We all know that media monitoring platforms are invaluable in devising, implementing, and analysing PR and marketing campaigns. They provide real-time insights into your own performance, competitor activities, and shifting market dynamics. But to get the most out of these tools, you need to configure them correctly to track the trends that matter most to your business.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through the step-by-step process of setting up your media monitoring tool effectively to track industry trends.
Step 1: Define Your Objectives
Before diving into the technical setup, it’s essential to clarify what you want to achieve with your media monitoring tool.
- Are you just looking at your own brand mentions?
- Or are you looking to stay updated on emerging trends too?
- Do you want to keep an eye on competitor activities?
- Or perhaps you’re interested in tracking sentiment around specific topics in your industry?
Clearly defining your objectives will guide the entire setup process, ensuring that your monitoring efforts are aligned with your business goals.
Questions to Ask:
- What specific trends or topics do we need to monitor?
- Which competitors or industry leaders should be included?
- What is the geographical scope of our monitoring?
- How often do we need updates (real-time, daily, weekly)?
Step 2: Select Relevant Keywords and Phrases
Keywords are the backbone of any media monitoring platform setup. These are the specific terms and phrases that your tool will track across various media sources. To effectively monitor industry trends, it’s important to choose keywords that are both broad enough to capture general trends and specific enough to focus on the areas most relevant to your business.
Take a look at our Fashion Industry report to see the types of insights media monitoring and social listening can uncover for your brand.
Tips for Choosing Keywords:
- Start Broad, Then Narrow Down: Begin with broad industry terms, then refine with specific keywords related to your niche, products, or services.
- Include Competitor Names: Tracking mentions of competitors can provide valuable insights into market positioning and strategies.
- Don’t Forget Industry Buzzwords: Keep an eye on emerging industry jargon or new technologies that could signal upcoming trends.
Step 3: Configure Your Media Monitoring Tool
With your objectives and keywords in place, it’s time to set up your media monitoring tool. At Onclusive, our platform makes this process straightforward, with user-friendly interfaces that allow you to customize your monitoring parameters quickly and efficiently.
Setting Up Alerts:
- Create Alerts for Specific Keywords: Set up alerts for your chosen keywords and phrases. These alerts can be configured to notify you in real-time or at specific intervals, depending on your needs.
- Customize the Frequency of Alerts: Depending on the urgency, you can set alerts to ping you immediately, once a day, or on a weekly basis.
Filtering the Noise:
- Use Filters to Refine Results: Apply filters to narrow down results by geography, language, or source type (e.g., social media, news sites, blogs).
- Exclude Irrelevant Mentions: To avoid being overwhelmed with irrelevant data, use exclusion filters to remove mentions that don’t align with your objectives.
Step 4: Set Up Sentiment Analysis
Tracking industry trends isn’t just about knowing what’s being said—it’s about understanding how it’s being said. Sentiment analysis helps you gauge the tone of the conversation, whether it’s positive, negative, or neutral. Onclusive’s platform includes advanced AI-driven sentiment analysis, which can be tailored to your specific monitoring needs.
How to Configure Sentiment Analysis:
- Apply Sentiment Filters: Configure your tool to highlight mentions with a strong positive or negative sentiment, allowing you to quickly assess public opinion.
- Track Changes Over Time: Set up dashboards that track sentiment trends over time, giving you a broader view of how industry perceptions are evolving.
Step 5: Create Custom Reports and Dashboards
Once your media monitoring tool is up and running, it’s important to visualize the data in a way that makes it easy to digest and act upon. Onclusive’s platform offers customisable reports and dashboards that allow you to see the big picture at a glance.
Reporting Best Practices:
- Use Visual Aids: Incorporate charts, graphs, and heat maps to visualize trends, making it easier to spot patterns and anomalies.
- Schedule Regular Reports: Automate the generation of reports on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, depending on your needs.
- Share Insights Across Teams: Ensure that key insights are shared with relevant departments, so everyone is aligned and informed.
Step 6: Monitor and Adjust
The final step is ongoing: monitoring the effectiveness of your setup and making adjustments as needed. Industry trends evolve, and so should your media monitoring strategy. Regularly review your keywords, filters, and reports to ensure that your monitoring efforts remain relevant and effective.
Tips for Continuous Improvement:
- Review Performance Regularly: Assess the performance of your monitoring setup regularly to identify any gaps or areas for improvement.
- Stay Flexible: Be ready to tweak your keywords, filters, and alerts as industry dynamics change.
- Leverage Feedback: Gather feedback from your team on the usefulness of the reports and dashboards, and make adjustments accordingly.
Get Started Today
Setting up your media monitoring tool to track industry trends might seem complex, but with a clear strategy and the right tools, it can be a seamless process. At Onclusive, we’ve developed a platform that makes it easy to configure your media monitoring, so you can stay ahead of the trends that matter most to your business.
Ready to optimize your media monitoring setup? Contact us today to learn how Onclusive can help you get the most from your media monitoring.