysis on media tracking platforms, such as Signal A.I., allows you to really dive into the nitty gritty of your PR.

Risk and reputation management

Risk and reputation management are significant concerns for big organisations and large enterprises. As a business increases in size, the threats to reputation only grow. Even the variety of these threats and risks increase. Including but not limited to: MeToo scandals, cyber attacks and data breaches, services going offline, rogue tweets from a stakeholder, and company-wide crisis.

Crisis Management

What if it happens to your organisation? How should you respond to save your reputation?

These are the questions keeping executives awake at night. However, as a large enterprise you are also in the lucky position to be able to prevent crises before they happen. As a business with resources to spare, you can invest in a media monitoring platform. This will enable you to catch media spikes that may indicate a possible crisis in real-time.

However, sometimes you won’t manage to prevent a crisis before it spreads like wildfire. In that case, having a media monitoring strategy in place will supercharge your crisis management. It will enable you to research and analyse crisis in the industry. Every large enterprise will have been struck with some form of crisis, so learn from the past.

Public Affairs

One thing that is unique to large enterprises, and that many forget about, is the significant impact politicians and public affairs can have on their reputation. By monitoring the media for mentions of your brand or spokespeople, in tandem with political figures, you can catch and deal with public affairs issues early.

Additionally, you can monitor the minutes of sessions in the House of Commons in the UK and the Senate in the US. Ensuring that your media monitoring strategy is absolutely watertight.

Marketing and Sales

In the PR and Comms industry the wider benefits of processes like media monitoring can sometimes be neglected. But for large enterprises media monitoring platforms can assist with so much more than informing the PR strategy.

Marketing

It can enhance Marketing through the discovery of new opportunities. By spotting gaps in the market when investigating your competitive landscape, media monitoring can have a long-term, company-wide impact. One that will generate leads.

Additionally, the lines between PR, Communications, and Marketing are being blurred our digital world. As a result, the feedback provided to all outward facing parts of the business by media monitoring is welcome. It will also enable businesses to target their PR and marketing. Facilitating engagement with the right industry influencers, journalists and publications.

Finally, media monitoring can be utilised by sales teams at large enterprises. It will increasing their awareness of the industry and direct competitors. Which in turn will provide insight into how to engage with prospects and how best to portray the business.

Considering a media monitoring service

Ultimately, media monitoring is necessary for every business in order to succeed. But it is absolutely paramount for large enterprises to put media monitoring at the forefront of their PR strategy and invest in a service or platform. It’s a no-brainer really.

But the question always remains, which one? It’s almost as important to find the right media monitoring platform for you, as it is to undertake monitoring in the first place. Remember, as a large enterprise unlimited searches, global content, real-time translation, automatic alerts, and reporting functionalities are the most important. Any PR and media monitoring platform you choose needs to be scalable to fit your needs; do your research and invest in the best.