Universal Information Services

The Media and Media Monitoring

Media monitoring relies on, well, the media. Monitoring can’t exist without the source material that the media creates.

Obvious, right?

What’s less obvious is that the relationship between media and monitoring is a two-way street. The media benefits from the monitoring just as much as the monitoring benefits from the media.

The Media Audience

Media monitoring creates an audience that local media typically can’t reach on their own. Not only does monitoring put a news story in front of more people – it puts that story in front of the right people. These are the people to whom that story matters, the people who will be impacted by it or can act as a result of it.

Let’s consider an example: Say a local newspaper runs a front-page story about an upcoming construction project that will overhaul the city’s downtown neighborhood. A run-of-the-mill subscriber will read that story with their morning coffee, they might think, “Hmm, that’s interesting.” But the impact of that story on that subscriber ends there.

Universal Information Services works with several companies in the architecture, engineering and construction industries. Now, that same story about a downtown project will be picked up in media monitoring and put in front of people in the construction world. There are two benefits here:

• Construction companies who subscribe to a media monitoring service will get a lead on upcoming work.
• More awareness of the project leads to more interest from A/E/C companies, and that means more competitive bidding on the project – and that’s good news for the city.

Putting news stories in front of a wider audience via media monitoring also helps expand the name recognition of a reporter. The more people who see a reporter’s name, the more that writer becomes a trusted source on the topic.

An executive at a hospital that subscribes to media monitoring has a hot news tip … who do you think they’re going to turn to? Through their daily media coverage reports, that executive knows exactly what reporters are on the medical beat because their bylines are in front of them time and time again. And, in exchange, the reporter also has made a new connection and has a new expert source for future stories.

A Smaller World

Media monitoring also helps remove geographic boundaries that limit the spread of local news. Sure, if a story runs online, most people can access it wherever they are in the world. However, not every story that runs in print or airs on television ends up on that news source’s website. Did a TV reporter mention an event that your company is sponsoring on air? If you don’t live in that market area, you might be out of luck finding that broadcast on your own.

This is where Universal Information Services can help. We record broadcasts and read newspapers from across the country, and we deliver stories to clients that are hundreds of miles away. So, no need to invest in that super antenna. Just let us help you with the news you need, and the news they need you to need.

Sarah McCallister is the Editorial Manager at Universal Information Services