Filtering For Influence - Precise Mixes Traditional and Social Media Worlds
Jinfo Blog

By Chris Porter

Abstract

Chris Porter looks at how the MediaPlatform+ software from UK provider Precise helps its PR-professional users to track and analyse both traditional and social media relating to their topics of interest.

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Recently FreePint has been looking at some of the enterprise-focused social media monitoring and management tools available in today’s market.

One aspect that has caught our attention is the way that these tools help users not only to track social media commentators, but to identify which commentators might be the most influential - the recent FreePint Mini Review: CisionPoint of the social media capabilities within this product is a prime example.

Integrated Mainstream & Social Media Monitoring

The MediaPlatform+ product from UK-based media monitoring and PR tools provider Precise also has an interesting take on this.

MediaPlatform+ is a subscription-based, web-delivered service that gives public relations, corporate communications and marketing professionals a quick and easy way to monitor mainstream and social media coverage in a fully integrated way.

The standard content within Precise MediaPlatform+ is a combination of online news and social content such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and blog sites (other traditional clippings feeds can also be added, subject to appropriate commercial agreements).

Results from traditional and social media sources are seamlessly integrated within the service.

Filtering and Sorting

When users are filtering and sorting their results, they can do so by selecting generic filtering features such as the date of publication, the data delivery or the name of the source. But they can also do so based on other features, which are potentially more indicative of the influence of the particular piece of content.

Some of the available sort options are traditional-media PR metrics, such as Reach (the number of potential readers of the article) or Value (a metric relating to print article size and associated list-price advertising cost).

Others, however, are social media indicators such as Followers Count or Klout Score, an increasingly widely known computation of potential online influence.

The example below shows results sorted by Reach, i.e. the size of the potential target audience of the publication.

Figure 1: Results sorted by Reach

Whether the user is seeking indicators of influence for traditional or social media, Precise has options to guide them.

Many public relations professionals have been in the vanguard of moves to track social as well as traditional media within organisations and it is fascinating to see how long-established vendors of solutions for this user group have adapted their services to meet these new needs.

Editor's Note

Precise MediaPlatform+ has a host of interesting features. The full FreePint Report: Product Review of Precise MediaPlatform+ is now available in PDF format, in a convenient package for reference and sharing, for those with a FreePint Subscription.

Read Chris Porter's introduction to FreePint's focus on social media monitoring tools in Social Media Monitoring: the Options.

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