Media & Social Media Monitoring Tips & Tools
Media monitoring & research tips
Thanks to the internet, there are some excellent free tools for monitoring news media and social media. They can give you basic news coverage on your company, product or your competitor as well as let you know when you need to move to a paid service to ensure you track results.
We’ve put together these media and social media monitoring resources to help you get ahead of what’s being said about you, your company or your brand in the media and online. We’ve also got links to some of the commercial monitoring services as well.
Other PR Research resources you may like: Communication Audits, News Content Analysis, PR Measurement Tips & Best Practices, PR Research Tools and Social Media Monitoring. Sites with W are PR Coach “winners.” Note, some links are pdf or other larger documents, so patience may be needed to view them.
Media & Social Media Monitoring Tips & Tools
3 Powerful Tools for Monitoring Your Brand
David Risley looks at Google Alerts, Twitter Alerts and Backtype. Each an essential, and free, tool.
3 Tools to Track Your Social Media Influence
Simple measurement advice and three essential tools.
5 Elements of Effective Social Media Monitoring
Here are five tips to get you started off right with your social media monitoring program.
5 Questions to Ask When Considering a Media Monitoring Service
Five valuable Qs to ask your prospective media monitoring service provider.
5 Social Media & PR Measurement Trends to Watch in 2009
Five trends to watch? Social media, quest for standards, engagement, cross-platform measurement challenges and a battle of accountability vs economy. From Italo Vignoli.
6 Must-Know Social Media Monitoring Tools
Very useful social media monitoring tips.
6 Social Media Success Metrics You Need to Track
Excellent PR measurement advice. W
8 Essential Free Social Media Monitoring Tools
Here are eight free social media monitoring tools reviewed by Andy Beal.
8 Social Media Metrics You Should Be Measuring
Here are eight social media metrics worth tracking. W
10 Free Social Media Monitoring Tools
Ben Cotton suggests 10 best free social media monitoring tools, including a few new ones. W
10 Questions for Social Media Measurement Success
Here are 10 key questions you should ask about social media measurement.
10 Ways to Measure Social Media for Business
Practical PR measurement tips. W
20 free tools to evaluate social media
Terrific PR measurement resources. W
31 Places to Monitor Your Reputation Online
Here’s 31 helpful tools to help you monitor your reputation online from Li Evans.
100 Media Monitoring Tools for PR
Many media monitoring tools worth trying.
A Quick ‘n Dirty Guide to Setting Up Social Media Monitoring
Kat French shows how to set up social media monitoring using free tools and as little as 30 minutes a day.
Addict-o-Matic
Search in real-time, create and save a page to measure the buzz on your favorite topic or keyword across many social media channels. A useful tool. W
Advancing Measurement and Evaluation of PR
PR measurement insight from Pauline Draper-Watts at IPR.
Alerti
New social media monitoring is fairly-priced and fully-featured. Worth a test drive.
Alltop
Create and share your own personal magazine rack of favorite websites and blogs.
BackType
Search online conversations, set up alerts and monitor what they’re saying about you in social media. Free. W
Basic Social Media Monitoring in Five Minutes a Day
Helpful social media monitoring tips
BlogPulse
Search blogs by keyword or topic.
Buzzgain Launches in Beta, Enabling “Do It Yourself PR” Monitoring
Louis Gray reviews BuzzGain and its usefulness for PR monitoring.
Change Your Tone – Media Coverage Shouldn’t be Toned by Software
Chris Morrison argues media coverage needs to be analyzed by skilled people, not software, for trustworthy guidance. W
Choosing a Media Monitoring Service – 9 Questions to Ask
Nine questions that may help you choose a media monitoring service that meets your needs.
Collecta
A useful “real-time” search engine that lets you search blog posts, comments, articles, video, Twitter, YouTube and more. Great potential. W
Conversation-Monitoring Services
Paul Gillin takes a helpful look at a number of the leading social media monitoring services. W
Critical Mention
Web-based TV search and monitoring service. Instantly find and share TV coverage. Have a look at their blog Critical Thinking.
Do It Yourself Social Media Monitoring
Nice and practical social media monitoring tips.
Do You Know What People are Saying About You?
Three excellent social media monitoring tips from Tory Patrick.
eKstreme – What’s the Buzz?
This research tool can help you find out who’s talking about a keyword using Technorati, Google Trends, bookmarks and blog posts.
Filtrbox
A new, real-time social media monitoring tool worth a try.
For Anyone Looking to Start Monitoring Social Media
Here’s a useful worksheet from Katie Paine. W
Free Social Media Monitoring Techniques
Need suggestions on how to handle social media monitoring? Rob Gonda provides great tips and strategies to get you started. W
Free Social Media Monitoring Tools
Terrific list of free social monitoring tools put together by Rob Gonda; for tools for blog search, brand overviews, buzz tracking, message boards, Twitter, multimedia, bookmarking and more. W
FriendFeed
Monitoring tool let’s you keep an eye on Twitter, Facebook and Google as well as share content.
Getting Smart with the Data: Measuring PR and Social Media
Excellent PR measurement insight from Sally Falkow.
Google Blog Search
Google Blog Search is a useful search tool for research, monitoring and targeting bloggers. W
Google News
Search recent news with Google News. W
Google News Alerts
Set up auto news alerts by topic or keyword and make sure to monitor news, blogs, web and video all-in-one. Powerful. W
Google News Archive Search
Another Google news search tool for archived and historical online news. Search topics and timelines. W
HeadlineSpot
Here’s a news search engine where you can search archives by region, media type and topic.
How Do You Monitor What People Say About Your Company in Social Media Outlets?
Great question. Great answers at Focus.
How Do You Plan for Measurement?
How to put together a measurement strategy.
How Do You Track Your Media Coverage?
Deborah Zanke suggests several practical ways to monitor your media coverage.
How Sociable?
Free tool measures more than 30,000 brands across 32 metrics.
How to Build Your Own Social Media Monitoring Service: DIY
Very useful tips on setting up basic DIY social media monitoring. W
How to Monitor Online Conversations
Dawn Foster suggests ways to manage and monitor online conversations efficiently.
How To: Set Up a Free Online Monitoring System
A helpful step by step guide to free online monitoring from Sarah Evans.
How to Track 500 Business Blogs in 10 Minutes a Day
Mashable shows how to listen to many conversations online efficienyly in just three simple steps.
How to Use the New Google Web Search RSS Feeds
A good tutorial from ReadWriteWeb on using Google’s web alert RSS feeds to monitor news. For some, a very useful tool.
Hymie’s Shoes & Social Media Measurement
Thoughtful PR measurement perspective.
IceRocket
Useful blog and social media search tool.
Internet Monitoring and Clipping: Strategies for PR, Marketing and Competitive Intelligence
Amelia Kassel provides a really useful guide to internet monitoring along with practicals tips to help you be effective.
Is There a New Measure of Success for Social Media?
Useful measurement insight.
Katie Paine’s Social Media Tips [Video 6:00]
Paine describes how to measure leads in social media and how PR needs to innovate. W
KD Paine & Partners Propose New Un-Standard for Social Media Measurement
Thoughtful look at social media measurement and valuable list of potential metrics. W
Look Who’s Talking
It’s tempting to dismiss online reviews of your business or product but you can respond effectively to negative reviews if necessary.
Monitor the Media Without Breaking the Bank
Five tips from BurellesLuce to help you keep costs low for media monitoring.
Monitter
A Twitter monitoring service.
NewsMap
NewsMap shows a visual representation of the news. A new, interesting way to search news.
NewsLib
A free online news tracking and library archive service.
Omgili Buzz Graphs
Lets you measure and compare buzz or search terms in graph format. Useful for presentations.
Online Reputation Management Avoided By PR People
Not monitoring or researching properly? Ecoconsultancy suggests PR people get doing their jobs.
Online Reputation Management Basics
Lee Odden shows where and what to monitor and also provides practical tips for managing reputation online. W
Online Reputation Management: Radian6
An indepth review of social media monitoring service Radian6 by Cece Salmon-Lee.
Online Reputation Monitoring Beginners Guide
Updated analysis of some of the free reputation monitoring tools by Trackur’s Andy Beal. Includes tips and links as well. W
Paid Social Media Monitoring and Measurement Tools: The (Almost) Complete Guide
This is a superb list of paid social media monitoring tools produced by Duane Brown. He provides big and small, well known and not so familiar tools. W W
PositivePress
iterasi provides media and social media monitoring services.
Pubcon: Online Reputation Management
Lee Odden shares online reputation management advice and monitoring tools from recent Pubcon conference.
RedTram
A free international news search engine.
Regator
An excellent search tool for blog posts. We use it frequently and it’s a useful monitoring tool. W
Reputation Management in Social Media
Slide presentation with social media monitoring tips.
Reputation Monitoring on the Cheap
Ecoconsultancy suggests five free tools you can use to monitor your reputation online.
Review of Commercial Social Media Monitoring Tools
David Robbins looks at four of the established tools and picks the best one for PR.
ROI on Social Media With Katie Paine [Video 10:54]
Paine talks with Jason Falls about measuring return on social media. W
Rollyo
Create your own search engine for the news and websites you want.
Social Media Analytics: 6 Steps to Measuring What You Care About
Superb look at measurement that matters for PR. W
Social Media Measurement 2011: Five Things to Forget, Five Things to Learn
Excellent advice from Metrics Man – Don Bartholomew. W
Social Media Monitor Makes Tracking Facebook, Twitter Brand Growth Simple
Social media measurement, PR tool to try.
Social Media Monitoring – Disturbing or Useful?
Dave Fleet looks at the dilemma of responding to negative online comments.
Social Media Monitoring Tools – How to Pick The Right One
Katie Van Domelen walks through the key questions to pick the best social media monitoring tool. W
Social Mention
Social Mention is a powerful, free, real-time social media search tool allowing search by numerous categories, aggregating it into a single stream of useful information. Also has email alerts. W
Starbucks Social Media Monitoring & Community Help It Survive Brand Attack
Good case study on social media monitoring and responding to online criticism.
Technorati Advanced
Search blogs by topic and tag s for more accurate results.
Ten Reasons Small Businesses Should Monitor Online Reputation
Lee Odden highlights 10 reasons to monitor your online reputation.
The Dark Side of Online Reputation
Tragic Korean incident shows the reason to monitor carefully from Mark Story.
Three A’s of Social Media Measurement: Attention, Attitude, Action
Really useful PR measurement tips.
Top 10 Free Tools for Monitoring Your Brand’s Reputation
Dan Schawbel shares his monitoring system and looks at 10 free monitoring tools to help you keep an eye on your brand. W
Top 10 Reputation Tracking Tools Worth Paying For
These 10 fee-based services are good enough to pay for writes Dan Schawbel in a helpful review. W
Tracking Yourself and Your Blog Brand Across the Online Social World
Lorelle VanFossen looks at Yahoo Pipes for tracking yourself and your brand online.
Trendpedia
A social media monitoring, trends and buzz tracking tool worth a look.
TweetBeep
Monitor Twitter and get an email alert whenever a mention occurs. Very useful. W
Twitalyzer
This simple tool analyzes influence and tracks success on Twitter.
Ways to Measure social media effectiveness
Basic tips to get you started.
What Should Every Company Be Monitoring?
A valuable list of topics for monitoring from the NewPR Wiki. W
WireClip
Free tool searches the leading PR newswire services by keywords.
Yahoo News
Search recent news with Yahoo News. W
Yahoo News Alerts
Set up auto news alerts by topic or keyword and make sure to monitor news, blogs, web and video all-in-one. W
Commercial Media Monitoring Services
Following is a selection of North American social and media monitoring services:
ADZ Media Monitoring
Get competitive TV, radio and print ads from US and Canada from a searchable database of more than 175,000.
Aircheck News Taping
Broadcast media coverage and archive from 210+ US markets.
BurellesLuce
Media monitoring and measurement service. Also has iMonitor its self-service online monitoring service.
Cision Social Media Monitoring
Cision is known for its traditional media monitoring services and its social media monitoring uses the powerful Radian6 platform.
Clip Genius
National online media monitoring service.
CustomScoop
Service includes traditional media and social media monitoring.
CyberAlert
Established media monitoring service with social media monitoring capability.
dna13
Real time monitoring for online reputation management.
Dow Jones Factiva
Tradtional media monitoring and new social media capability.
eWatch
eWatch is PR Newswire’s media and social media monitoring service.
FPInfomart
Canadian media monitoring and research service is comprehensive.
MediaMiser
Media and social media monitoring and analysis services.
MediaTrack Research Services
UK media research and analysis services.
Meltwater News
Meltwater provides online news monitoring and analysis.
MightyBrand
Social media monitoring and analysis service is worth testing.
National Aircheck
Source radio and TV clips from 2500+ stations across the US.
NewsPower Online
Broadcast news and blog monitoring and clipping services.
News Track Clips
Part of BusinessWire, News Track monitors and measures media coverage.
RedLasso
Online Media Center enables search, review and online sharing of media coverage.
Reputation Defender
Online reputation management service includes monitoring and tracking. W
ROI on Social Media with Katie Paine [Video 9:55]
Paine talks with Jason Falls about measuring return on social media.
StartPR
Social media relations search tool. Allows free query.
TracerLock
Inexepensive yet powerful media monitoring tool may be a useful addition to your toolbox. W
TrackNews
Get news clips from 100+ US major markets.
Trackur
Solid, scalable social media monitoring service. W
TVEyes
Real-time monitoring of TV and radio with instant email alerts.
Universal Information Services
Broadcast media monitoring, tracking and analysis.
WebClipping
Media monitoring service and analysis.
Why It’s Essential to Use Social Media Monitoring for Buzz Marketing
Here’s a useful set of social media monitoring tips.
Photo credit: Emily Hoyer
