It’s no secret to communications executives that it’s essential to identify key influencers impacting their business. Traditional media strategy typically focuses on journalists and authors engaging with a particular industry, but there are other parties with the power to shift conversations and impact public perception – Third-party influencers. 

Third-party influencers such as political organizations, regulatory groups, industry experts and NGO’s have significant clout in their fields, and gathering data on the way they shape media coverage is a growing trend for communications professionals.

There are many reasons it can be important to understand and engage with these groups. Here are three ways we’ve seen tracking 3rd party influencers help our clients in the utility industry:

Get Upstream from Reporters

Engaging with 3rd party influencers gives communications teams another avenue through which to influence media coverage earlier in the news creation process, rather than relying on a reporter whose opinion may already be set – or worse yet, waiting to play defense.

Several of PublicRelay’s utility clients have seen the significance in building relationships with 3^rd party groups in advance of news events.

Specifically, one energy company was facing challenges from environmental and regulatory groups regarding storage of nuclear waste. Unfavorable coverage was published frequently about the utility, leaving their communications team playing defense too often on an issue critical to their business.

Through analysis of the significant 3^rd party influencers impacting their coverage, we were able to parse out client concerns related to industry groups. The client began restructuring their key messaging to address those concerns, and encouraging spokespeople to proactively engage with 3^rd party groups. Instead of feeling victim to aggressive attacks, the company became part of the conversation. In turn, journalists became more likely to include the utility’s perspective and messaging in their coverage.

Boost Industry Credibility

Relationship-building with 3rd party groups can enhance a company’s standing in its field and bolster media attention within the most prominent outlets.

One energy company discovered last year that nearly one-third of all their most valuable media coverage included a 3rd-party perspective relating to their brand.  The data we provided then allowed the company to identify especially impactful voices and follow trends of tonality and message penetration surrounding those groups.

Relationship-building with 3rd party groups can enhance a company’s standing in its field and bolster media attention within the most prominent outlets.

Generate Hot Content

Finding influencers that support your company’s views could help your content reach new audiences.

By tracking 3rd party influencers, our clients have found that “hot” articles (those enjoying more sharing) have a high likelihood of carrying 3rd party quotations in comparison to other stories.  This means that coverage incorporating the perspective of a regulatory or political group has a higher chance of going viral on social media.

By strategically pursuing these groups, communications teams can raise the odds that their messaging will be shared with wider audiences showing interest in their industry.

The definition of “influencer” may typically stop at journalist or author, but experience has shown that expanding this scope to 3rd party organizations significantly improves a communications team’s understanding of their media landscape. Without attention to these groups, communicators may miss out on opportunities to shape coverage, boost credibility, and achieve wider distribution of their most important messaging.

Read Next: “5 Tips for Influencer Engagement“

Social media is upon us, and many of us in the communications field are grappling with the massive amount of insight – and noise – that can come from outlets like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and the cornucopia of new tools with bizarre names and clever innovations on how people will communicate in the coming years.  It is up to us to determine the smartest ways to use this treasure trove of social media data to help us do our jobs better.

Read: The Role of Social Media in Public Relations

Social Media Insights

Most approaches to deriving social media insights rely on a number of fundamental approaches:

• Extracting trends in keywords, sometimes paired with semantic analysis to identify topics and tones of interest;
• Creating keyword “clouds” in order to try to visualize hot topics (with varying degrees of usefulness I might add); and
• Identifying key influencers based on followers, shares of postings, and frequency of topical postings.

But one area that is gaining favor is tying traditional media to social media to determine which stories and issues are resonating in the marketplace.  As a given article is shared more and more, it indicates that the issues discussed resonate within the social media ecosystem.  If it is a good story, that is great news.  But if the story is negative or problematic, social sharing can indicate a growing problem that needs to be addressed.

Electric Utilities: What engages audiences in social media?

Some issues and topics tend to engage the social media sphere more than others.  And as communicators, we can use that knowledge to our advantage – using the right channels to address issues, share messages, and further our cause.

For example, in a detailed Energy Industry benchmarking study conducted by our analytics team, we found that certain topics tended to get notably more Social Momentum (a proprietary index score that measures social media sharing activity).

In the graph below on the left, you can see the number of mentions of key initiatives in the Energy industry (note that these are not based on a simple count of keywords, rather human analytics based on the macro concepts listed).  During the period, Reliability was the most covered issue, while Customer Service was covered the least.

But in the graph to the right, you can see that when it comes to Social Momentum, Customer Service coverage was shared far more often in social media (about 35% more than other frequently covered topics).  Rates came in second, and Reliability came in a relatively distant third place.

In the Energy example above, the data tells us that we would likely have strong social media engagement when spreading messages about Customer Service, which may encourage increasing social media efforts there. Alternatively, for issues surrounding Community and Philanthropy, we might either focus less of our social media efforts there due to a lower ROI, or perhaps we might move to change the conversation online by investing more in social media on those topics (which are often positive) to raise their social media presence.

Knowledge is Power

So what does this mean to us in communications and marketing?  It means we need to respect the power of social media to share traditional and Web content.  It means we need to acknowledge and act on social media’s power to proliferate traditional and Web content.  And, more importantly, when we are focusing our efforts in social media, it means we should be focused on the areas where engagement is most powerful.

Social media is, in many ways, a gift to marketing and communications teams.  It gives us volumes of real-time data that can tell us a lot about the marketplace and how our companies are received.  But the true value comes when we can be creative and use real, accurate data to guide our strategy.  Social media intelligence tells us what matters most to our audiences – and we should use that knowledge to our advantage.

Eric Koefoot is a Managing Partner at PublicRelay. 

Businesses love information, data, and statistics.  Show me a successful CEO, and I will put money on the fact that they rely on stats to plan, react, focus, and strategize smartly.  And compared with 20 or even 10 years ago, the wide availability of vast troves of information has changed the face of business.

Data for Communications

Those of us in the communications field are caught up in the same tidal wave.  We are expected to collect media intelligence to support our decisions and prove our impact to the CEO and the Board.

The days of thick binders of media clips and clip counts are long gone.  And even the old standby “Ad Value Equivalent” is under increasing scrutiny by skeptical CEOs, who find its almost arbitrary assignment of the value of a story hard to justify in the days of internet distribution, mobile consumption, and social media sound bites.

So what have we done?

• We’ve changed with the times and turned to technology and data analytics to achieve those important goals.
• We’ve begun analyzing stories by the thousands – even by the millions in the case of social media monitoring – to extract trends and patterns in the coverage.
• We’ve captured sentiment through complex algorithms that look for descriptive and emotional words and tie them to subjects gleaned through entity extraction.
• And we’ve collected all these data into vast databases that are then crunched to create impressive-looking charts and graphs that tell us what is happening in the media as it relates to us and our brand.

More Data vs. More Information

But let’s take a step back and ask an important question:

Do we have more information, or do we really have just more data?  Is this vast database – at its core – based on solid analytics that are structured on how we, as communications professionals, do our jobs?

Frequently the answer is no, and therein lies the rub.

Just because you can analyze everything with a computer does not mean that you should.  As more and more people become publishers through blogs and social media, they talk about anything that comes to mind.  Brand names are tossed about in casual conversations that have nothing to do with the product themselves.  Sarcasm and double-meanings are commonplace, so often what you read is not literally what was written.

Less Knowledge

What increasingly is happening is this: as you expand your data set to pick up every single mention of a topic, issue, brand, executive, or company, by the nature of your terms you will always be casting a very wide net.  The data set becomes huge, though software can handle the volumes easily.

But what software continues to struggle with is the increasingly poor signal-to-noise ratio.  The wider you cast the net, the more likely you are to ingest, process, and analyze irrelevant coverage.  And what corporate communications or product strategy is ever driven by an unknown, low-influence blogger?  It is important not to dilute information and insight from the authors and outlets that really matter with volumes of what amounts essentially to just noise.

What you have is more and more information – but actually less and less knowledge. 

And so while we are enjoying the pretty charts and statistics, we are actually not looking at more insight.

For communications to be part of the data revolution, we need solutions and approaches that leverage data, but do so based on quality data from the start.  Only then will we be able to participate in the C-Level executive discussions as a respected peer and prove our impact.

When it comes to media strategy, there are times when you have no choice but to play defense.  A negative event – for example, a legal, regulatory, or reputational problem – surfaces in the media and the team has to quickly roll into action to manage the story.

In these situations, your priority is neutralizing or moderating the coverage.  The subject has been dictated to you, and there’s often less latitude to take the story in strongly positive direction.  A win may be simply persuading a reporter to write a less negative story, getting equal airtime for your point of view, or slowing the story’s spread in the media.  Damage control is often top of mind.

Playing Offense…with confidence

Fortunately, there are also opportunities to play offense. When your team has latitude to shape – or even create – the story, there’s extra room for creativity and many more possibilities to consider.  For this “proactive” coverage, the opportunity to positively impact perceptions about your
organization is limited only by resources and ingenuity.

The thought leadership content that some companies publish is one good example of proactive coverage.  Another is coverage related to corporate and social responsibility.  But the effectiveness of such content can vary widely.  Some topics and angles capture consumers’ imagination, while others don’t.  So how should you decide where to invest your limited time and energy to get the best results?

Accurate PR measurement data is invaluable here.  For example, what if your media monitoring system allowed you to look back at media metrics showing how much impact specific topics within your coverage generated among your target audiences?  Wouldn’t this data help you make better content planning decisions?

Insurance Industry Lessons

PublicRelay recently gathered this type of media measurement data for coverage of five leading property & casualty insurers.  The goal was to identify where there might be opportunities to play better offense – i.e., which content topics might be worthy of greater investment because of their tone, reach, and sharing characteristics.

Here are some examples of patterns we observed in the data:

• Coverage of Product Innovations (positive in nature) achieved about three times the reach and significantly higher social sharing than Claims Coverage (which had a significant negative component).
• Thought Leadership coverage (positive in nature) achieved higher social sharing levels than any of the traditionally “defensive” topics insurers encounter, such as coverage of Rate Increases and Lawsuits.
• Certain sub-topics within the thought leadership category achieved still higher sharing levels – more than twice the overall average for thought leadership content – making them especially worthy of consideration for future campaigns and outreach.

Proactive Media Strategy

If you want to improve your strategy for getting proactive coverage, start by asking yourself questions like the following:

• Which topics within your content generate the most positive perceptions?
• Which of these topics are most likely to achieve significant reach?
• Which topics achieve the most social sharing?
• Are there opportunities to shift your content mix and re-focus your relationship-building with the media to boost your results?

If you aren’t getting this kind of actionable intelligence from your current media monitoring and measurement metrics, you may be missing important opportunities to significantly boost the ROI from your team’s efforts and demonstrate impact to your company’s leadership.

Similar thinking can also be applied when you’re playing defense– stay tuned for a future post on this.

Chris Bolster is a Managing Partner at PublicRelay. 

Deciding how much media measurement to share with senior leadership can be a dilemma for communications leaders. The media monitoring systems most teams use can produce many metrics, but how much of the data is worthy of a C-Level discussion?

In our conversations with numerous teams across many industries, we’ve observed three models for reporting to the C-Suite and Board:

1. Some teams don’t do any formal reporting of media metrics, or they keep whatever they prepare internal to the team.
2. Others circulate a few macro statistics, such as clip count trends, cumulative reach, or average tonality and include titles and mastheads from the more prominent stories.
3. The remainder share a much deeper analysis of coverage: topics and campaigns of special importance, impact achieved, how results supported goals, competitive/peer bench-marking, and other factors. The best of these reports also tie the coverage to broader company initiatives and goals, corporate reputation, or other dimensions of interest to senior executives (a subject for a coming post).

Here are some takeaways we’ve derived from our work with many of America’s leading companies:

No External Reporting

In today’s business environment, most departments quantify their results. Executives in IT, finance, marketing, operations, and sales all manage their organizations using relevant metrics. In this context, we have had more than one communications executive confide in us that they feel like they are always behind their peers when they cannot show similarly compelling data in management meetings. One said, “Without that, I’m concerned we won’t have a seat at the table.”

Teams shunning measurement entirely also miss out on opportunities to use data to be more effective. Who wouldn’t want to know, for example, which of the messages you’re putting out are generating passion and engagement among readers, and which are flat-lining? This is just one example of the practical, actionable data that many communications teams are using to hone their strategy. We’ll elaborate on this in a future post.

Limited Macro Reporting

Broad measures such as clip volumes, average tonality, and some share of voice measures can give a general feel for performance. But they often raise more questions than they answer when presented to senior executives that are accustomed to drilling into data. And when there’s no clear connection between metrics and business goals, even executives who are shown a positive trend may question whether it is all that meaningful – and perhaps privately doubt whether success is being measured the right way.

Topic-level Metrics Connected to Business Priorities

Those of our clients who share deeper topic-level analysis with senior leadership feel this strategy has built significant credibility for their team. By accurately quantifying results and tying them to important issues and themes, reporting becomes more relevant to senior leadership. A thoughtful framework for tracking and evaluating results also shows that the team is systematically managing toward clear objectives – and is equipped to quickly identify problems and respond with adjustments when necessary. 

At times, teams considering more granular reporting are concerned that it may highlight unfavorable trends. Periodically, some part of the communication plan won’t go as well as hoped, and the data will likely show this. However, most executives we know don’t blame the team in this scenario. Quite the opposite – they appreciate when the team proactively identifies challenges and discusses plans to respond. Teams that clearly define their goals and then objectively report on both disappointments and successes gain credibility and autonomy in our experience.

The Bottom Line

Even if you’re not being asked for deeper, more analytical reporting (or perhaps any reporting at all!), you should consider proactively introducing it anyway. Our experience is that thoughtful metrics foster the type of fact-based dialogue that C-level executives favor. They also allow you to better frame your team’s strategy and results – and to build credibility and support at senior levels. In a world of frequently shifting organizational priorities, budget battles, and high turnover, those are valuable assets.

Chris Bolster is a Managing Partner at PublicRelay. 

Early in 2011, the “Arab Spring” uprisings made headlines around the world, using social media to share information without government interference.  Twitter was a key platform through which this was accomplished and the spike in the use of hashtags such as #Cairo and #ArabSpring showed its impact.  Using these hashtags allowed sympathisers around the world to demonstrate their support for the uprising and provided real-time encouragement to the revolutionaries.

Importantly though, while social media platforms like Twitter can play a vital role in the propagation of real-time unfiltered information during time likes this, it is also a popular communication channel via which businesses attempt to promote products and engage customers. On February 3, these two different uses converged with unfortunate results.  Early that day, fashion designer Kenneth Cole decided to hitch his wagon to a heavily-trending topic to promote his new clothing collection.  He did this by tweeting “Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online at http://bit.ly/KCairo -KC”.

What Happened Next…

Within minutes, the tweet went viral and a wave of negative coverage followed close behind.  The comment was condemned for being – at best – in poor taste and – at worst – totally offensive.   The condemnation took many forms; for example, a spoof ‘KennethColePR’ twitter account was created, with posters competing to outdo each with parodies of the tweet.  A crisis management PR strategy was rapidly enacted with Cole apologizing 2 hours later via Facebook, but the reputational damage was already done.

So, What Should Have Happened?

For any company where social media is an important element of their communications strategy, the temptation to jump on a trending topic to generate coverage will always be great.  When handled sensitively, this approach could deliver positive benefits, but before embarking upon this course it is important to understand the tone and context around the topic that you plan to hijack and to incorporate your tactic into a broader media communications strategy, to ensure that you maintain control of the conversation.

In this case, it certainly appears that this wasn’t done, although an oddly similar episode in September 2013 suggests that this was not an isolated mishap, but rather a conscious action seemingly based on the old saw that “any news is good news”.  If this is true, it highlights even more strongly the need for full understanding of what you are jumping into via accurate monitoring and analysis of media coverage, otherwise any short-term upswing in attention could be more than wiped out by the subsequent negative coverage.

Last month (April 2016), Alaska Airlines announced their intention to purchase rival carrier Virgin America for $2.6B—roughly a $1B premium over Virgin America’s market capitalization just a few days earlier. The $1B difference is primarily attributed to ‘goodwill’ – related to the strong brand that Virgin America has built in the US since launching in 2007.  “Goodwill” is defined by Investopedia as:

“an intangible asset that arises as a result of the acquisition of one company by another for a premium value. The value of a company’s brand name, solid customer base, good customer relations, good employee relations and any patents or proprietary technology represent goodwill.”^[1]

Essentially, “goodwill” is to a business what reputation is to a person.

The Challenge: Effectively Managing Your Brand Reputation During an Acquisition

While Alaska Airlines is highly profitable and the acquisition is expected to be accretive in the first year, maintaining goodwill during this transition is vital for long-term client retention and the value of the business.

Just days after the announcement, articles began to appear that highlight this challenge. For example, an article on Skift (a travel media intelligence company) makes the case that Alaska is not proactively managing customer perceptions, a quote from Chris Nurko, Global Chairman of Futurebrand, is telling. “What is interesting is the voice of the customers, those who are flying Virgin: Alaska needs to reach out to them. From what I’ve heard and I’ve read, they don’t seem to be doing that.” Nurko notes that Virgin America is reaching out to its’ customer base, but Alaska has remained silent so far and that this is unsettling to Virgin’s loyal customers (he is one).

So, What Could Alaska Airlines Be Doing?

Corporate communications—effectively managed—can play a large role in maintaining “goodwill” during an acquisition. A timely, well-managed communications outreach strategy during an acquisition has the power to win over a customer base, while simultaneously maintaining the value of the company.

While there are many examples of communications strategies successfully deployed during financial transactions, those that can be described as ‘best practice’ share a few common elements:

1. Seven-day-a-week media monitoring of channels – print, broadcast, and online – to facilitate real-time alerts on hot, breaking news

2. The ability to profile and deferentially score content from “sources of interest” within the overall coverage, to ensure that thought leader commentary is properly managed towards the positive

3. Comprehensive media measurement and reporting on all media types, to ensure that the communications team maintains a broad strategic view of the media landscape and kept them from being surprised by breaking news

4. As a consumer-oriented company, regular social media impact reports can provide insight into customer engagement levels and tone, as well as highlighting the ‘social momentum’ of any negative stories

5. A ‘rapid response’ monitoring capability, to enable the communications team to redirect the focus of analysis and monitoring quickly. Output from this enables the communications team to continuously adjust their focus and strategy, ensuring they are always able to respond rapidly to fast-moving issues.

With a communications strategy focused on protecting the goodwill of the Virgin America brand and a “best practices” media monitoring strategy, there is every reason to expect Alaska Airlines to successfully navigate this transaction, which is expected to close in 2017.

[1] http://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/goodwill.asp

[2] https://skift.com/2016/04/12/the-death-of-virgin-americas-brand-and-the-aftermath-of-the-alaska-airlines-sale/

Over the years, we have all seen markets respond to rapidly changing environments with a quick solution that solves the problem at hand, but not as completely as we’d like. More time is needed for a complete solution to be developed.

Shortly after 9/11, I recall waiting in long lines at the airport – sometimes upwards of 2 hours – so that the hastily-implemented extra TSA screeners could do their job. We all saw a very real need (airline safety) being met by a quick solution (thorough screening) that was often frustrating and time-consuming.  It took years until the Trusted Traveler programs were put into place, new passenger queue areas were built, and agents were trained to be more effective and polite for the worst of the security delays to abate.

The PR Quick Fix

In public relations and communications, we faced our own major crisis when the Internet took over: anyone could instantly access any content from virtually any publication, any opinionated person could be a publisher via their own blog, and social media made the worst of those people into both critics and amplifiers of bad news. We in the communications industry had to do something – fast – to get our arms around what was being said, and how our messages were resonating. So what did we do?

We turned to our friend, “technology”, to solve the problem quickly.

Powerful software was developed to deliver automated content scraping via rich Boolean keyword searches. Sentiment software extracted words that reflected opinions and emotions. Coupled with beautiful graphs bolted on the front end, this approach gave us a glimpse into all that content whizzing by at the speed of electrons.  It was far from perfect, but it worked.

From Automated Tools to Curated Media Analysis

But now there has been more time to understand the rich complexity and interaction of content, the Internet, and social communications. Many senior communications professionals are finding that automated tools can only go so far in addressing their needs for insightful and actionable media analysis, particularly for large, complex brands with broad coverage across many outlets. They thirst for knowledge beyond the keywords.  They hunger for relevant, insightful media analysis from mass-volume, multi-channel coverage.

Automated PR software applications cannot accurately and comprehensively interpret; they will only do what you tell them to do in the most literal terms. Even with the best search terms, first-generation tools will pick up irrelevant content (false positives) or exclude important content (false negatives). They struggle to determine comparative relevance.  And just forget about subtle things like sarcasm, double meanings, or context. For example, is “He is the Tiger Woods of X” a compliment or an insult? For golf, that would very likely be a compliment, but used in the context of being a good husband? Probably not.

One approach that has been gaining increased acceptance is media analytics based on advanced technology, yet augmented by highly trained, specialized human analysts that wield sophisticated analytics tools.

Many organizations are finding that a human deeply analyzing a statistically relevant subset of coverage from the most important outlets, social media influencers, and channels allows them unprecedented quantitative insight into what is working, what is not, and how they are performing versus their peers. Human discretion also accounts for those subtle nuances that software applications cannot reliably pick up.

Organizations are discovering that as they understand the problem – and their goals – better, they are employing solutions that achieve the original goals, yet do them more effectively, gracefully, and usefully.  Humans leveraging technology can understand and analyze content like no computer can, and they can be flexible as situations change quickly.  They solve the original problem, but in a better, easier way.

…just like a shorter security line at the airport – who wouldn’t like that?

Eric Koefoot is a Managing Partner at PublicRelay. 

Originally published on April 1, 2016, this blog was updated on December 12, 2024.

On April 1, 1996 a full-page advertisement appeared in six major American newspapers^[1] announcing that Taco Bell had purchased the Liberty Bell, one of the United States’ most cherished historical symbols. The “justification” for this controversial announcement was that Taco Bell was seeking a way to do its part in helping to reduce the US national debt.  The ad went on to explain that while the bell would be renamed the “Taco Liberty Bell”, it would still remain accessible to the public.

An accompanying press release trumpeted Taco Bell’s corporate good-citizenship by comparing the bell’s purchase to the adoption of highways by corporations. Taco Bell suggested that it was only “going one step further by purchasing one of the country’s greatest historic treasures.” In conclusion, the company proudly stated, “Taco Bell’s heritage and imagery have revolved around the symbolism of the bell. Now we’ve got the crown jewel of bells.”

We know now that this was all part of a carefully planned April Fools’ Day corporate prank, deservedly ranked as one of the best of its kind.  At the time however, while some people got the joke, others took it seriously and yet others took offense.  One example of media coverage from the latter camp is an op-ed piece in the Washington Times of April 5, 1996 in which the writer describes the hoax in heated terms: “To use this sacred symbol as part of some silly game is an affront to generations of proud Americans who have fought and died for this country’s freedom – so proudly represented by the Liberty Bell.  Apparently this doesn’t matter to Taco Bell officials – or maybe they just don’t get it.”

How They Managed

Articles like this were by no means rare, so effectively managing the PR aspect of this corporate prank campaign to minimize the risk of brand damage took skill and no small amount of nerve, but Taco Bell was undoubtedly helped by the nature of media coverage in 1996.  Although CNN was launched in 1980, the World Wide Web was in its early stages so the news cycle was still driven by print media and mainstream TV/radio and, as such, was less diverse and also slower moving than today.

At lunchtime on April 1, Taco Bell issued a second press release in which they confessed to the hoax, describing it as “The Best Joke of the Day.” The company also announced that it would donate $50,000 for the upkeep of the Liberty Bell.  This ensured that Taco Bell maintained control of the story and, although it did not prevent articles like the one cited above, they were very much in the minority and the campaign was an unqualified success.

The Impact

In a subsequent report, Taco Bell’s PR company, Paine & Associates, quantified the benefits of the corporate prank for Taco Bell:

“More than 650 print outlets and 400 broadcast outlets covered the Taco Liberty Bell story, featuring mentions of the “Nothing Ordinary About It” ad campaign. More than 70 million Americans were exposed to the media event, through radio, print and television coverage, including NBC “Nightly News,” “The Today Show,” CBS “This Morning,” CNN and USA Today. Additionally, more than 50 newspapers nationwide utilized a whimsical AP photo of the Taco Bell CEO next to a replica of the Liberty Bell. Free publicity surrounding the Taco Liberty Bell story generated the equivalent of $25 million in advertising for Taco Bell.”

Finally, according to Taco Bell’s marketing department, their sales spiked upwards by over $500,000 during the week of April 1, compared to the week before, an extraordinary ~85x return for a campaign that cost about $300,000.

How Can We Achieve the Same Results Today?

While organizations now may devise campaigns of similar ingenuity and impact, communicators are faced with an added challenge: how does one effectively manage the story within an ensuing fast-moving news cycle to both maximize the upside and minimize the downside?  Unlike 1996, the media of today is diverse, massively distributed, and news cycles are often measured in hours.  All this means that the methods that Taco Bell used to manage the evolving narrative nearly 30 years ago are no longer enough to guarantee the outcome today.

To manage a story proactively and effectively now, communications professionals must have a near-real time consolidated understanding of media coverage across all relevant channels. Achieving this requires a media intelligence solution that can:

• Gather news from a wide-range of online and broadcast news, as well as social platforms like X and Facebook
• Understand how your news pieces are trending on the web
• Apply a disciplined but flexible approach to scoring for tonality, topic mentions, etc.
• Present the analyzed media content in a format that delivers insight on emerging trends

Armed with such a solution that supports decision-making, modern communications leaders can employ a data-driven approach to the execution of their communications management strategies. The ability to clearly see the tone. context, and outlet power of coverage means that communications teams can see when to intervene and when to stand still.  This approach provides the chance to deliver similar positive outcomes to the Taco Bell story for their organizations, without corresponding increased risk of reputational damage of other approaches.

^[1] The Philadelphia Inquirer, New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Dallas Morning News, and USA Today