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.

Museveni warns security forces. Internet photo

President Museveni yesterday released a statement condemning in the strongest terms the shooting and beating of civilians by the Police.

The president questioned as to why police fired tear gas and live bullets during the Monday demonstrations that saw the rioters, section of the public, and journalists brutally beaten and arrested.

“Youth groups of Monday were more of a nuisance and psychological warfare than a menace, unless I get new facts. Why then, shoot at them, why fire tear-gas, why fire bullets?” he wondered advising the Police to use other means.

“Those mobile, tyre burning groups, who are not attacking anybody, should simply be chased on foot, identified from light helicopters (206- Agusto type) or UAUs, arrested and be charged with appropriate offences,” he continued.

In the same statement, Museveni condemned beating up of journalists and advised the police to rather arrest and charge them lawfully in case of disobedience. He informed the security forces that they don’t have the power to beat up people.

“I condemn, again, in the strongest terms the beating of journalists by elements of the security forces. It is true that the journalists working for foreign interests or for our own local parasites tell lies, they do not do balanced reporting,”

Soldiers beating a journalist as he covered the protests over the detention of Opposition MPs in Kampala on Monday. NTV PHOTO

“On account of that you can block them because sometimes they interfere with the scene of crime. If they refuse, you arrest them and charge them with disobeying lawful command

“Beating is wrong because the Security forces do not have that power. People should not be beaten even as a punishment. They can be imprisoned, fined, or hanged according to the law,” he advised.

This follows the recent riots and wave of demonstrations that have arisen from the brutal arrest of four MPs and over 30 other civilians on the eve of the ARUA municipality by-election. The MPs include MP Robert Kyagulanyi commonly known as Bobi Wine, Kasiano Wadri who won the by-election, Gerald Karuhanga and Francis Zaake whose where abouts have been unknown until of recent when he was “dumped” at Rubaga hospital where he is currently undergoing treatment.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL STATEMENT

The post Why fire tear-gas, why fire bullets, Museveni questions Police 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.

READ ALSO:

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Kadaga roots for better Uganda-Dutch Parliamentary relations

The post Government should advance review of mobile money, social media tax – Kadaga 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.

The former Makerere University Business School student, now detained by Uganda Police for allegedly wearing and distributing T-shirts with Kizza Besigye’s image, is the center of attention both in mainstream and social media.

The action  has sparked a Social media outrage with the hashtag #FreeSamwyri going viral advocating for his release.

‘Samwyri’ displays a T-shirt bearing besigye’s image

With the recent clump on Social media usage in Uganda, bloggers and social media activists have lashed out their anguish at the incarceration of their fellow comrade and it awaits to see if the Police shall bow to the pressure to release him.
#FreeSamwyri Tweets

Samson today received legal representation from Chapter Four Organisation, an organisation based on protection of Human Rights and this was confirmed by a tweet picture from their lawyer who visited him in jail.

Our legal office @masakeonline has finally met with @Samwyri. More details soon as we try 2 get justice @Freesamwyri pic.twitter.com/bHi7GUFJKl

— Nicholas Opiyo (@nickopiyo) May 30, 2016

The fate of this Samson Tusiime awaits to be known as negotiations for his release are still ongoing. Below is a video of Samuel providing business tips.

The post Who is the ‘Samwyiri’ in the midst of the #FreeSamwyiri outrage? first appeared on Uganda Multimedia News & Information.

Armoured Policemen guard outside Kizza Besigye’s residence

As the country prepare’s for the Official swearing in at Kololo Independence grounds on 12/5/2016 dignitaries and Heads of State have started arriving in the country amid tight security deployed on all major roads.

President of Mali, H.E Ibrahim Boubacar has also arrived for @KagutaMuseveni inauguration, tomorrow. #M7SwearsInpic.twitter.com/WazLO7HM9X

— State House Uganda (@StateHouseUg) May 11, 2016

Social media sites has also been shut down in the country as a security measure  despite backlash from the public who witnessed the same feat during the election period in February this year. A derictive from Regulatory body Uganda Communication Commission was issued out a statement on the closure of these sites as per Government directive.

Social Media will be temporarily disabled as per UCC directive. All our other services are available. We apologize for any inconveniences.

— Airtel Uganda (@Airtel_Ug) May 11, 2016

Video of Kizza Besigye swearing in as President

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Dr William Tayebwa

The head of Department Journalism and Communication at Makerere University Dr. William Tayebwa says that there should be no worry that social media will kill the mainstream traditional journalism. Dr.Tayebwa says that social media is mainly used by the traditional media as tips to get credible news source to be used in the news. He noted that social media is just a tool which should not be quoted because for most of the information it is difficult to establish the source.

The former journalist with the Daily monitor Moses Serugo warned  social network users against abusing such a forum because the law can catch up with them. He says there is a need for young journalists to use social media to report in an innovative way and they should not be careless while using social media which include Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
The French Ambassador to Uganda Sophie Makame says that the revolution of social media is a challenge to traditional media since the  young generation live with it all over  and being that the number of internet users in Uganda has doubled, the main stream media need to be creative to be in the market.

This all happened at a Roundtable discussion on Journalism and Social Media organised by the Embassy of France in Uganda and held at Makerere University.

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In a follow-up a call to arrest creators of a ‘hateful message’ circulated on twitter, His Excellency the President of Uganda Yoweri Kaguta Museveni gave a statement.

Below is the full statement:

To: Irresponsible People Spreading Falsehoods Using WhatsApp

My dear country men and country women,
About two or so weeks ago, I made a voice recorded message that I caused to be transmitted to the listeners over the social media network known as WhatsApp that some irresponsible people have, apparently, been using to spread falsehoods. That time, the message was in Runyankore-Rukiga (part of the Runyakitara or what I proposed to call Kinyanja ─ North, as opposed to the Kinyanja of Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique), because the irresponsible people had used that dialect to propagate their falsehoods. I call these dialects Kinyaja ─ North because they are mutually intelligible dialects in the Great Lakes area. Those that are mutually intelligible are used by a population I estimate to be about 60 million people if not more. On that occasion, I used the words: Abasiru, Abashema and Abazigu (stupid, uninformed and enemies) to describe the authors of that sectarian and criminal altercation. Although I had strong suspicion that the authors, were criminal opportunitists who were using sectarianism to try and profit politically, I reacted as if the actors were uninformed villagers that needed education about the powerful, ancient interlacustrine (the people of the Lakes ─ Amayaanja:─ Nalubaale, Mwitanzigye, Masyooro, Kioga, Rutshuru-Butuumbi) peoples who had advanced agriculture (crops and livestock), fishing, industry (metal work, ceramics, leather-working, wood-work, textiles, etc), had symbiotic societies but were badly governed by the, sometimes, parasitic and tyrannical chiefs who were responsible for our colonization by failing to unite us so as to face the colonial forces.

About a week ago, the intelligence service brought me a forged letter that I was supposed to have written to the late Gaddaffi on the 25th of January, 2010. In that forged letter, I was supposed to be informing Gaddaffi about my political intentions and plans in Uganda, denigrating some of my comrades in the struggle and showing a sectarian attitude towards one of our Ugandan communities, the Bakiga ─ i.e. the same Bakiga of the other sectarian recording. Fortunately, this time, the intelligence services and the vigilant NRM people were able to discover who the authors might be and who the propagators were. Indeed, the Police already have some suspects. I would like to inform the listeners and those who follow the goings on, on the social media that that letter is a forgery.

It is a forgery because I never wrote such a letter. In fact, the whole context could not have existed. At that time, my relationship with the late Gaddaffi was very sour because I had opposed his plans of an All-Africa Government, preferring to work for the East African Federation as far as political integration was concerned and only for economic integration as far as the whole of Africa is concerned. Besides, the whole talk of German doctors and my health is a fiction. Fortunately, in the whole 70 years of my life, God has given me excellent health save for occasional malaria attacks, coughs or mild allergic reactions in the nose. Even today, there are hardly any physical exertions that I cannot undertake except squatting which I find abit uncomfortable these days.

We, the freedom fighters, who mobilized all the Ugandan communities that we came across, to create the powerful NRA and, later NRM, cannot, even in the state of somnambulism, disapprove of any of our communities because they all helped us to build that strength and we also helped them to get out of the bad times of effuga bi (bad governance). In December 1978/January 1979, I recruited 200, mainly Bakiga boys, while based at Nyamiyaga Primary School in Tanzania for the anti-Amin struggle. When we crossed into Uganda, on the 11th of February 1979, I recruited alot of Banyankore boys and girls until the fall of Amin on the 11th of April, 1979. In order to train the 200 at Nyamiyaga, I utilized the skills of the boys from Kaberamaido whom we had trained in Mozambique.
Some of those Banyankore and Bakiga boys of 1978/79, who qualified, went for leadership training at Jinja and Monduli in Tanzania. Many of them are the ones that helped me to start and prosecute the resistance in the Luwero Triangle, starting on the 6th of February, 1981 (Tarehe Sita). They are the ones that helped me to train a large number of Baganda boys and girls in the Luwero Triangle (i.e. to prosecute the war). Later on, when we had the opportunity, we recruited fighters from the whole country on the quota-basis. That is how we built the powerful UPDF. We do not look at people’s tribes, religion or sex when we are determining whether they are good or bad. We look at their capabilities. We look at their ideology. We look at their loyalty. Sometimes, we look at their discipline – but the other three take precedence.
The three, to repeat, are: capability, ideology and loyalty. Tribe, religion or sex do not feature in our Minzani (yard- stick, evaluation) of determining who is useful and who is not.
When you hear somebody, claiming to be a leader, talking about tribes, religion, sex (Gender) as yardsticks of determining people’s usefulness, you should know that he/she is a failure and a danger to Africa. He/she is a parasite. He/she is an opportunist.
I described the first group as “Abasiru”, “Abashema” and “Abazigu” (stupid, uninformed and enemies). I now describe this group as Abatemu, Abanyaanda and Abazigu (criminals, opportunitists and enemies). Although, I will not have time to answer much of the nonsense on the social media, when it comes to trying to divide the Ugandans and the Africans in general, I will confront those enemies both verbally and, if necessary, physically. It says, in the Book of Matthew 7:16 that “You will know them by their fruits”. You will know the orientation of all those actors by what they say and do.
Besides, it is only people who have never been involved in armed combat that have the luxury of talking about tribes, religions and sex of people in a derogatory way. In combat, your own very life depends on the actions of your neighbour regardless of his tribe or religion or sex. How can you afford to be sectarian? In Mbale, on the 22nd of January, 1973, I was saved by a Mugisu boy who gave me information that enabled me to take another route. Treat with contempt those who talk about tribes, religion and gender as a way of judging who is good and who is bad.
If the letter is forgery, how did what appears to be my signature get to the document? Certainly, not through me. I have been told by Police that there are techniques of forging signatures or transferring signatures from one document to another one. The Police will get to the bottom of it.

Yoweri Kaguta Museveni Gen (rtd)
PRESIDENTIAL OF THE REPUBLIC OF UGANDA

The post Presidential Statement first appeared on Uganda Multimedia News & Information.

In response to the audio, Museveni released a nearly 15 minute video calling for the arrest of those who created the message. Directly addressing the perpetrators behind the audio, he calls them fools and enemies looking to divide the nation. The President’s video has caused its own mixed reaction. The language Museveni speaks in the video is Runyankole, spoken in south-western Uganda. This left many wondering why an anti-tribalism message would be delivered in a language specific to his particular tribe. Some also balked at President Museveni’s suggestion that anyone who shared the Whatsapp message was complicit in ethnic hate.

However, many Ugandans support a clamp down on ethnic hate. Popular TV panellist Collin Asiimwe said tribal division in Uganda is still strong, and cannot be allowed to spiral. “Because of what happened in the region, if you see what happened in South Sudan, because that was one ethnicity rising up against one another,” he said. “There was Kenya, there was Burundi, and then Rwanda, and so it is so sensitive. Not even just the civilian population like you and me, even the security services and the government need to wake up. The last time it tried to happen was with Kony and northern Uganda … So there is so much to worry about.”

Ugandan law bans the promotion of sectarian hate. Although there has never been a conviction for this crime, because of vague wording the law remains contentious. Some suggest it has been used primarily against journalists and opposition candidates.

A lawyer who has worked on online media laws, Peter Magelah, said the law on sectarian hate is applicable in this case, but he said applying the law to social media could be a problem.

“What I find as a challenge is really not what the law said, the challenge is how to enforce what the law said. How to identify the originator is a very difficult thing. Once you identify the originator, how to choose who to sue, because publication would mean anyone who shared, anyone who posted on his or her Facebook, anyone who possibly ‘liked’”, said Magelah. “It becomes so many people who got into that. The problem we have had in this country is many times there is some sort of selective justice, selective criminal justice. So it is likely if it is a political opponent doing this the law will catch up with him.”

Although the Whatsapp audio in question was clearly aimed at demeaning the Bahima, mitigating hate speech and freedom of expression in the lead up to the 2016 presidential election could prove to be a delicate balance between protecting the nation’s unity and clamping down on social media.

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