New £6k media monitoring tool to tell Ashfield Council when it features in news

The new ‘media monitoring tool’ was approved during a delegated decision this month and it is hoped will help save time and end manual checks of all news coverage.

Currently, the authority’s communications team checks all media coverage for print, online and social media each day.

The new tool will instead automatically notify the council when it has been mentioned in the news, providing both a ’round-up’ and real-time alerts.

The council says the move will allow the communications team to be “on the front foot with media, rather than reactionary”.

And it will give the council a dashboard outlining all mentions and topics where the authority features in the news, as well as comments from other organisations, councillors and MPs.

In a report, the authority said: “Currently media monitoring is done manually with three communications officers checking daily for media updates and tracking where press releases have been published.

“This could take several hours a week per officer versus this automated, direct alert proposal.

“The same applies to filing press coverage. Instead of buying or scanning newspapers and cutting out articles, they are digitally filed.

“This is far easier and convenient to then share across the organisation.”

Similar tools are not uncommon for most public sector organisations and many other councils already have in-house or hired systems to review press, online and social media coverage.

By using the new system, the authority says it will identify how much media coverage has been generated by the communications team.

This can then be quantified in financial value to ensure money is being well-spent in the department.

“It will allow the team to pilot the tool and understand the value for money delivered,” the council said.

“This will also be a key consideration of the current review of the communications function, of which modernisation and the use of digital tools are in scope.”

The system will be piloted over the coming 12 months and could be continued if it helps to improve the communications team functionally and financially.