Every day, millions of articles are posted across countless sources. Amidst this overwhelming sea of information, a single news story has the potential to either catapult a company to new heights of success, or send it tumbling into a reputation crisis that can be challenging to recover from.
When information flows at such an unprecedented pace, understanding and managing your brand’s presence in the media has never been more critical. At Streem, we have taken an innovative approach to media intelligence, combining technology and human expertise to deliver comprehensive media analysis.
Today, we’ll delve into the importance of media analysis, what it entails, and the key benefits it offers to businesses.
What Is Media Analysis?
Media analysis is the process of collecting and interpreting data about your brand’s coverage in the media. It involves both quantitative and qualitative analysis, offering valuable insights into your brand’s media presence, reputation, and impact. Streem works closely with our clients to tailor our analysis to their specific project requirements, aligning it with their strategic goals and business priorities.
Our media analysis is conducted in-house in Australia, using our proprietary technology and tools. We have established direct relationships with publishers, broadcasters, and social platforms, ensuring access to the broadest set of content and data. As we continue to innovate, we’re also launching new features and tools, including social media analytics and reporting capabilities, to support our clients even further.
Why Is Media Analysis Important?
Media analysis helps organisations understand how people are talking about their brand across various platforms. While it involves media monitoring to track mentions, it’s also about uncovering trends, assessing public sentiment, and identifying opportunities or risks early through qualitative methods. With these insights, businesses can make smarter decisions, protect their reputation, and refine their strategies.
Types of Media Analysis: Qualitative vs. Quantitative
Qualitative media analysis focuses on the context, tone, and meaning behind your media coverage. It involves evaluating sentiment, messaging, and themes within the content to understand how your brand is perceived. This approach is great for uncovering deeper insights into audience attitudes and identifying narratives that may impact your reputation.
Quantitative media analysis measures your media coverage using numerical data, such as the number of mentions, audience reach, or share of voice (SOV). This type of analysis provides clear, measurable metrics to track performance, compare results over time, and benchmark against competitors. It’s particularly useful for understanding overall visibility and media trends.
Comparing Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis
While quantitative analysis offers concrete, data-driven insights, qualitative analysis provides depth and context that numbers alone cannot convey. Together, they form a comprehensive view of your media presence: quantitative data highlights trends and reach, while qualitative insights explain the why behind the numbers. The downside is that qualitative analysis can be time-intensive, and quantitative methods may oversimplify complex narratives if used alone. Combining both gives you a balanced and actionable media strategy.
What Industries Use Media Analysis?
Public Relations and Communications
PR professionals use media analysis to monitor how their campaigns and messages are received by the public. It allows them to gauge sentiment, identify areas for improvement, and measure the effectiveness of specific strategies. For instance, sentiment tracking can show how well messages resonate or detect early signs of a PR crisis, allowing for speedy responses.
Corporate and Enterprise
Large businesses use media analysis to maintain a competitive edge. By analysing share of voice, impression metrics, and geographic spread, corporations can fine-tune their branding and marketing. For example, competitive intelligence through media tracking helps identify strengths and weaknesses in competitors’ strategies.
Government and Policy Organisations
For governments, understanding public sentiment is a must. Media analysis allows agencies to track public reactions to policy announcements, emerging issues, or crises. Alongside this, monitoring industry trends and public discourse helps anticipate challenges and align messaging with stakeholder expectations.
Media and Publishing
Media outlets use analysis tools to identify popular content themes and understand what drives audience engagement. These insights inform editorial strategies, optimise content distribution, and highlight emerging topics that resonate with readers and viewers.
Nonprofits and Advocacy Groups
For mission-driven organisations, media analysis is great for tracking the reach and impact of advocacy campaigns. By monitoring mentions and sentiments related to their cause, nonprofits can identify opportunities for collaboration, adjust strategies, and maximise awareness for their initiatives.
What Are The Steps To Conduct A Media Analysis?
To conduct a media analysis, it's important to follow a structure that means your insights are actionable and relevant. Here’s what that might look like:
Step 1: Define Your Objective
Start by setting a clear goal for the analysis. Ask yourself: Are you assessing brand sentiment, tracking competitor coverage, or measuring the effectiveness of a media campaign?
Step 2: Choose Your Sample
Choose the media content you want to analyse. This could include articles, social media posts, videos, or press releases that are relevant to your goal. Make sure the sample is representative of the media you want to evaluate.
Step 3: Develop a Coding System
Create categories or themes that you will use to analyse the content. These could include sentiment (positive, negative, neutral), key messages, or mentions of specific topics.
Step 4: Analyse the Content
Take a look at the selected media using your coding system. For example, you may count the frequency of key phrases, analyse the tone of coverage, or track how certain themes evolve over time.
Step 5: Interpret the Findings
After organising the data, draw conclusions. Are there any notable trends in how your brand or industry is portrayed? How does this data compare to your objectives?
Step 6: Report and Act on Insights
Finally, communicate the findings clearly to stakeholders and develop strategies based on your insights. This could involve adjusting PR tactics, refining messaging, or enhancing social media engagement strategies.
Examples of Media Analysis
Media analysis encompasses various metrics and measurements that provide valuable insights into your brand’s media presence and reputation. Here are some key examples:
Share of Voice
Share of Voice compares your brand’s media coverage to that of your direct competitors or industry peers. It helps you understand where your brand stands in the media landscape relative to others. This metric is driven by volume – the more mentions your brand receives, the higher your Share of Voice. It informs strategies to maintain or increase your presence in the media.
Sentiment
Sentiment analysis gauges your brand’s reputation in the media. At Streem, we use a 5-point sentiment scale, ranging from positive to negative categorisations. Understanding your brand’s sentiment is crucial for understanding your audience, whether they are consumers, clients, stakeholders, or investors. It also aids in crisis management, helping you assess the effectiveness of your strategies.
Impressions
Impressions count how many sets of eyes potentially saw your content, measuring your reach and potential impact on brand awareness. This metric can be tied into sentiment reporting to further understand your brand’s reputation.
Topics
Streem’s Topic Analysis allows you to delve deeper into an area of importance for your business. Maybe it’s neo banking, online retail or mental health – whatever the subject matter, it’s important you understand the most prevalent – and most prominent – themes emerging in coverage. It's also important to know the coverage volumes of different topics, as this tells you what's more relevant to the media and more likely to be reported on, which can help with media outreach and communications strategies
Key Message Tracking:
Derived from an organisation’s media strategy, campaigns, or key issues, tracking these messages in earned media helps gauge their representation and impact. Key Message tracking serves as a valuable metric for gauging your brand’s reputation and determining whether the messaging you’re promoting aligns with the media coverage you’re earning.
Key Benefits of Media Analysis
Crisis Management
No business is immune to crises. Whether it’s a product recall, a data breach, or a public relations disaster, how you handle crises can significantly impact your brand’s reputation and long-term success. Media analysis helps you detect potential crises early, allowing you to respond promptly and appropriately. This can mitigate the damage and protect your brand’s image.
Optimised Media Campaigns
Quality media analysis helps you monitor your brand’s performance relative to competitors and industry benchmarks. It informs strategy and ensures alignment with key performance indicators (KPIs).
ROI Measurement
Proving the impact of your media efforts on your business’s bottom line is a top challenge for PR and communications professionals Media analysis can help you track the impact of your media coverage, social media engagement, and other marketing activities. This data allows you to adjust your strategies in real-time, ensuring that your resources are allocated effectively.
Competitive Intelligence
Staying ahead of the competition is essential in any industry. Media analysis helps you keep a close eye on your competitors. You can track their media coverage, sentiment, and strategies, gaining a deeper understanding of their strengths and weaknesses. This information can guide your own strategic decisions, helping you identify opportunities to differentiate your brand and gain a competitive edge.
Customer Insights
Media analysis goes beyond tracking your own brand and competitors; it can also provide valuable insights into your target audience. By analysing media content related to your industry or niche, you can gain a better understanding of your customers’ preferences, pain points, and interests. This information is instrumental in tailoring your products or services to meet their needs effectively.
What Is the Best Tool for Qualitative Media Analysis?
To get the most out of qualitative media analysis, you need to choose a media monitoring tool that offers more than just your basic coverage.
The best tools for qualitative analysis should feature advanced sentiment analysis to accurately gauge the emotional tone and context of various media sources. This is an absolute must for understanding public perception across different channels, whether it's from news outlets, social media, blogs, or podcasts.
Realtime tracking is another great feature, meaning teams can stay ahead of emerging conversations and rapidly shifting narratives.
Customisable reporting allows for tailored insights, enabling teams to focus on what's most relevant to their objectives. These tools should also offer strong competitor analysis capabilities, helping you track how your brand stacks up against rivals and identify critical issues before they escalate. Alongside this, trend tracking is indispensable for spotting patterns that could influence your PR or marketing strategies.
For example, Streem's media monitoring platform is great for qualitative analysis by providing in-depth analytics, tracking media coverage and helping identify critical issues in real time! This allows teams to refine strategies based on emerging trends and public sentiment, ensuring that their responses are proactive, not reactive.
The Future of Media Analytics
The future of media analytics holds even more promise. With increasing data availability and powerful algorithms, real-time analysis and alerts are becoming more sophisticated. Streem offers media analysis solutions in real-time, focusing on the metrics that matter most to your organisation. Our goal is to help you optimise your campaigns, refine your strategy, and enhance your communications.
In conclusion, media analysis is not just a luxury for businesses; it’s a necessity in today’s fast-paced, information-rich world. By understanding your brand’s reputation, monitoring the competition, gaining customer insights, and more, media analysis empowers businesses to make smarter decisions and navigate the complex media landscape effectively. As technology continues to evolve, businesses that harness the power of media analysis will be better positioned to thrive and grow in the digital age.
Get in touch to find out how Streem could improve your media intelligence.