Sunday, December 12, 2004
Worth Checking
This blog doesn't recommend products or services, but the following site might be worth checking if you need public affairs monitoring. Customscoop originally contacted me because the firm thought I might be interested in news monitoring, but the site doesn't find news any faster than Google or Yahoo news searches. What I do like, however, is the number of government and policy sources it covers. This area, I believe, is overlooked.
The site claims it examines 7,000 government sources including the European Union as well as 1,200 policy sources including state and regional associations, think tanks and advocacy groups. Because so much of what PR deals with these days comes from political sources, it might be worth watching these areas.
We had a big-name monitoring service at our agency, and we gave it up a few months ago. It didn't work well, and it was slow. Further, it was mindless in what it filtered. When a colleague surveyed the agency to find out who was using the service, he found only one person. Monitoring services seem to work best when one has several keywords and clients to track or large volumes of electronic clips daily. Otherwise, it seems better and faster to do it by hand. What has been your experience?
The site claims it examines 7,000 government sources including the European Union as well as 1,200 policy sources including state and regional associations, think tanks and advocacy groups. Because so much of what PR deals with these days comes from political sources, it might be worth watching these areas.
We had a big-name monitoring service at our agency, and we gave it up a few months ago. It didn't work well, and it was slow. Further, it was mindless in what it filtered. When a colleague surveyed the agency to find out who was using the service, he found only one person. Monitoring services seem to work best when one has several keywords and clients to track or large volumes of electronic clips daily. Otherwise, it seems better and faster to do it by hand. What has been your experience?
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