The CPRS National Conference, “On the Edge” is coming up quickly and MediaMiser will be there in full force. We’ll be making a big announcement, and to get you excited, we’ll be giving away free stuff throughout the conference! All you have to do is follow @MediaMiser and watch for clues.
We’ve got TONS of cool gizmos and goodies to give away… So don’t forget to follow us, AND if you’re really eager to win-you can set up your mobile device to get a text message every time we tweet!
In an article on cbcnews.ca, market research firm Nielsen Online found Twitter is having a problem retaining audience.
Even though Twitter’s base more than doubled in March, they have less than a 30 per cent retention, compared to a 70 per cent retention rate for both Facebook and MySpace.
The current state of the economy has definitely done a number on traditional news outlets. Just recently, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer announced it is shutting down its presses and it is just publishing online only.
Some are pointing to this as the beginning of the end for the newspaper. Others are saying that newspapers are just morphing into a new and more accessible medium — the web.
That said, the true value of a newspaper is not the paper it is printed on, but the credibility and value of news it reports. Newspapers represent the trusted gatekeepers of current events. They filter out what is not credible and not worthy for our consumption, which in turn makes us more knowledgeable.
Newsprint might die, but people will always seek out the credibility of the paper or publication — no matter what media it is on.
This past week we undertook an interesting analysis centered around a word rarely used, often mispronounced and most certainly misspelled: ‘prorogue’. Yes, you guessed it, the analysis was all about the partisan hoopla in Canada among our political parties.
We undertook an analysis of coverage about the possibility of a Coalition government being formed in Canadian parliament, as a result of a non-confidence motion being entertained in the House. The results of our analysis were picked up by PR Week.
Needless to say it was an interesting exercise to see which major dailies supported the Coalition or the existing Conservative minority government. We focused mostly on the tone of the coverage, regional breakdowns and terms used. The tone was done by our media analysts on an individual story basis, then the data was further crunched using our software MediaMiser Enterprise.
Here are some of the general highlights:
- 526 articles analyzed;
- 20% of articles were supportive in tone of the Coalition;
- 48% of articles were balanced in coverage;
- 32% of articles were critical of the Coalition;
- Almost half of the coverage in the National Post was critical of the Coalition;
- Coverage in the Calgary Herald reached 60% critical;
- The Toronto Star was most supportive of the Coalition with 16 articles supporting it;
- The most balanced of all the dailies analyzed was the Globe & Mail, which had equal support for and against.
However, when you look at the data in our system by drilling down further into the results some interested trends appeared:
- Using our Prominence tool to isolate front page coverage, the Globe & Mail only had supportive coverage of the Coalition;
- A regional breakdown highlighted extreme variances in tone, with Western Canada overwhelmingly against, Ontario slightly supportive, and Quebec(English-only) was balanced;
- The term ‘party funding’ — which essentially started the feud — was only mentioned 14 times…while our favourite term ‘prorogue’ was used 86 times.
I think one of the keys when looking at an analysis like this is the ability to look further underneath the hood for additional insight, and not rely only on the overall tone scores.
Traditionally media monitoring and media analysis have been time consuming exercises. So time consuming, it’s usually an after thought for communication professionals and organizations. Yet, analysis is one of the most important activities a communications professional should be engaged in.
In fact, professional associations, such as the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), will deem a project incomplete without an evaluation phase.
However, because of the time consuming nature of media analysis, people either opt for other methods of evaluating their organizations communications activities, or they do very high level media analysis, which generally results in ‘benchmarking’.
Benchmarking is a very useful exercise, but it doesn’t come close to telling the whole story and the main reason for doing analysis or evaluation, is not to do it because it’s on the list, but to learn from mistakes and build upon trends and successes. That’s the only way to succeed in business.
Again, this is not to discount high level analysis or ‘benchmarking’. However, as the old saying goes, “the devil, is in the detail.”
Ultimately, you should be able to drill down into information, especially when you see trends. For example, if you do a report for a project you were working on and it finds that your communication efforts reached a large amount of people and then you report the project was a success based on that analysis alone.
However, other indicators, such as sales numbers provided by your company’s sales department, shows that there was little impact from your project. The reasons for this might have been revealed to you, if you had simply drilled down further into the information.
For example, you could have further segmented your information by publication or region. Maybe you only reached media that was outside of your company’s sales territories? Maybe you hit the wrong demographic?
The bottom-line is, analysis is an important function to your organization’s communications efforts and it should not be treated as an after thought. Furthermore, since evaluation has traditionally been left to the end of a project, there is a greater risk for failure. Ideally, media analysis should be real-time, allowing communication strategies and tactics to remain fluid.
JibJab has recently launched its new web-based movie that is a musical satire of the upcoming 2008 US election.
The vignette is set to the Bob Dylan song, The Times They Are a-Changin’ and like all of JibJab’s productions, it’s well produced and very funny.
Check out Time for Some Campaignin’. It won’t disappoint.
Should intelligence be derived from statistical information alone?
Of course not. But it also shouldn’t be excluded entirely.
In my opinion, good media analysis combines statistical data with empirical data. It uses both methods where they make sense, and in most cases that combination communicates an accurate picture of the situation.
In his blog posting, The stupidity of metrics, David Churbuck takes issue with the practice of measurement. More specifically, the practice of trying to measure subjective information.
Although I agree with David’s point that some people have a tendency to get tunnel vision when measuring statistical data, I disagree with his suggestion that reporting on statistical information is a futile exercise.
Furthermore, for those of us who actively engage in media analysis and develop tools to help make it more meaningful, I can attest that one of the main roles of media analysis tools is help identify issues or trends more effectively, so we can be more effective on the empirical side.
In David’s blog, he uses a metaphor of a plane accident to highlight the danger of relying on instruments as opposed to simply looking out the window of your cockpit to survey the situation. Fair enough.
However, there is a reason why airplanes have instruments. Sometimes conditions don’t allow you to visually navigate your aircraft. To use David’s analogy of flying an aircraft, when you need know where you’re going at 40,000 feet, sometimes your instruments are the only thing you have. And when you are analyzing media, sometimes you need to look at it from the “40,000 foot” point of view.
If there is one thing I have learned from developing and implementing business processes and analysis solutions here at MediaMiser, it’s that having a plan is the key to working smarter. In fact, that’s the biggest tip I could offer to anyone trying to do the same thing: Put a lot of effort into the planning stage. You will be rewarded in the end.
When it comes to media analysis, you really have to know what you’re trying to measure before you start collecting information, and you need to have a process measuring it. This might seem like common sense. However, many people will just start collecting information, without a proper plan in place, because they feel they can develop and implement a plan later. The problem is that without a proper plan, you’ll quickly get overwhelmed with information and won’t know where to start.
Many people think you need to know all the issues before you start, and that the best way to get a handle on the issues is to first collect the information. The reality is you don’t need to know all the issues right from the start. With a good plan in place and a well thought out process, you can adjust for new issues later. Your plan will help you develop processes for identifying new issues and making adjustments where necessary.
That said, you do need some knowledge of the issues upfront. This lets you more easily formulate patterns and identify new issues, and allows for the planning required to develop your measurement standards.
When it comes to measurement standards for your analysis, consistency is the key. You need to make sure you’re comparing ‘apples to apples’. Again, planning upfront is the key. By making sure you know where your key indicators (such as audience size, categorization, document types, etc.) are coming from, you will be better able to properly understand the data. But even if your key indicators are not perfect, the key is consistency.
That’s what will provide the insight needed to effectively communicate what’s going on, and that’s what good analysis is really about. However, without proper planning, your analysis could lack consistency, which could jeopardize your ability to identify what is truly important.
And as an added bonus, proper planning will also cut down on your workload if done properly, helping you to truly work smarter, not harder.
As a business analyst and programmer, I love to figure out how things work. When I see a garbage truck rolling down the street, I don’t see garbage-men and trucks; I see a well thought out process that prevents the city from seizing up and smelling bad.
I also see information the same way — especially the news and how it affects organizations. Many people will simply check Google News once in a while or read the newspaper to find out what’s going on. Others will use a news service and monitor the news with set keywords and actually try to keep the decision-makers informed about what’s going on.
However, many organizations lack a plan and routine to keep information flowing in a steady, manageable stream to help ensure decision-makers and other team members are adequately informed. Information and intelligence are essential for businesses to operate, and, like garbage collection, are time-sensitive. If garbage sits for too long, it stinks and clutters the streets impeding movement, eventually grinding things to a halt. If information sits for too long, opportunities are lost and an organization could end up headed in the wrong direction.
So even though an organization might be collecting and and analyzing media coverage, the information still needs to be properly disseminated and communicated in a timely fashion.
The only way to ensure this is to create processes and routines for managing your media coverage, just as cities develop plans to move garbage.
People within an organization can’t simply be presented with monthly or quarterly reports. Yes, like scheduled recycling days, monthly and quarterly reports are essential to understanding what is going on. But there still needs to be a steady flow of information and it needs to be filtered and monitored on a daily basis. In this day and age, with the prevalence of intranets, extranets, and most importantly, email, there are no excuses for people not being kept informed on a daily basis. In the business world, it’s all about taking advantage of opportunity and avoiding missteps.
The same way your city has recycling bins, trash cans, regular pickups, special pickups, etc., to keep things moving, organizations need daily processes and routine to keep the information flowing so they can properly function and grow.
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