How to Track Media Coverage

Tracking media coverage is an important step in the media promotion process: it enables you to identify the audiences that your study or project has reached. By keeping abreast of the news being printed or broadcast about you, your competition, and the industry as a whole, you can gain insight into how your topic is perceived and discussed by outsiders, and respond to the coverage as appropriate.

Free resources are available on the Internet to monitor news coverage by typing key words, such as the name of your study, into popular Web search engines such as Google and AltaVista. However, this will track only online citations, and sifting through the data is time-consuming. Paid resources allow for more specific searches and provide a broader range of media hits (both print and online) than free search tools.

Here are some good resources in both categories:

Free Media Tracking

• Google News and Yahoo! News. Internet search engines such as these are free ways to track news articles. You will need to provide specific search terms and a date range to ensure that you are getting relevant coverage from your promotional outreach. You also can set up automatic alerts that will be emailed when the identified keywords are mentioned.
• Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (e.g.,Web, news), based on the user’s choice of query or topic. You can choose specific keywords to monitor the Web (including blogs, video, and groups) and Google News for coverage. Use these alerts to monitor a developing news story or to keep current on a competitor or industry.
• Twitter Search is an online search engine for conversations that occur on the social networking site, Twitter. Slightly similar to Google Alerts, it allows you to track certain accounts, key words, and events. And you can make your queries into an RSS feed to incorporate into an RSS reader or to receive in your inbox.
• Backtype. Curious what people are saying about an issue or your work in blog comments? Backtype allows you to set search queries based on keywords and topics. Set queries are delivered to your inbox as they arrive (daily or weekly), or can remain solely on your Backtype dashboard.
• BlogPulse, part of Nielsen Online, highlights the top trends in the blogosphere and is used primarily to determine the hottest topics on the Web and how they developed over time. You also can search for your name or topic of interest, grab the RSS feed, and add it to your RSS reader to see who’s talking about your issue and what they’re saying.
• Spy enables you to gain insight on what people are saying about you or a certain topic in real time. It searches Twitter, friendfeed, Yahoo! News, and blog comments through Backtype, flickr, and Google Reader.
• Hard Copies and Screenshots. Because many websites do not archive information, and because Web links to news articles become inactive within a few months, keep a hard copy or save an electronic copy in Word, PDF, or as a screenshot of the news articles you find.

Paid Media Tracking

• Paid media tracking sources can search within certain locations, news outlet types, and/or specific dates. Cision is a widely used tracking tool among public relations professionals. LexisNexis and Factiva offer email alert systems and archived Web and print news; they also allow users to tailor searches to obtain the most relevant media hits.

Access to paid resources such as LexisNexis and Factiva may be available through your university or organization. Contact your library administrator to find out if these resources are available.

• Radian 6 is a paid online and social networking monitoring tool. The system lets you set up keywords to monitor on all forms of social media—including blogs, top video and image-sharing sites, forums, opinion sites, mainstream online media, and Twitter—to find out who is talking about you or your topic and where.
• Vocus is an all-in-one suite that uses cloud-based marketing and PR software that helps you reach and influence buyers across social networks, online, and through the media. Vocus’ PR software helps you connect with journalists and bloggers, send press releases, monitor news, reach influencers, and measure your results.
• More tracking tools are always in development. Stay on the lookout for customized tools that meet your specific tracking needs.

Share Your Coverage

• Share positive media coverage with interested parties by posting to your organization’s or university’s website, or to your personal website. In addition, submit news coverage to newsletters of your university, alumni, and professional organizations, and to the RWJF Leaders’ Link at humancapital@iqsolutions.com.

For more communications resources, visit the “Resources” section at RWJFLeaders.org.