The intimate love of apples and pears in communications departments

The intimate love of apples and pears in communications departments

Author: Jörg Forthmann

‍We are among ourselves. That’s why we can talk about this grievance quite openly: Almost no communication department is able to capture the response in the individual channels AND make them comparable with each other. This is how apples and oranges are compared when it comes to the question of where communication measures are most successful. Communication professionals solve this with gut feeling. You can do that. But does not really lead to the best result, and in the own house this approach is not convincing. And if we’re honest with each other, it’s highly unprofessional – because, of course, today we can see the data from the different channels side by side in a comparable way.

But the vast majority of us have settled into a series of isolated solutions. Google Analytics shows what is happening on the website. The clipping service reports publications in news and online and social media. Since that’s not enough, we have at least one social media monitoring tool on top of that. Plus some Google Alerts. Safe is safe. So we have masses of data. But no knowledge. Because the information we get is not compatible with each other. Sometimes they even overlap – without actually delivering the same message. No insight emerges from this data chaos.

Therefore, the first step is to develop ONE data source from which the communications department can obtain all relevant information. This is already not easy, because the jumble of offers among media analysis service providers is large. This is where an analysis service from AG CommTech can help, where communicators can enter their needs profile and receive the most suitable media analysis service providers for them ( Here on the page below).

The second step should be delivered automatically by a good media analysis service provider, but is not self-evident: the preparation of the available data so that the communication success is comparable across all channels. This depends on the wise selection of key figures. An example of this is provided by reach; is the reach of a news medium comparable to that of Twitter? Rather not. On the other hand, a mention in a small news medium is less valuable than in a large news medium, so reach does provide a useful assessment here. Well thought-out solutions already exist for consolidating data across channels, so no one needs to reinvent the wheel. Insights are provided by the whitepaper “ How to present all communication channels in one whitepaper “.

The majority of communications departments have not even taken the first step. Probably, there is often a concern about great complexity associated with building a professional media analysis. The advice here is not to think too long about how to solve this challenge on your own, but to use an “off-the-shelf” solution. This creates speed in the implementation, the communication success becomes more usable, and one learns by practical example. This learning curve can then be used later – if it still makes sense at all – in a separate solution.