Product Report: CODiE Finalists - Best Media & Information Monitoring Solution
Jinfo Blog

By Robin Neidorf

Abstract

The CODiE Awards of Excellence are being presented this week and Robin Neidorf rounds up FreePint's recent mini reviews of two of the finalists in the Best Media & Information Monitoring Category: Nexis Media Coverage Analyzer and CisionPoint.

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On of my first jobs when I completed university was with a boutique publisher of literature and poetry. As the lowest of the office-full of underpaid yet passionate staff, one of my chores (and I do mean chore) was to review the weekly package of news clippings we received about our books delivered by a clipping service, carefully paste them onto letterhead paper, and photocopy them to share throughout the office.

Today, the same publisher still produces a dozen exquisite books each year. But that's probably the only part of the business that remains the same. Certainly the tedious work I was doing hunched over the photocopier is no longer relevant (and was probably even contrary to the official terms of our clipping service contract, now that I think about it).

The same need remains to monitor commentary in the media about products, companies, brands and competitors; share that information internally; and use it to make decisions. But this world has sped up, gone digital and been optimised through automation.

The Software and Information Industry Association bestows CODiE Awards of Excellence for categories of products in software, content, and education. As an active member of the Content Division, I always comb the list of finalists to identify products FreePint should be reviewing. This year, FreePint partnered with SIIA to produce mini reviews on all finalists in key categories, including Best Media & Information Monitoring Solution. 

Reviewing lots of products in a short period of time creates management challenges, but also offers benefits of comparing product strengths and weaknesses within a tight timeframe. You'll find in this Product Report: CODiE Finalists - Best Media & Information Monitoring Solution two products that clearly deserve recognition for excellence: Nexis Media Coverage Analyzer and CisionPoint. Yet they also address the challenges their customers face in unique ways, based on their corporate DNA.

CisionPoint grew up out of Cision's long history in PR and media monitoring. When I first graduated from printed clippings to a PR database, Cision was the product I used, and Connie Crosby's executive summary highlights the strengths of that foundation: Cision has been collecting, organising and serving up to users critical information about media coverage for many product generations, and the smooth interface and new content streams bring the product fully up-to-date for today's PR and marketing professionals. Plan your campaign, run it, monitor on it and report it, all from CisionPoint's robust product.

Nexis Media Coverage Analyzer, on the other hand, grew out of Nexis' long-time strength in news aggregation, married up with big data analysis, and then topped with a modular approach that sits neatly on top of nexis.com. I took this one on myself to research and write the mini review.

Nexis.com customers who haven't yet considered adding this module, with fully customisable variables to pull information and report it visually around publication types, geographies, keywords, timeframe and more, should definitely mention it to their marcom departments... and beyond. 

(A third finalist, Critical Mention by AllMedia, chose not to participate in the review process.)

Each of these products builds on its strengths to provide a critical capability to today's organisations. Unlike homegrown solutions via free alerts and RSS feeds, CisionPoint and Nexis Media Coverage Analyzer provide you with licensed access, powerful reporting, targeted searching, customer support and the assurance that your all-important connection to today's 24-7 media environment is always there for you. 

Who's your winner? The one that best meets your needs. The CODiE will go to....???

FreePint Subscribers can log in to view the FreePint Report: CODiE Finalists - Best Media & Information Monitoring Solution now.

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