Media Tracking Options for Public Relations Professionals

In today’s rapidly shifting economy, it is becoming even more important for businesses to keep up with the publicity that their company receives in the broadcast media marketplace. It is a well-known fact that broadcast media reaches far more consumers than print media possibly could; though internet PR is gaining a large portion of the market share, it is still a well-recognized fact that television and radio broadcasting reaches more consumers on a daily basis. It is easy to maintain tracking of advertising outlets in these markets, but what about those priceless mentions of your company or product in news broadcasts? This is a much more difficult aspect of public relations to track. Fortunately, there are companies offering specific PR services for the discerning PR and marketing professional. What these companies do, is essentially watch and listen to broadcasts from a wide range of markets, all across America. With video-intercepting technology, they are able to track nearly every mention of a product or company that is broadcast in major markets. These PR services are intended to provide a starting point for marketing and PR professionals, in researching their aggressive marketing campaign. VMS (Video Monitoring Services) is widely understood to be the premier source of integrated media intelligence and solutions to marketing, advertising and public relations professionals worldwide. VMS is essentially the standard content provider and authority in the advertising, PR, and analysis domain. The company researches, tracks and edits broadcast news from 210 North American markets to provide clients with up-to-date information, including video clips and closed captioning segments from news programs. Uniquely, the information that this company provides can actually be accessed from an all-digital perspective, never leaving the comfortable environment of the computer screen, due to unique features in its software. Other companies, such as Bacons and MediaLink offer similar services, though their software is sometimes more difficult to navigate, but offer nearly just as much information, covering a large area much like that of VMS, but VMS still tends to be the leader in the PR services realm. Overall, the PR services field is growing, being used by corporate heavyweights, as well as government agencies interested in their own public image. Certainly, this is a valuable tool for anyone launching an aggressive PR campaign.