Simply put, media monitoring is the act of tracking topics across print, online, and broadcast media output.

In Public Relations (PR) and Communications it is important to measure the success of your campaigns, deal with a crisis quickly, and listen out for negative publicity. All of this can be achieved by effective media monitoring.

Brands are getting on board with media monitoring to an extent of purchasing tools and hiring media monitoring firms to observe issues that directly concern them.

Here are 11 reasons why you need to consider investing in media monitoring:

1. Get information in real-time

In this digital era, you can’t afford to wait for long to get information. There are media monitoring tools that offer real-time alerts. A case in point is Google Alerts. These allow you to be at the front of your competetion and get the information you need for in-moment marketing opportunities or to manage a crisis before it even starts.

2. Save time through automation

This is especially important when you’re heavy laden with work as a PR or communication professional. By using online tools like Socialbakers, Keyhole, Brand24 and Sprout Social among others, you’re able to get your social media analytics in no time, saving you from lengthy manual processes.

3. Get actionable and measurable insights

You not only want to monitor the media coverage you are receiving, you should also be looking for insights into the coverage. Insight is crucial as it provides an opportunity to improve your PR and prove value in a measurable way for reports. Different social media platforms provide insights that enable a user to know how well they’re fairing in the social race – Twitter Analytics, Facebook Insights, and YouTube Analytics are the most common.

Media monitoring tools now provide graphs that clearly visualize insights data over a specific time period, sentiment analysis of individual metrics or general coverage, and maps displaying the geographical origins of coverage.

Having a media monitoring tool that provides data insights will save time and unnecessary data entry.

4. Cross-platform monitoring

To fully understand the impact of your public communications efforts, it’s important to not only keep an eye on the daily headlines but also be able to monitor as many different sources of media as possible, across media platforms including social media, blogs, online news, and broadcast.

When looking for a media monitoring tool, you need to find a tool that can monitor various media platforms. This can also go a long way in showing you what platforms appeal to your target audiences the most. If there are specific publications you need to monitor that aren’t available, you can often request for sources to be added. But if this is not possible, then you can look elsewhere for a tool that fits your requirements.

5. Brand reputation

A brand’s reputation – how the particular brand is viewed and perceived by its publics, is its most vital resource and good media monitoring helps protect it.

Media monitoring enables you to stay on top of threats to your brand’s reputation. It can help you to develop your reputation further by keeping you on top of what’s being said about your brand and who’s saying it.

Data and sentiment insights into the media coverage you are receiving will also provide a simple overview of how your brand is perceived.

6. Monitor your competitors

Competitors just like brand reputation need to be monitored. Effective media monitoring can help you track your competitor’s publicity efforts like press releases, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) product launches, promotions, corporate events, and media coverage. This will enable you to you to make more informed decisions as to how and where you compete.

7. Manage crises effectively

It takes years to build a good reputation for a brand, but it only takes moments to destroy it. So, it is imperative to react quickly and be proactive in your recovery when faced with a crisis.

Real-time media monitoring allows you to keep ahead of the press and manage PR without any abrupt surprises. As such, you might be able to avert a looming crisis or come up with the perfect response to get out of it safe and sound.

8. Measure the effectiveness of public campaigns

Media monitoring can enable you monitor your campaign and provide measurable data to prove value. This will facilitate a greater understanding of the positive impact and success of campaigns.

9. Track success and sentiment

This directly points to campaigns and organizational activities. Companies for instance hire media monitoring agencies to track the success of their adverts.

It is vital to have access to, or receive, up-to-the-minute information if you are tracking success. Real-time alerts are a fantastic resource to give you moment by moment feedback on your efforts.

Timely knowledge facilitates a continuous learning process, enabling you to develop and optimize your PR and communications output.

10. Find new business opportunities

Media monitoring is an invaluable tool if you are scoping out new business opportunities. Tracking other industries will allow you to spot a gap in the market and be aware of potential competitors.

11. Understand and utilize trends

By being able to follow trends in the media in real-time you can better inform your campaigns, content, and social media.

Social media monitoring can help you understand what really engages your customers, informing you in how to up your click-through rate (CTR) on your social pages. Keeping an eye on viral trends will also facilitate smart in-moment marketing opportunities and quick responses to what’s happening in the world around you.

The post Eleven Reasons Why You Should Invest In Media Monitoring first appeared on Uganda Multimedia News & Information.

The company has signed an exclusive agreement to show La Liga games featuring Barcelona’s Lionel Messi and other stars for the next three years. The deal will allow Facebook to show all 380 matches for the new season, which starts on Friday, to users in India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

Facebook will show the games for free to its 348 million users in the region, including 270 million in India. The company did not disclose how much it was paying for the rights, which cost Sony Pictures Network $32m (£25m) last time they were for sale in 2014.

Facebook will show the games for free to its 348 million users in the region, including 270 million in India

Facebook and other US technology companies have been buying up rights to popular sports for streaming services. Competition from cash-rich US tech companies is a threat to cable and satellite TV broadcasters, which have used sport as a way to attract and keep customers.

Facebook pays about $1m a game to show 25 Major League Baseball games worldwide for no fee, supported by advertising. From next season in the UK, Amazon will bundle 20 English Premier League matches with its Prime subscription service. Sky and BT currently share the rights to show live games on TV.

Peter Hutton, Facebook’s director of global live sports, told Reuters its La Liga streams would be free of advertising at first but that it was considering its options. He said the La Liga deal was an experiment and not part of a land grab of sports rights.

Barcelona fans in India will now be able to watch Barcelona for free on Facebook

“This is one deal,” Hutton told Reuters. “It’s not something that is a big threat to broadcast world.”

The deal is La Liga’s latest effort to expand its fanbase in India, where it opened an office in New Delhi in 2016.

Jose Antonio Cachaza, La Liga’s country manager for India, said: “This is the first step for us. We’re excited to see it and we want make it as successful as possible so we can unlock other territories around the world.”

India and the surrounding south Asian countries are a crucial untapped market for Facebook, which has hit saturation point in the US and most of Western Europe. The social network already has over 241 million users in India alone – the largest single country user base for Facebook, exceeding its 240 million US users – but there is plenty of room for growth.

India’s population passed 1.3 billion people in 2017 and is expected to hit 1.5 billion by 2030. Meanwhile about 500 million people in India are expected to be internet-connected this year, in a country that is primarily mobile first and has relatively affordable mobile data.

Facebook has already had some setbacks in India as it strives to reach chief executive Mark Zuckberg’s goal of connecting “the next five billion people”. In a coalition with Samsung, Ericsson, MediaTek, Opera, Nokia and Qualcomm, called Internet.org, Facebook launched its Free Basics service in India in 2015 with local mobile network Reliance Communications.

Real Madrid will also be among the teams which will be watched

The service provided free internet access to select sites, including Facebook but excluding competitors. It was banned from India by the nation’s Telecom Regulatory Authority in 2016 for breaching net neutrality rules.

Since then Facebook has launched its Watch video on-demand service, Watch, in the US – a rival to Google’s YouTube and Netflix, it features original shows viewed through its site.

Facebook is said to be planning to launch Watch in India this year, according to a report from local news outlet The Ken, as a way to entice the other 250 million-plus internet-connected people in India on to its main social-networking platform.

Last year Facebook failed in its attempts to acquire the rights to Indian Premier League cricket with a $610m bid. The La Liga rights may make a suitable alternative vehicle with which to launch Watch in India.

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The post Facebook to stream free La Liga football matches in Asian sub-continent first appeared on Uganda Multimedia News & Information.

Rebecca Kadaga, has urged government to rush review of mobile money and social media tax

Kadaga also stated that, “alternatively, a private member may introduce an amendment bill for this purpose”.  She however, noted that private members’ bills face challenges of certificates of financial implication, instead, she advised, the Prime Minister and Cabinet could move the amendments.
“We don’t have capacity to intervene in any amendment for now, apart from waiting,” said the Speaker.
Hon. Paul Mwiru (FDC, Jinja East Municipality) raised concern on the one per cent charge on mobile money deposits that was executed by telecom companies following the implementation of the new law, of which deduction had not been accounted for in the amended law.
“URA later clarified that they were not supposed to make that deduction, but the telecom companies had already collected this money from the public,” Hon. Mwiru said.
Kadaga asked MPs to wait for the bill before they can debate the matter, saying all matters raised in relation to it would be discussed in context of the bill upon being brought to Parliament.
The Excise Duty (Amendment) Act 2018 that took effect on July 1 2018, imposed a one percent tax on mobile money transactions, as well as a daily shs200 payment to access Over The Top (OTT) platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram among others.

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The post Government should advance review of mobile money, social media tax – Kadaga first appeared on Uganda Multimedia News & Information.

President Museveni has said with the help  GDP ratio, the government has been able to identify individuals  that do not pay taxes. He added that the GDP ratio was only 4% in 1991 where it rose to 12% after informing URA and has stagnated there for a long time however it rose to 14% last financial year.

Telecom companies have been identified in under- declaring calls until recently when the government acquired machines to see the telephone calls which he says its so ashaming for them.

Museveni giving a speech on Social Media

The president added that when Ugandans post or send communication on social media platforms like Facebook or whatever its not for free they are charged and not in local shillings but in dollars. And in case this money is paid in local shillings ton foreign companies, the money is taken out of Uganda not in local shillings but in dollars.

Museveni goes ahead to argue that all moral reasons are in favor of social media tax and that to say that social media users have no right to waste the dollars he earns  from his coffee, milk etc by endlessly donating money to foreign telecom companies through chatting or even lying there and then, they are allergic even a modest contribution to their country whose collective wealth they are misusing.

He therefore says that Mobile Money tax is 0.5% not 1%  and is still a subject to discuss.

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The post President Museveni says Social Media Tax is necessary first appeared on Uganda Multimedia News & Information.

As a Communications Officer plying in the same trade, I gathered a few tools and expertise I use to analyze different social media platforms and hashtags for  clients and I’m hoping to learn as many more from professionals out there as well as researching for more tools online.

Facebook Insights.

This may seem obvious but some social media managers aren’t aware that Facebook gives key insights to the performance of the Page on different algorithms. It has a breakdown of performance of post reach comment types,demographics of audience and a host of other elements a communications professional would need to measure the overall performance of the account.

Image displaying where to find Facebook Page Insights

Twitter Account Analytics

Twitter Analytics are a good source of measure of performance and reach of a twitter account. It provides for a month’s engagement and this can be used in making work reports and also for analysis of the follower count. It doesn’t require any upgrade plan as it comes a s a feature on every twitter account. I recommend it for social media managers to use.

Template of Twitter Analytics Page

Instagram Account Analytics

Instagram is  mainly image and video based social media platform that has become popular worldwide and hence a key marketing platform for all major brands. Measuring it’s performance gives you insight on how other brands are making it work and the type of images you can use to boost your follower count.  Union Metrics will provide you with hashtag campaign reporting, suitable posting type, engaging content and a lot more metrics to your brand’s better performance.  It has a Upgrade feature that allows you pay up for added metrics but even the Free version would give you good insight.

SnapShot of Instagram Analytics Report

Hashtag Tracking & Performance

A Hashtag is a word used to categorize content and track topics on social media. i.e #UgandaTourism They are essential in curating information for users who maybe interested in that particular topic. Hashtags are now popularly used on mostly all social networks and brands would also love to know how engaging the hashtags they create are performing. It’s important to note that Hashtags help reveal different users who maybe interested in the content you offer hence targeting them more whenever you post. KeyHole and Socialert are  two tools that give good isight on hashtag performance and analytics. In addition, they give major Influencers on the hashtag to help you know the users engaging the most on that particular hashtag. Both tools have a payment plan though give analytics with a trial version so it’s up to you to see what suit’s you best.

Sample Keyhole Report

Sprout Social

Sprout Social is a very important tool that enables you plan and publish content across all networks. It also has a seamless feature that allows you monitor hashtags and keywords and track your social media performance.  It provides Data PDF reports and the element of integrating a team with which you can work with to accomplish various tasks. With it’s i depth graphs and charts, and features, it’s one of those tools you need bookmarked to help you manage your social pages.

Sample Sprout Social report

Quintly

Quintly is another powerful tool that helps you to optimize your social media performance and measure social media analytics. It has distinguished features to integrate different social accounts on the Dashboard to allow you measure their performance. It also has an element of measuring how your brand compares to your competitors. I recommend it  for anyone out there.

Sample Quintly Analytics

YouTube Analytics

It’s no secret that You Tube is the Number 1 video hosting, searching and streaming site in the world. Brands have embraced this platform and are keen to know their You Tube Pages are performing. You Tube has an Analytics section which gives you insight into watch time, viewers, demographics and a host more.

Youtube Analytics Page

The post Tools for analyzing social media trends, accounts & Hashtag performance first appeared on Uganda Multimedia News & Information.

Emeka Afigbo, Platform Partnerships, Head of Middle East & Africa speaking at the Facebook launch.

Facebook has announced its first tech space in Africa following in the footsteps of search giant Google who in July 2017 launched an ambitious initiative to train 10 million young people in online skills over five years. The new initiative is to cement Facebook commitment and investment in the country, and across the continent.

The hub will offer support to tech startups and will also train 50,000 young people and SMEs in digital skills across the country.

Opening in 2018, the hub will incorporate a series of high profile partnerships, training programs and a physical space that will serve as a Centre for learning and skills development, this set of initiatives is aimed at helping to develop and nurture communities, including small businesses, the tech and start-up ecosystem, youths and creatives.

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Emeka Afigbo, Head of platform partnerships, Middle East & Africa said: “What we aim to do at the incubator is to provide support for high tech startups that do not ordinarily get investments, until they can develop a proof of concept, which will attract other investors.”

With an eye on growing their user base, US technology companies are increasingly turning to Africa’s large youth population. Facebook has been investing heavily in Africa, recently appointing a regional director based in South Africa.

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In Nigeria alone, there are 22 million monthly Facebook users; 10 million of them log in daily to the platform, all on mobile devices, Facebook says.

In August, founder Mark Zuckerberg visited Nigeria and Kenya for the first time and visited the Co-Creation (CCHub). He met with developers and entrepreneurs and spent time learning about the startup ecosystem in Nigeria.”The energy here is amazing and I’m excited to learn as much as I can,” he said during his visit.

During that visit, Zuckerberg announced an investment of 24 million dollars through his Chan Zuckerberg Initiative in Andela, a tech startup that trains software developers in Africa and gives them full-time roles in international companies.

ALSO READ:BOU officials grilled over hiring external lawyers to battle court cases

The post Facebook launches first community hub space in Africa first appeared on Uganda Multimedia News & Information.

Kony’s video sales in USA and European countries show that the world this time is united towards eliminating the LRA insurgency in the Great Lakes Region.

Many people watching this film have given thanks to Invisible Children and American Documentary team.

However the LRA Video has got more criticism than praise on social networks like facebook, twitter and and youtube. Currently the LRA insurgency in Northern Uganda is no more and the people there are focused on Rehabilitation; Agriculture food security; modernizing Agriculture and answering Education challenges at all levels.

The post Sales of Kony’s video on increase in USA first appeared on Uganda Multimedia News & Information.

Following the publication of a photograph of a woman who the editorial team of the New Vision Group believed at the time to be the mother of the new born Buganda prince, Richard Semakookiro, the Kabaka of Buganda Ronald Muwenda Mutebi II has asked all people in Uganda and across the world to stop the talk on the new born prince.

Speaking through his Katikkiro (prime minister), Eng. John Baptist Walusimbi, the Kabaka said that the full details about the new born prince and its mother would be revealed at the right time.

The Kabaka says that since the Katikkiro announced the birth of the new prince, several media houses, radio panelists and people on social networks like facebook have written literature and uttered statements that belittle the traditions, norms and virtues ofBugandakingdom. The Kabaka says that although he is a king a remains an individual who has a right to privacy. He says that it is improper for news publications like the New Vision, Bukedde Newspaper, Bukedde TV and all their sister organisations to write lies and belittling stories about the Kingdom of Buganda and the royal family in Buganda.

On January 24, 2012 the Chief Executive Officer of the New Vision Group, Robert Kabushenga authorised the publication of a photograph of a woman, and stated that she was the mother of Prince Richard Ssemakookiro.

Kabushenga apologised to the audiences across the country and the world at large for the mistake and regreted any inconveniences caused to the woman in the picture.

He stated that this was an error of judgment for which he took full responsibility. The Kabaka through his Katikkiro has said that all the information the New Vision and her sister media houses have been publishing concerning the looks of the mother of prince Semakookiro are false.

The post Kabaka bans talk on whereabouts of new born Buganda prince first appeared on Uganda Multimedia News & Information.

Google in a statement today said the new service is currently available on invitation only will avail a better social networking platform where one shares what they want with the people they want.

“Not all relationships are created equal. So in life we share one thing with college buddies, another with parents, and almost nothing with our boss. The problem is that today’s online services turn friendship into fast food—wrapping everyone in “friend” paper—and sharing really suffers,” Google said in their notes explaining the new service.

The battle lines have been drawn between Google and facebook as can been seen from much of the write up about the new Google+ service, which keeps alluding to current social interaction websites.

Online content consumers and those seeking to further their interactions online will be happy at the new option availed by Google+ but some will be concerned that another clouding service has come in to confuse online users the more on what is really a good or better service for social interactions.

Ultimate Media

The post Google+ launches to compete with facebook, but which is better first appeared on Uganda Multimedia News & Information.