With 25% of a brand’s market value directly linked to its public reputation, as noted by the World Economic Forum, the stakes have never been higher for companies to actively monitor, measure, and manage emerging issues. In a time where information spreads like wildfire, it’s not only about keeping a pulse on the narrative or tracking interest in rapidly evolving issues; it’s about harnessing insights to make informed decisions that, when done right, can protect and enhance a reputation.
With NewsWhip, brands can move from a delayed reaction based on hindsight to strategically acting with foresight. We’ll review four key questions communication teams might ask during a live issue and provide the suggested solutions.
1. How important is this issue?
Imagine waking up to a brewing storm on social media concerning your brand. The first thing you need to know is whether it’s a heavy rain that will soon pass or a hurricane heading straight for you. NewsWhip acts as your weather gauge, measuring the intensity by analyzing the volume of articles and social media posts generated and the engagement they are receiving whether it’s grumbling thunder or lightning strikes.
NewsWhip solution
Our Timeline widget is powered by the market’s fastest content discovery engine, offering a live view of how public and media interest is evolving. Unlike traditional tools, which rely on daily summaries based on mentions or use publisher reach as a proxy for public interest, NewsWhip updates coverage in real-time and tracks social engagement for each article. This powerful timeline allows you to gauge whether an issue is intensifying, enabling informed decisions on whether and how to react.
Our extensive feed widgets allow you to easily spot if any important articles or posts are rising with the help of our native metrics. Highest velocity measures the initial spread speed, giving you a head start on emerging issues. Meanwhile, our patented Predicted interactions metric forecasts potential growth, empowering you to anticipate and prepare effectively for what’s ahead.
The flexibility of our search criteria allows you to easily adjust the geographic location, the language, or the social platform of interest, thereby showing you if this is an isolated incident or something that is spreading more broadly.
2. How does our current situation compare with others?
No issue exists in a vacuum. Context is king, and knowing where you stand in the grand scheme of things is crucial to understanding its impact. NewsWhip enables brands to conduct a comprehensive competitor analysis, offering an insightful view of how similar issues are impacting or have impacted peers. This comparative insight, enriched by historical data, helps brands contextualize their current predicament.Â
Furthermore, analyzing your brand’s share of voice in the conversation unveils your narrative’s prominence. Armed with this knowledge, you can craft strategies that not only address the current issue but also bolster your position in the broader industry landscape.
NewsWhip solution
Our dashboards empower you to directly measure your situation against industry peers and competitors. By integrating searches specific to your brand alongside those of your competitors, we enable a holistic view of how similar issues are affecting the broader landscape.
Our combined timeline extends this capability, providing a visual comparison of the issue’s evolution across different brands. This feature helps you understand if the issue is gaining momentum or fading away, and how your brand’s exposure compares to others in real-time.
3. Who is driving the conversation?
Sometimes the issue is not what the story is about, but who is telling it. You may have already flagged these architects of opinion, either positively or negatively. NewsWhip shines a spotlight on these influential voices – be they thought leaders, journalists, or specific media outlets.
Understanding who is shaping the narrative is crucial, as influence and impact can vary across conservative press, trade publications, or just general social media mischief. Identifying whether significant engagement comes from specialized outlets or viral social campaigns enables brands to tailor their responses more precisely. Addressing these specific sources allows for strategic engagement with key influencers or themes, steering conversations in a more favorable direction.
Our Top People & Brands widget is an innovative AI-powered feature that instantly identifies those that are driving conversations around any topic, event, or narrative. This widget offers real-time visualizations such as a World Cloud, Bar Graph, and the Interest Quadrant which acts as your strategic radar for swift identification.
Our Top Authors leaderboard widget lets you monitor and measure specifically the journalists who are the loudest and most influential voices about your brand, your competitors, or an industry-specific issue.
The flexibility of our search criteria allows you to add and track direct sources whether they’re specific social media accounts or URLs of publishers you care about. You are also able to plot single articles on the timeline to see their dominance of an ongoing conversation. Our extensive network coverage with unique metrics lets you keep an eye on certain influencers or publishers with the ability to set-up alerts.
4. Is interest growing or declining?
In the fluid landscape of public discourse, today’s headlines can quickly fade into tomorrow’s footnotes. NewsWhip provides brands with the ability to navigate this ebb and flow, tracking which narratives capture attention and how interest shifts over time. It offers insights into how current engagement with a brand measures against past periods, highlighting trends and potential shifts in the public’s focus.Â
Our Timeline widget, enhanced with previous period data, offers a quick, visual comparison of public and media interest in any topic, allowing for hour-by-hour and day-by-day analysis. This efficient visualization tool not only saves time but also simplifies the process of determining whether a topic’s popularity is rising or falling compared to a prior timeframe, such as yesterday or last week, providing immediate context for strategic decisions.
Our real-time and predictive alerts help brands prepare to respond instantly and react swiftly to sudden shifts in the public’s focus. This proactive stance ensures that brands can anticipate changes, adapt their strategies, and maintain relevance amidst the ever-changing tide of public opinion.
Mastering the art of monitoring and managing live issues demands more than just vigilance – it requires insight, context, and agility. NewsWhip provides brands with the tools to not just weather the storm, but to calmly navigate through it with confidence. By addressing these four pivotal questions, brands can transform potential issues into opportunities for engagement, reputation management, and even growth.
To find out more about how these features can fit into your workflow, get in touch with us here.
