Real-time PR monitoring speeds crisis response

Do you miss reports of your company on TV? Monitoring tools allow you to track coverage—and respond—especially when facing negative coverage.

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A retailer’s PR department learns from its TV and radio monitoring platform of an ugly trend in one market: The media keeps characterizing its stores as beset by crime.

Is it time to pump out a press release, send cupcakes to the newsroom, hand out happy face balloons to kids at the door?

Actually, no. PR takes the statistics to the local manager, so the retailer can make changes, says Dave Armon, president of the monitoring platform Critical Mention.

Take your own test drive of Critical Mention to monitor your PR coverage in real time.

“Maybe we look at more security,” Armon says. “Maybe we look at better lighting in the parking lots. Maybe we look some further partnerships with law enforcement. And then suddenly the reports of problems decline. You’ve helped the business as a PR person pointing it out, and you start to see more positive coverage.”

His example, drawn from a client’s experience, shows why real-time media monitoring and analytics are thriving, despite the bankruptcy of major player VMS in 2011.

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