Media monitoring and evaluation
Media monitoring tracks mentions of the company, its people, products and competitors in print, online news, radio, TV and social media. Specialist monitoring services collect the data; the value lies in the evaluation. The number of articles alone says little — what matters is where they ran, whom they reached, the tone they take and whether they carried what the company wanted to say.
What we deliver
- Setting up monitoring: keywords, sources and competitors
- Alerts on important or sensitive mentions as they happen
- Evaluation of tone, reach and presence of key messages
- Share of voice against selected competitors
- A regular report with recommendations for future communication
What is measured: tone, reach, messages, share of voice
Each mention is rated on whether it is positive, neutral or negative about the company, how large and relevant the outlet’s audience is, and whether it carries the key messages. A trade-press piece carrying the full message can be worth more than a passing mention in a national daily.
Share of voice shows what proportion of mentions in the sector belong to the company compared with competitors. Tracked over time it says more than any single month: whether the company is gaining or losing ground in the media.
Why we do not use AVE
AVE (advertising value equivalency) converts an article into the price of an ad of the same size or length. It looks like a precise number but misleads: it does not tell positive from negative coverage, says nothing about whether the message landed, and compares two things that work entirely differently. International professional bodies for PR measurement advise against it.
Since we also buy advertising space, we know what it would really cost — which is exactly why we do not use it as a measure of PR success. Instead we evaluate whom the message reached and with what result.
Frequently asked
- What is share of voice?
- Share of voice is the company’s share of all mentions of itself and selected competitors over the same period. It shows how much of the sector’s media space the company occupies. It means most when combined with tone — a high share of negative coverage is not a success.
- Why do you not put a monetary value on coverage?
- Because the usual conversion — AVE, the price the same space would cost as advertising — is misleading. It ignores whether coverage is positive or negative and whether the message landed, and PR measurement bodies advise against it. We evaluate PR on reach in the target audience, tone, key messages and share of voice.
- What do monitoring and evaluation cost?
- Send the inquiry form for a concrete proposal.
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