Tips for news release measurement and news placement reporting

For the benefit of our Xpress Press News Service clients we have included a list of free and fee based sources for obtaining media clippings following your news release distribution in addition to the article below.

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Measuring the Effectiveness of PR

By Howard Schulman
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Measuring the effectiveness of public relations is often difficult. But one of the most tried and true methods is to count and rate clippings of news stories that relate to the topics being promoted. Unfortunately, even this has not been easy.

Veterans of the public relations wars always used to complain that there was never a perfect method of tracking all their clippings. Companies which collected these articles made many mistakes, primarily due to the fact that no one service had the reach or precision to catch all the stories.

Today this is changing. Continuing innovations in Internet search robots have made it virtually impossible for articles to be hidden from sight. This eliminates human error and delivers complete, timely and accurate results. In short, the web has provided a level of speed, accuracy, and economy that could never have been achieved through any other clipping system.

But not all web-based clipping services are as good as others. And not all are alike. Some are stand-alone, with Internet article searching as their only business. Others are the electronic arm -- excluding traditional broadcasting -- of a traditional monitoring service that continues to clip articles from newspapers and magazines. Others are hybrids, doing a little of this and a little of that, or serving narrow niche markets.

Prices vary. Want it for free? You can plug in permanent keywords at various search engines and have them report results. When you begin to pay fees you get more convenience -- services that dig deeper and wider, customize an assignment to handle difficult or precise search criteria, or package the results in a form that is more easily digested by your bosses or clients.

Regardless, there are several concepts to keep in mind.

First, the web is sectioned. Searching in one area will not always yield complete results. For example, not all web-clipping services search Usenet newsgroups, often the site of early news before more traditional media publish a story.

Second, some areas that need to be searched have restricted access through paid subscriptions or special arrangements. In these cases it helps to understand if a clipping service is able to provide full text and graphics, or merely a reference listing.

Third, the web is constantly changing and some services are more adept than others at keeping up with the increased demands of monitoring new sources. They not only search for your keywords and terms, but also are vigilant at spotting new sites with the potential of containing relevant content.

Fourth, the article that appears on the web may not necessarily be the article that appears in the print edition of the same publication. Sometimes print is expanded or carries more graphics, while at other times the opposite situation occurs.

Finally, several editions of a story may appear on the web. As new information becomes available some web publishers will update their copy, while others will post one version and then not make a revision until the next day. It is important to know if your clipping service will continually search for updates. And, details of the story should tell you if it is an original or an updated article.

Which is the best service for you? Unless you require a unique service (e.g. searching media in Argentina), one of the main clipping services or search engines will probably serve your needs. Here are a few to consider:

-- WebClipping.com is an Internet-based monitoring and clipping service that monitors when you, your product, or your service appears anywhere on the Web. It covers new web sites, online publications, and Usenet news groups. It compiles results from 30 different search engines and stores results for as long as three months.

-- NewsReal.com searches news stories and publicity releases from more than 120 business categories. Using a "neural network" that presents the top headlines and summaries of stories in any category, it also allows a full text version to be read. The service offers multiple search criteria to be used.

-- LuceOnline.com (or cyberclipping.com) is the web arm of one of the nation's largest and most established clipping services. It searches 15,000 articles each day, and delivers relevant stories from the 100 largest U.S. newspapers each day by 8:00 AM. It also offers a "Do It Yourself Service" enabling users to access their proprietary database.

-- Burrell's is another of the large, established clipping services. Through their Cyber Talk service they monitor web user groups, chat rooms, forums and more. Their Web Clips service includes monitoring of web sites, especially those that are related to print publications. Because they are also established in print and broadcast, they can inform clients of cross-media coverage.

-- CyberAlert searches 425 online news sources every four to six hours, and searches other web publications, web sites, message boards, and Usenet news groups once each day. It is programmed to purge duplicates and delivers citation reports through e-mail. Users can access full clips in a password-protected site where they can set up a personalized filing system to manage their clippings.

-- Custom Scoop (http://www.customscoop.com) is another online news clipping service

Clip Genius (http://www.clipgenius.com/) searches a variety of news sources on the Internet for your specific search terms.

-- CyberScan offers two relevant services. WebScan obtains information from the web. Opinion Monitoring covers Usenet newsgroups, listservs, and relevant bulletin boards and forums. Reports may be provided on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. They will also track specific sites web sites of a client's choosing.

-- Various search engines such as AltaVista, EgoSurf, and Lycos have user-directed capabilities that also obtain similar information. Of special note are the meta-engines, such as Dogpile.com or NorthernLight.com, which search multiple engines at the same time.

Please remember that it pays to shop around. Some services charge by the clip, while others charge by the number of terms that are being searched. When comparing these systems against the breadth of sources and frequency of receiving clips, it can be a struggle to find the service with the best value.

Copyright 2000 Xpress Press News Service (http://www.xpresspress.com)

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