PR and Media Mention Monitoring
A journalist publishes a piece that mentions the company two days after an embargo lifts, and the first the comms team hears about it is when a client forwards the link asking if they saw it. Coverage tracking happens by someone occasionally searching the company name and skimming whatever comes up, which catches the obvious tier-one placements but misses trade publications, regional outlets and the syndicated pickups that repost a wire story across a dozen smaller sites. Nobody has a consistent read on which pitches actually landed coverage versus which ones went nowhere, because there's no reliable record connecting outreach to outcome.
STARTING PRICE
From €99
Starter tier · Single-workflow automation, one core integration, fast turnaround.
Get a quote →Saves roughly 2-3 hrs/week in manual media monitoring.
How the automation works
We monitor a defined set of outlets, journalist beats and syndication networks continuously for mentions of the company, its products and named spokespeople, and alert the comms team the moment a new mention goes live rather than relying on someone stumbling across it. Each mention is tagged with outlet tier, estimated reach and a first-pass sentiment read, and cross-referenced against the pitch or press release that may have driven it, building a record of which outreach actually converts to coverage. Syndicated pickups of the same story across multiple sites are grouped together rather than each one triggering a separate, redundant alert.
Process flow
- 01
Continuous outlet and web scan trigger
A defined set of outlets, RSS feeds, journalist bylines and general web search runs continuously for mentions of the company, product names and named spokespeople.
- 02
Detect and classify new mentions ai
New mentions are identified and tagged with outlet tier, estimated reach and a first-pass sentiment classification, distinguishing a substantive feature from a passing name-check.
- 03
Group syndicated pickups ai
Multiple sites republishing the same wire story or syndicated piece are grouped under one entry rather than triggering a separate alert for each pickup, keeping the alert volume meaningful.
- 04
Cross-reference against outreach history integration
Detected coverage is matched against recent pitches or press releases where a connection is plausible, building a record of which outreach actually converted to a placement.
- 05
Alert comms team in real time output
A real-time alert goes to the comms team the moment a new mention is detected, tagged with tier and sentiment, rather than coverage being discovered secondhand from a client or colleague.
Inputs
- List of target outlets, journalists and beats
- Company, product and spokesperson names to track
- Recent pitch and press release history
- Outlet tier classification
Outputs
- Real-time mention alerts
- Tier and sentiment tagged coverage log
- Grouped syndication tracking
- Pitch-to-coverage outcome record
Works with
Prefer a fully custom build instead of an off-the-shelf integration? We scope both options during your free consultation — most jobs like this one work fine on standard connectors, but higher-volume or non-standard systems sometimes need bespoke API work, reflected in the complex tier.
Where this goes wrong if you get it wrong
- Automated sentiment classification on a nuanced piece — coverage that's factually neutral but frames the company unfavorably by context or comparison — often reads as neutral to a first-pass sentiment model, so anything flagged as negative or borderline neutral deserves a human read before it's treated as settled.
- Broad name matching without disambiguation picks up unrelated companies or people sharing the same name, especially for common product names or founder names that overlap with other public figures, producing a stream of false-positive alerts that trains the team to skim past real coverage too.
- Tracking scoped only to English-language, US-centric outlets misses regional and non-English coverage entirely, which matters for any company with international customers, investors or press relationships in other markets.
- A mention buried in a roundup article or a 'companies to watch' list without direct outreach behind it still counts as coverage worth knowing about, but it won't cross-reference to any specific pitch — the system needs to surface it as coverage on its own, not only in the context of traceable outreach.
Frequently asked questions
How is this different from a basic Google Alert?
Google Alerts catches a narrower slice of web mentions with no tiering, sentiment read or syndication grouping — this consolidates outlet monitoring, journalist tracking and pitch cross-referencing into one alerting system rather than a raw keyword feed.
Does it track competitor coverage too?
Yes, competitor and industry monitoring can run alongside company mentions using the same setup, useful for competitive PR positioning.
How accurate is the sentiment tagging?
It's a reliable first-pass read for clearly positive or negative coverage, but nuanced or context-dependent framing should get a human sentiment check before it's treated as final.
Can it tell which of our pitches actually worked?
It builds a plausible connection between detected coverage and recent outreach where the timing and content align, giving a working record of pitch effectiveness rather than a certainty for every placement.