Today, as never before, the distribution channels of information are vast and proliferating. The daunting challenge of public relations is to stay on top or ahead of the flow of information. In fulfilling our mission in advancing the professional, PRSA dedicates this page to the industry's product and services providers. Case studies by many of the industry's premiere companies will provide in-depth examples and best practices techniques to enhance your knowledge base and communication strategies.
What is Your Media Coverage Saying About Your Media Relations Program?
Spotting trends in your media coverage is the key to managing an active media relations program, according to Joe Brown, Senior Media Relations Consultant at Orlando Regional Healthcare System. He reviews monthly reports from BurrellesLuce MediaMeasurement looking for changes in the types of media outlets covering their stories. This allows him to focus on outlets that are not covering the health system.
As a busy media relations professional, Brown says, “I don’t have time to do monitoring and analysis on my own,” so he relies on BurrellesLuce for an accurate monitoring and analysis mechanism. BurrellesLuce analysts provide expertise in the metrics and unbiased reports. “The media coverage is a direct reflection of me and our entire team. It takes willingness of the staff to do interviews, so they affect the overall outcome,” says Brown. Looking to get a snapshot of the past month, Brown reviews the length of his stories which help him discover the quality of the stories he placed. Next, he reviews the advertising value equivalency (AVE), which he says is the bottom line value for his executives.
Over the past 15 years, Erik Elvejord, Director of Public Relations, Holland America Line, has evolved a media measurement program to track circulations, inches and article pick-up. Recently, they have added tonal analysis and a breakdown of overall pick-up by specific cruise destination, which has helped them to determine which regional topics have the most potential for pick-up by media outlets.
"The media coverage is a direct reflection of me and our entire team."
-Joe Brown Orlando Regional Healthcare System
"Analysis helps to foucus our attention to stories that have teeth."
- Erik Elvejord Holland America Line
“Because it is an integral part of our PR efforts, analysis helps to focus our attention to stories that have teeth and to measure our success in pitching other areas, “ explains Elvejord. “We must, of course, ask why one story had better pick up than another but we must know where things are running to review these things. The success of our media relations has a direct impact on budget. Success translates into fewer questions about the use of budget effectively, so knowing where we stand and what needs to be adjusted is very important.”
Similarly, by including on-going media analysis as part of Orlando Regional Healthcare System’s overall media campaign, Brown is able to review quarterly and yearly trends. This allows him to see how changes in his strategy affect his corporation’s media coverage over long periods of time. Like most media relations professionals, Brown has a wish list of services he would like to implement for the next fiscal year. The reports help him to leverage additional funds for his budget.
Both Brown and Elvejord share their measurement reports with others in their organizations. Brown uses the measurement reports to prepare a snapshot review for the directors in his department. A more abbreviated report with two to three points is sent to the executives in the corporation. Elvejord says the entire management team sees the summary portions of the report and the vice president and the director of PR review the details.The entire team can access the complete report if they desire.
“When professionals turn to BurrellesLuce, it is because they are looking for an accurate, impartial analysis of their media coverage. Clients use the charts and graphs we provide to illustrate the effectiveness of their media relations outreach and show changes inthe overall media climate,” says Carol Holden, manager of BurrellesLuce MediaMeasurement service. She continues, “We enjoy working with Joe (Brown), and Erik (Elvejord), because they really optimize the service we provide them to show the effectiveness of their teams’ efforts.”
Award winning crisis management using dna13 software
As a crisis threatens, PR professionals need to be equipped to implement immediate tactics so as to avoid and mitigate any negative publicity that could affect the success of the organization.
dna13 realizes how important it is for an immediate, carefully planned response, yet also how difficult this is for regionally separated communications teams and PR agencies to achieve.
dna13’s web-based solution provides PR professionals with the integrated tools for:
• Media coverage real-time alerts Keep on top of breaking news with keyword search alerts. Add the dna13 dashboard to your executive or client’s homepage so they too can be alerted of coverage as it happens
• Journalist alert notification Our call logging facility will alert the organization if a journalist has called more than one employee within the last 72 hours, mitigating risk
• Message management Ensure consistency in your organization’s response with immediate online access to issue collateral and alerts to team members when new material is available
• E-mail and call logging dna13 is compatible with Microsoft Outlook — all incoming journalist email and phone calls can be synchronized into the portal
Simply click here to download our free white paper and find out how Manulife Financial, a leading global financial services company, relied upon dna13 software for crisis management when they were confronted with an extortion scheme imposed by the Indonesian Government.
The TEKmedia Online Newsroom enables the Communications Department to maintain breaking news, press releases, photographs, audio, video, executive biographies, an events calendar, PR contacts, a crisis communications center, email alerts and more.
TEKmedia also provides the ability to track and report on which registered journalists have accessed which press releases and email alerts. The administrative interface is similar to a word-processing program and just as easy to use. You don’t have to be a Web guru to manage the site, and you don’t need an IT department.
Click hereto view FREE copies of TEKgroup’s case studies.
TEKgroup International, Inc. client:
Delta Air Lines, The world’s second largest airline – measured by number of passengers flown offers customers service to more destinations than any global airline with Delta and Delta Connection carrier service to 303 destinations in 52 countries. With more than 50 new international routes added in the last year, Delta is America’s fastest growing international airline and is a leader across the Atlantic with flights to 31 trans-Atlantic destinations. To Latin America and the Caribbean, Delta offers more than 400 weekly flights to 56 destinations. Delta's marketing alliances also allow customers to earn and redeem SkyMiles on more than 14,000 flights offered by SkyTeam and other partners. Delta is a founding member of SkyTeam, a global airline alliance that provides customers with extensive worldwide destinations, flights and services. Including its SkyTeam and worldwide codeshare partners, Delta offers flights to 459 worldwide destinations in 97 countries. Customers can check in for flights, print boarding passes and check flight status at delta.com.
The Business Challenges The task presented to TEKgroup International, Inc. was to add the Danish, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, and Ukrainian languages to the already existing online newsroom. The Delta media managers wanted to migrate current press releases to these languages as well. Inclusion of Greek, Hebrew and Ukrainian is the company's first foray into language characters from diverse alphabets.
The code/database required different settings to accommodate select languages such as Hebrew and Ukraine. Also, the layout structure differed for certain languages such as Hebrew, which reads from right to left.
The TEKgroup Response After just a few days of construction and review, Delta’s media managers and TEKgroup International, Inc. worked together to launch the five additional languages on the media site successfully. TEKgroup International, Inc. client service managers handled all language settings and issues in TEKgroup’s testing environment before it went live to the public and media professionals.
Business Benefits Delta is now able to continue to monitor the use of data within the global media center. Agencies in different countries can now efficiently represent Delta to the local media. With this information, Delta, in anticipation of reporters’ needs can still provide:
Fast access to the latest news
Automatic news release distribution
Corporate PR contact data
Efficient search capability
Audio/video files, as needed
Photos, low and high resolution
Personal file storage and personalized e-mail subscription
Links to related research data and other industry sites
Multilingual press releases
"Our ability to provide company news in local languages gives us an opportunity to become more closely aligned with the reporters, editors and our customers in each country we serve.”
Olivia Cullis- London-based Regional Manager of Corporate Communications for Delta Air Lines, Inc.
Click hereto find out more about Delta using the award winning Internet software and services company that develops E-business solutions for the public relations industry. View this case study, as well as a number of other case studies accenting how PR professionals in numerous industries and sectors benefit from the TEKmedia Online Newsroom. TEKgroup clients include AOL, Delta Air Lines, Inc., Audi, Volkswagen, Detroit Lions, Ford Motor Company, VMS, Best Buy, Carlson Hotels Worldwide, Walgreens and the Public Relations Society of America.
