The article was first published on prnews.io.

In 2024, one will hardly argue that media presence is essential for businesses. It is important not only to say the right things to the right audience but also to track how the customer perceives your narratives and whether the communication is successful. These are only a few of the advantages of media monitoring. So why follow what people are saying?

• Reputation management. Media monitoring allows brands to monitor discussions of their activities and reviews of products and services, timely respond to negative mentions and strengthen the positive messages in the info space. It helps establish the brand’s strengths and weaknesses.
  
• Sentiment analysis. It is important to know how the client perceives you, what your product or service is associated with, and what emotions this communication evokes. Understanding the target audience’s sentiment helps to adjust marketing strategies and improve the product based on real feedback.
  
• Media strategy planning. As follows from the points above, media monitoring provides brands with information on their communication and the effectiveness of advertising campaigns in the media. Based on this analysis, businesses can adjust, improve, or completely change communication strategies and media planning.
  
• Competitor analysis. Media monitoring allows you to track competitors’ activities, identify their strengths and weaknesses, and analyze consumer reactions to their products or services. It helps brands increase their competitiveness and improve their products and services.
  
• Identification of trends and opportunities. Monitoring helps to track current trends in the industry and respond to them quickly. Brands can identify new growth opportunities and analyze the topics or issues that interest their target audience.
  
• Monitoring of crises. Brands sometimes find themselves in situations where negative information uncontrollably spreads through the media. Monitoring allows you to detect crises in real-time and respond to them, minimizing risks to the business and its reputation.
  
• Monitoring of foreign markets. For brands working on the international market and those who are just planning to enter foreign markets, media monitoring helps to understand the trends and context in a specific country (the media field in different countries can vary), to navigate local features, as well as to track mentions in foreign media and the reaction of a global audience.

Trends in the field of media monitoring and media analytics change quite dynamically, as does the media market itself. Below, we consider the key trends that determine the development of this industry in 2024.

Artificial Intelligence And Automation

Artificial intelligence has penetrated many areas of our lives. Media monitoring is no exception. Machine learning and text analysis technologies in various languages help to analyze large amounts of information quickly and accurately. It is essential for large and well-known brands and large-scale communication campaigns. Automated systems detect and classify news, track mentions of brands and keywords in real-time, sort them by tone and subject matter and rank them by size and popularity of mass media. This helps media monitoring become more effective and faster and allows you to manage the media field practically in real-time.

Social Media Monitoring

Social media and streaming services play an increasingly important role in brand reputation. For many customers, social networks are the primary source of information about the company and its services. We can immediately think of at least several cases of campaigns launched to cancel brands or people after a single post on Facebook. Therefore, today, social media analysis (Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), YouTube, TikTok, and others) is an integral part of media monitoring. A survey of PR specialists indicates that LinkedIn has broken into the top, as almost all major brands rely on it for professional communication. This makes LinkedIn monitoring a very important part of the job, especially for companies building their employer brand.

Social media monitoring guide: targets and objectives‍
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Reputation Management

Companies are increasingly using media monitoring to respond to events that may affect their reputation directly or indirectly. It involves not only the detection of negative reviews, complaints, and criticism but also the state of affairs in a specific industry, the perception of the activities of similar companies on the market, etc.

Global Context

“A world within arm’s reach” is no longer a metaphor. The implementation of new technologies has blurred borders between states and continents, making all processes interconnected, which also affects media monitoring. Events and trends in one part of the world can have a global impact. Organizations and governments invest in studying the reactions of the international audience to their actions and events in other countries. Such analysis requires the monitoring of many sources in different languages, as well as an understanding of culture and context.

Strengthening Cyber Security

The protection of data collected during media monitoring will be a primary task in 2024. With media monitoring processing large amounts of information, ensuring the confidentiality and security of this data is a priority.

Data Visualization

Data visualization has become an integral part of media monitoring and analytics. Graphs, charts, cartographic representations of data, and interactive tools are essential for presenting information when dealing with large amounts of analyzed data. With the help of visualization, you can show trends, dynamics, certain regularities, make comparisons, etc. It lets users better perceive information and make decisions.

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Perception of brands after leaving the Russian market: sociology and media analytics

Media monitoring is essential for understanding and influencing audience perception of a brand or product. It helps brands make informed decisions, increase their competitiveness, and maintain their reputation in the market. Specific company goals require different media monitoring aspects, sources, and methods. Some might need a simple analysis of the effectiveness of an advertising campaign, while others require a systematic daily tracking of mentions. However, regardless of the tasks the brand sets for itself, it can hardly accomplish its objectives without media analysis in 2024.