A feature article by Moreover’s Senior Product Manager, Brian Mackie, appears in the latest issue of IntranetsToday explaining how companies can find and exploit opportunities within the challenges of Big Data.
His article, “Actionable Media Intelligence: Delivering a Competitive Edge”, argues that companies should be using the proper tools to turn unwieldy “mass media” into actionable “meaningful media”.
Great companies make decisions driven by data, not by gut feelings alone. The problem is that available “big data” is increasing very quickly. How does an organization make sense of it all and get it to the relevant people?
Employees are going to talk- to each other and to people outside the company. Are they informed? They should be reading targeted and relevant news every day without spending too much time seeking it out. Do you know how to get them there?
In the feature, Mr. Mackie gives a checklist of points to consider while evaluating tools for internal communication to solve these problems.
What media sources does the service cover, does it match your particular industry needs, and can new ones be added on request?
Check the news filtering options to make sure they will support the precisely tuned results you need (test with real-life news requirements)
Look for flexible media distribution options: A user portal, newsletters, RSS feeds, possibly an API to integrate news search directly into an intranet
Ensure it includes editorial control features to manage the content that flows out to the organization (e.g. the ability to quickly remove articles from an RSS feed on the intranet)
Confirm whether customer service includes editorial support for building out searches
Ask about their software development processes and how often they roll out new features (ideally at least monthly)
Know the pricing – avoid ballooning content licensing costs, and beware the sweet entry level deal that is followed by a sudden not-quite-explained price hike in year two!
Lastly, always run a trial and push the vendor to prove, not just promise, targeted business news that demonstrates value. If they can’t provide this during a trial, it’s probably because they can’t provide it full stop.
Companies can leverage their internal communication to gain an advantage in the marketplace. It is difficult, but there is opportunity in this challenge to rise above the competition:
Turning mass media it into meaningful media intelligence is a fascinating challenge – it is for vendors, publishers, and especially for the companies chasing productivity gains and competitive advantage. And therein lies the good business news: It is not too late to be an early mover and gain that edge.
Today’s companies operate in a world of Internet-driven mass media with the power to shape our perceptions and blindside company reputations. At Moreover, our job is to help you turn this media maelstrom into market intelligence for competitive advantage.
In this series of posts, we’ll be going through the multiple aspects of a successful media intelligence strategy, and offer concrete advice and insight for turning global news and social media into a powerful strategic asset.
Part 2 – Drive Informed Decision-Making with Company-Wide News Distribution
A 2011 study from the Sloan School of Management, MIT, entitled ‘Strength in Numbers: How Does Data-Driven Decision Making Affect Firm Performance‘, showed that companies that had adopted “data-driven decision making” achieved productivity gains of 5-6% in comparison to companies that remained focused on experience and intuition. Enough of a difference, according to the authors, to “separate winners from losers in most industries”.
It is clear, then, that timely access to key news sources is crucial. Of course, information professionals and corporate librarians have long provided this important function for businesses. But media consumption habits have changed dramatically over the last 15 years. Decision makers up and down the organization now expect the experience of the Web: Fast, hyperlinked, and on-demand.
Companies that extended the original librarian-focused news services to the rest of the organization often found themselves with ballooning costs – businesses were suddenly paying a premium for all-embracing publisher licenses when a timely link to a news website would have sufficed. At the other extreme, employees have been left to fend for themselves, with Google News the de facto service provider. But ultimately, as research by Outsell showed, consumer-focused search engines fail to serve business needs, with too much time wasted on sifting through irrelevant results.
Consequently, new media intelligence services have emerged, combining the immediacy of a Google type service with the imperatives of a business audience. Company-wide news distribution that is personalized to department and even down to individual employee level is increasingly the norm, with businesses now actively managing the consumption of news within the organization.
Here are three key features to look for in a successful media intelligence solution focused on company-wide news sharing:
Flexible news distribution options. The ability to serve business news through a variety of channels will improve the user experience and its effectiveness. Ideally, information is provided to users directly within the work-flow at point of use. Make sure that your media intelligence service supports automated email alerts, hand-edited newsletters, RSS feeds, and potentially an API to directly integrate business news on the intranet.
Powerful business-focused search filters. The ability to curate highly focused search results that can be individually tailored to specific audiences is absolutely paramount. The aim is for every single article to be relevant. To achieve this, you need powerful filtering options, including the ability to segment the media (e.g. regional vs national vs trade), select or block specific sources, emphasize particular keywords, and remove duplicate articles such as press releases.
Worldwide media coverage with custom source additions. A successful solution must satisfy the diverse information needs within a company, stretching across industries, professions, countries and languages, from mainstream topics to highly individualized interests. In order to cater to special interests and new projects, you must be able to add new sources on request at relatively short notice, including private publisher licenses.
Turning mass media it into actionable media intelligence is a fascinating opportunity for companies chasing productivity gains and competitive advantage. At Moreover Technologies we have made it our mission to help companies succeed at this challenge, with the award-winning Newsdesk servicedesigned specifically for this purpose.
If you’d like to learn more about Newsdesk and how Moreover helps corporate communications and information professionals achieve results, then contact us or visit our website for details.
Next post:
Part 3 – The Power of Consolidating Media Access Through a Single Enterprise News Hub
The award-winning Newsdesk service used by companies worldwide for media monitoring, competitive intelligence, and enterprise-wide news distribution launched new features this week! Read more about these new features and learn more about how Newsdesk gives marketing and corporate communications teams a powerful set of tools allowing them to turn unstructured mass media into actionable market intelligence:
Better Broadcast.
The TV broadcast coverage now includes ‘designated market area’ (DMA) data for local US TV channels. We are also showing keyword highlighting in broadcast transcripts for easier scanning, and have made improvements to the legibility of the transcript.
Power Search
Users adept at writing complex search queries can now use more advanced search engine parameters, for even more specialist and detailed search results. Contact your account manager to enable this new feature.
Refresh your dashboard
Update the articles in the feeds saved to your dashboard without having to refresh your browser.
Improved styling For Better Readability
The Dashboard and Saved Feeds list now sport sharper fonts and a cleaner layout, including thumbnail images, to make it easier to scan the latest headlines.
Rolling Out Shared Dashboards and User Comments
We recently announced “Shared Dashboards”, allowing administrators to customize a common Dashboard, and “User Comments”, enabling users to add comments to news articles. Tomorrow’s update will introduce these new features to all customers.
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