Advantages of media monitoring and examples of use by local governments.
In today’s era of the huge popularity of social media, everyone wants to be up to date with events that take place nearby. Nobody wants to be left out. In the company of friends and colleagues it is worth knowing what is going on in culture, sport, local government or business around. Nobody wants to be that one who is completely not interested in local matters and the promotion of hometowns and regional events .
Local governments should invest in media monitoring tools to find out what users and members of regional groups on Facebook, GoldenLine or a popular forums are talking about at a given time. After analyzing and drawing conclusions from online discussions, you can create an excellent marketing strategy, bring residents closer together, develop civil society and attract potential investors who could promote a given city or region on a national scale.
Positive aspects of media monitoring for local governments.
The opinion of the local community is a fundamental element in building effective territorial marketing. Positive opinions of residents about local authorities can contribute to extending their term of office and a significant number of negative comments lead to the end of their adventure with management. This is also reflected in the light in which a given unit of administrative division is seen by representatives of other regions, cities or various enterprises, both state and private. Positive opinions of users on social networking sites can attract investors whose capital investment in a given region will bring large profits, and above all contribute to the creation of new jobs. Which of course will increase the region’s economic indicators.
Building good relationships in cyberspace.
It is worth informing residents about current activities to find out if they think they are necessary at any given time or whether it is better to allocate funds to something else that requires immediate intervention of local government representatives. Nowadays people do not have enough free time to walk around the offices, ask their employees and look for information leaflets to learn about the region’s development plans for the coming months or years. On the other hand, the majority of the population has smartphones equipped with applications such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. They allow constant contact with friends and favorite places, from any location on earth. During a break from work, people are eager to use the Internet to check what is going on in the area, in the country and in the world.
Building good relationships with residents should start in the cyberspace. Information about local ventures moves to the virtual world, whether we want it or not. Therefore, local governments should invest some time to present these circumstances and events in the best possible way. Constant network activity can attract not only investors but also a significant number of tourists interested in a given region.
Therefore, it is worth being online to promote organized events and inform residents about upcoming projects related to industry, tourism and infrastructure. Tracking fan pages and user profiles, who often speak on social media channels on regional topics, is also worth the attention of local government representatives. Such activity will cause that we will be able to immediately join the discussion on e.g. events organized by a specific city and encourage residents to participate in them. We can also offer promotion of a given event, institution and region by requesting sharing of a link referring to its official website. Such action may cause among the target group the feeling that they are an important element of joint regional development and without their activity we will not achieve the goal.
Interest in the environment.
Another advantage of media monitoring platforms is that we can easily narrow down the search to get only relevant results for us. Let’s say that we want to find all information about an enterprise that plans to move to a specific region, but only if it is mentioned in the context of its impact on the environment, and not in terms of average annual income or relationships with other companies. We can set keywords such as impact, environment and smog, along with all their variations occurring in languages. The results obtained at that time will relate only to the context of previously selected phrases. Such actions will help us take steps to ensure that this investor is certainly safe for the nature that surrounds us.
Risk management.
We can also use media monitoring in the risk management process. Such analytical activities will certainly help local government departments create strategies regarding potential threats. The conclusions of these studies will help us e.g. in the selection of specific suppliers. By collecting and analyzing the content, reach, advertising equivalent and sentiment of the publication, we will determine whether the service seller is someone to cooperate with or to avoid.
The analyst responsible for the monitoring process will summarize all data related to a specific contractor and present a summary report for the selected period of time. The information obtained in it is extremely important for governments, because they allow them to minimize the risks associated with the selection and employment of new contractors and service providers. Analysis of publication reach in combination with other media indicators can also help identify the type of threat. The generated data significantly impacts the process of scaling potential risk based on how likely it is to really become our problem.
Notifications about the latest publications on a given topic.
Major territorial officials such as the president, mayor or governor often have to travel and answer many questions during the day. Ceremonial opening and cutting the ribbon, meetings with citizens, issuing press statements, visiting partner cities, approving specific projects or monitoring the implementation of subsequent stages of important investments … These are obligations that must be performed, and being practically constantly on the move, it is difficult to control these all activities at once. The president and his team should be ready to respond immediately to hot topics, whether in the office or in the field. The latest mentions are easy to check on your smartphone. You do not need to exchange calls or emails between public relations specialists and an official. Anyone on the team can get information from their point of view by email whenever they want – in real time; once a day, once a week or in a completely non-standard period.
Such notifications are offered media monitoring tools. Thanks to them, we can always be up to date on any interesting topic. Just one click on your phone or laptop. We can use this information to plan activities, such as publishing PR statements or organizing interviews on websites that gain the most reach among readers. A civil servant must be informed of certain events as soon as possible so that he can plan activities for the near future. Monitoring the topic for the next few days will allow you to find out what impact we have achieved thanks to the actions taken. These are absolutely necessary tools in the process of responsible regional policy. They will help to recognize issues important for residents, actively work on solutions for communication crises and build a positive reputation of local governments in the community.
Campaign effectiveness.
Media monitoring and analysis can be used to measure the impact and perception of the message and to assess the effectiveness of communication plans and campaigns carried out. Local governments can use the collected information to improve publicly funded programs by analyzing both positive and negative perceptions of public opinion. The results obtained may form the basis for important changes in infrastructure and regional policy.
European funds for local governments.
In many areas, local governments can obtain funding from European Funds. Local government units obtain EU funds for projects related to:
The number of local government investments made with the help of EU funds is growing every year. However, we all know that competition is high. Not every project submitted receives funding. And here media monitoring comes in handy. It is worth getting to know the details of winning projects. It is worth receiving notifications about who and where received specific funds. It is also worth being up to date with the announced aid programs. In this way, local governments are able to maximize the chances of obtaining financial help for local investments.