Why Small- and Medium-Sized Businesses Should

As the owner or an employee of a small- to medium-sized business, you
might have never thought about media monitoring. Maybe you are not
even sure what exactly is meant by this and have thus ignored it so
far. But you should take some time to get acquainted with the concept
of media monitoring. For companies of every size, it is a crucial tool
for market success.

When you monitor the media, you basically look for all the information
that is beeing published about your company in different media formats
like newspapers and magazines. But what is the benefit you get from
this search process? Do you only end up with a waggon load of data or
can this scanning give your company the cutting edge?

The answer is yes, it can. It is not something only big firms with
large public relation staffs do benefit from, but every organisation
or company. It can accomplish a variety of tasks including

* control how and how often your company is being portrayed in public

* follow-up any PR-activities you might have launched

* examine how your competitor's media-image looks like

* discover new trends in your specific profession and

* analyse market developments.

These aspects are relevant for companies of every size. Imagine you
are a small company producing a certain product, for example computer
hardware components. You think media monitoring does not apply to you
because you produce your goods locally and do not compete with "global
players" who spend millions on their media campaigns?

Well, in this case, size does not matter. It is still important how
the people living in the community where you are located react to your
business. It is still important that you are among the first who
catches a new trend concerning your product range – or otherwise
another small enterprise may come up with the innovation that you
could also have produced. These are only two small examples that show
why media monitoring is so important.

If you are opposed to media monitoring because your company only has a
small budget for public relations, think twice. Especially if you only
have a small amount of money at hand to promote your company, it is
essential to follow up every PR activity to make sure that money is
well-invested.

For media monitoring, a simple concept applies: only when you know
what is going on you can react accordingly. So do not only go through
your local or regional newspaper and expert publications, but broaden
your horizons. Filter the internet for information about your trade
and company. With the help of search engines, hundreds of websites,
online-publications and databases can be sorted through. There are
also professional monitors how can do this job for you. In any case,
media monitoring is worth the effort – regardless of your company's
size.