Not all media monitoring companies offer the same media lists. Media monitoring companies with local in-country offices often provide better media lists when it comes to local and regional news coverage. Plus, you want to be sure that the media list you choose also offers access to important subscription content behind paywalls.
Building a media list for media monitoring can be a daunting task, but it is essential for businesses and organizations that want to stay up-to-date on the latest news and coverage of their brands. Building a media list takes tremendous time. It doesn’t prove cost effective to build your own media lists when experts on the ground and in the region you want to monitor have already done so.
When deciding whether the media list offered your is sufficient to your monitoring task, you have to take more into account more than just the number of media outlets on the list. Be sure to ask if the media list has the reach you need, especially for local and regional events that may not be covered by national and international media outlets.
You will also need to guage if the media list has “authority.” Does the media list include publications that are considered to be most credible in the market you’re monitoring? Often times a media list may include the most important national media outlets, but not the most important trade publications and weekly and monthly news outlets considered “experts” in the market or industry you are monitoring.
Finally, when judging whether a media list is adequate for your media monitoring campaign, consider whether the media list fits with your specific topic. A media list heavy in traditional news outlets may not be sufficient if your topic is highly specific to an individual industry and is covered by experts that blog or write for less-known publications.
At Latin Media Monitor we help our clients to identify which media outlets are the most important to follow, and we can provide the research needed to identify specialized and local media outlets that should be followed.
