Building up your reputation is one of the biggest challenges you’ll face in creating a startup. During the beginning stages, there likely will be very few media mentions about your brand. Building awareness of your startup is the key to building momentum and transforming your great ideas as a startup founder into a successful and thriving business.

Getting started with building awareness is one thing, but monitoring what people have to say about your startup is another. Monitoring and tracking your startup media mentions is just one of your startup’s many elements that you must learn to manage. Today’s media landscape is diverse and fast-paced, with news about your startup that can spread through social media and news outlets.

It’s not only important to just know that your audience is talking about your startup. You want to know what they’re saying and how often. Tracking your startup media mentions can be done through a variety of tools that are available online. They can help you track your media mentions throughout social media, news outlets, forums, or blogs that mention your startup’s name.

This article will dive into what media mentions are and why they’re important to track. We’ll also give you tips to help you leverage your media mentions to gain more traction and attention to set you on the path toward success.

What are Media Mentions?

A media mention is any reference to a business or startup across all media types. It can take any form from your business’s name, your startup’s industry, or your products or services. Media mentions can be either positive or negative. Tracking your startup’s media mentions is done by finding and analyzing mentions that contain the keywords you’re looking for across all media. Tracking can help you get a good idea of what people are saying about your startup and allows you to gain control of the narrative.

Media mentions can be used to tailor marketing efforts and manage and mitigate crises that may come up throughout building your startup. It can help you attract and acquire new customers when used strategically.

What Media Types Should Be Monitored

Monitoring and tracking media is a tedious endeavor, and you need to know where to look. Realistically, it’s every outlet worldwide. Media monitoring tools have come a long way and allow you to scour media across all outlets in minutes. Remember, all media mentions of your startup anywhere can be a good thing. This list highlights the media outlets you should be focused on from most important to least.

Social media – Social media is where your target audience primarily spends their time when they are online. Millions of active users take to social media daily to talk about their days, the products they’ve tried, and the services they’ve used. You have to monitor the big 5: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Tiktok.

Blog – Blogs are becoming one of the biggest marketing strategies for businesses and influencers throughout every industry. You want to keep track of any big names or businesses that mention your startup and the blog’s context.

Forums – Forums like Reddit, Quora, and others are a place where people go to discuss a large variety of topics. If your startup is mentioned in a forum, you’ll want to observe the conversation around it.

Broadcasts – Although we live in a digital-focused age, people still get their news by watching television. They listen to their favorite talk shows on the radio or, more popularly, podcasts.

Print – Most print publications have been made available online, but it’s still something to keep in mind.

What Kind of Media Mentions Should be Tracked?

The type of information or track for mentions depends on your goals and where you are in the startup stages. Are you trying to home in on your marketing strategy, or are you looking to analyze competitors in your industry? Here are a few types of information you should be tracking with media monitoring software.

Startup Name or Brand Mentions – Knowing where your startup is mentioned can help you learn more about your business’s target audience and what they are saying about your product or service. You would likely input your startup’s name to track this information.

Competitors – The more you know about your competitors, their marketing strategies, and what their customers are saying about them can help you evaluate your strategies and adjust to become a bigger contender in your industry.

Vendors or Suppliers – Monitoring the people you work with is equally important to track your competitors. Who you do business with can directly impact your reputation based on politics, restrictions, bad press, and more.

Keywords Related to Your Industry – Proper keyword research can help you track the keywords most relevant in your industry. That way, if a keyword is mentioned with your startup name or competitors, you can still keep up to date with the industry and their demands and keep your startup relevant.

Why You Should Track Media Mentions of Your Startup

Media monitoring can be a challenge with the rapid growth of social media and existing platform. It’s important to keep track of where your startup is mentioned and why. Here are some key reasons you need to be tracking media mentions of your startup.

Make Improvements to Your Products or Services – Although media mentions can often be negative, you can monitor live feedback about your product or service. You can use that feedback and make adjustments to make improvements that will make your customers happy. Customers appreciate a business that takes into consideration their feelings and observations and makes changes to become better.

Prevent Escalations and Crises – If there’s anything sure about media attention, it’s that good news spreads, but bad news spreads faster. If things begin to spiral, you can get control quickly and efficiently to ensure your startup’s reputation isn’t damaged. The key to preventing escalations and bad news is to be on top of your media mentions and create a well-thought-out response to mitigate the growing crises.

Boost Startup Awareness – Brand awareness is essential for growth. By monitoring your media mentions, you can track who is mentioning you and why and potentially reach out for an extended partnership or sponsorship that could be mutually beneficial. Influencer marketing is a powerful way to market to your target audience by partnering with people who have a large following in your industry. You can boost your awareness exponentially and set your startup off on the right path to getting people to talk about your business positively.

Improve Marketing Efforts – With a detailed tracking report, you’ll be able to review what people are saying about your startup. With essential in-depth customer knowledge, you can learn more about market demand, and you can craft marketing efforts that can appeal to those audiences. You can easily monitor marketing trends and make a profoundly positive impact on your marketing campaign.

How to Track Your Media Mentions

Monitoring and tracking your media mentions is crucial to managing your startup’s reputation and building awareness around your product or service. It’s a step you don’t want to skip to ensure your mentions are positive while catching and mitigating the negative ones.

You need to follow and monitor social media platforms, forums, and blogs to see what’s the word and how it impacts your business. There are a lot of tools that can effectively help you manage your mentions whether you’re tagged or not, but there are a few tips you can leverage. Here are 3 tips you can use to track your media mentions.

Use Google Alerts – Google is the number one search site where people turn to find any information on any topic. Set up Google alerts to send information on your selected keywords to your inbox with analytics.

Keep Track of Common Spelling Errors – Mistakes in spelling often happen, especially throughout social media. You’ll want to track common spelling errors to ensure if someone is talking about your startup and they happened to misspell it, you’ll get an alert regardless.

Use a Media Mention Tracking Tool – Google alerts are great, but they don’t give you the entire picture of where your business is mentioned. Many types of software can be used to scan all types of media and provide deeper analytics that can help you optimize your media mentions tracking more efficiently to save you time and allow you to focus on building your startup.

Tracking your media mentions is an essential part of running a startup. Gathering and analyzing the data can provide you with invaluable information to help you grow your startup and build brand awareness, which is crucial for success.