The best media monitoring in Finland

The media is at a turning point. The volume of communication is greater, and the pace is faster than ever before. It is no longer enough to watch the evening news or read the newspaper in the morning if a Finnish company wishes to monitor their own visibility or that of their industry in the media. Monitoring and reacting must be in real time around the clock. The success of business operations, successful deployment of a communication strategy and even minimising crises depend on the organisation’s ability to quick, comprehensive, automatic and high-quality media monitoring.

The media monitoring tools are lagging behind these needs. In many organisations, media monitoring has still in the 2010s meant reading printed newspapers, browsing websites manually and printing articles and filing them in a folder. Conveying the overall view of media coverage – if it has been understood in the first place – and reporting the success of communication within an organisation have been carried out manually on paper and by using PowerPoint.

In many organisations, media monitoring has still in the 2010s meant reading printed newspapers, browsing websites manually and printing articles and filing them in a folder.

STT is a news agency that creates, refines and transmits reliable information 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Reliability is the basis for all operation. STT’s customers comprise all Finns as STT’s materials in the form of text or images reach all of the most important Finnish media.

The existing technical solutions, including STT’s own solutions, have been considered heavy systems that are difficult to use and that provide minimum performance and cryptic reports by email. During user interviews, the following problems were identified related to STT’s old media monitoring tool:

• The systems were laborious to maintain and thus, STT’s experts did not have to time engage in a dialogue with customers
• Media hits were of poor quality and the results were irrelevant
• The deployment of tools was slow and expensive and their usability was poor
• Tools were one-sided and they did not enable a dialogue
• There was no overall view of the media
• The development philosophy of IT systems was outdated

Design strategy

Hackathon

The development of ideas was started at the two-day Hackathon event together with STT and their customers. Several potential service hypotheses and development ideas were created at Hackathon. It was considered that a modern service should be developed to replace old electronic tools. The service should use the possibilities offered by digitalisation and provide result reports of media coverage in real time and enable quick reaction, reporting and preparation of communication needs.

Continuous adaptability is a vital property of the service.Anne TanhuaSTT

Workshops and expert interviews: The hypotheses that had been created were refined further with the help of service design methods. Service design was carried out continuously in close cooperation with the customer’s business operations, service designers and technical architects. The starting point was that it was not only an IT investment in which the entity is solved by using incomparable technology. The key insight was that we were not constructing a single giant system or tool but smaller individual and modern micro services that would meet the users’ needs and together form STT’s digital ecosystem.

Testing the hypotheses

Service hypotheses were validated by interviewing actual users and testing the prototypes with them. This way a clear view of the future customer needs, user benefits, the components of incomparable user experience and STT’s strengths was formed.

Customer understanding

Based on the interviews, STT’s experts and customers wished to have pleasant services in which a clear user interface and stylish appearance would have an important role. Users wanted to have an online service instead of operating a technical system. The core and strength of the new service that was needed had to be embedded in STT’s employees and their competence – the service to be created would “only” support and strengthen the competence instead of replacing it.

Design drivers steering the work

Design drivers that steer the continuous development of the media monitoring service are based on the needs identified and prioritised at the strategy and concept phase.

• STT’s experts can work more efficiently: As the users of the service, STT’s experts and their needs had to be taken into account alongside customers. Difficulties related to the maintenance and use of services took too much time. The service should make the work of experts considerably faster and easier so that there is time left for personal customer service.
• A hit report triggers the operation: Customers wish to modify, analyse and distribute the report, discuss the hits and use the report in content production. All of this should be possible in the electronic media monitoring service.
• Facilitating the customer’s workflow: Customers were using old-fashioned and slow DIY methods to edit and distribute the hit report; screenshots, emails, PowerPoint presentations, discussions, cut and paste methods, and faxes. The objective was to make the workflow faster and easier in the service.
• Easy distribution of information: Often, the process is interrupted in a situation in which the persons receiving the information cannot remember their password. Active users of STT’s services wished to be able to use the same user credentials for all of the available online services. It should be possible to transfer information without a separate identification.
• Service regardless of time and place: The media monitoring service is often used in the morning, and customers wish to be able to access the service already on their way to work. The busy management wish to have modified reports on their mobile devices. The service should be independent of a terminal device.
• Three search methods: Customers perform standard searches together with STT’s professionals but in addition, plenty of short-term searches are performed (such as hot topics) and quick, individual experiments. The service should offer customers the possibility to create searches easily and simply.

A creative idea

A creative idea was used to gain a competitive advantage and benefits in relation to competitors’ solutions. Print monitoring has been an essential factor to customers in selecting STT’s media monitoring service. As competitors also started to monitor print publications, it became evident that STT must stand out from competitors using other methods. Based on the needs that were identified, STT’s new media monitoring was designed that is:

• • More comprehensive than ever before: A possibility to monitor a status view in real time in various media: online, printed media and social media. Hits that have been valued using a semantic analysis.
  • Digitalisation of print monitoring: the digital monitoring of printed newspapers and magazines reports hits by email on the publication date. Newspapers, magazines and original articles can be accessed directly from the hits.
  • Forerunner: online monitoring monitors news and current affair websites, blogs, discussion forums, microblogs and social media that many organisations still find difficult to manage.
  • Reliable and relevant: the amount of data ensures better quality results; no noise or spam.
  • Quick and efficient: the possibility to react almost immediately. Makes work more efficient, saves time and organises information for you.
  • Intuitive, analytical advisor: Tools that create added value and facilitate the workflow and professional analyses as the basis of a communication strategy.
  • Up-to-date in real time and retrospectively: improved ability to understand and guide media visibility and communication strategy.
  • Easy to use and user-led: fine-tuned use experience throughout the whole service path Humane service from start to finish: not a tool or a system. The digital service entity is complemented by high-quality, personal and quick customer service provided by STT’s experts
  • Secure: a cost-efficient, risk-free and ethical Finnish service that is comprised of open and compatible systems.
  • Always present: Easy deployment is enabled by the possibility to acquire the software as a service.
  • Unique: Meets the user’s needs in a customised manner and individual attentiveness resulting in satisfied customers.

Users have been content with the new system. It has also been considered in the structures that STT’s own experts perform a considerable number of the settings on behalf of the customers.Anne TanhuaSTT

Design and implementation

• • Service formation process: The structure, functionalities and navigation logic of the new media monitoring service were formed using co-creation methods in order to support a faster and more intuitive service. User understanding was increased throughout the project by interviewing STT’s customers and Key Customer Managers.
  • Agile methods: Creating new media monitoring was started following the principles of agile development and lean philosophy on the basis of the service model that was created at the design phase, an architectural vision and a long-term roadmap.
  • Piloting and testing: Media monitoring was released at an early phase to a group of end customers involved in the piloting. The end customers selected in the pilot group participated in discussions in a Facebook group and they were consulted continuously for feedback on the design solutions in order to steer the development and the concept. New versions were released at a quick pace to the pilot users for trial use. High-quality continuous delivery operating methods and the automation of infrastructure enable development in which the parties are genuinely involved.
  • Quick release: High expectations were set on the minimum version that was released to all customers. It was a service of which the previous version was already used by the customers. Since the necessary practices for all end customers already existed during piloting, the service was adopted at the deployment phase; no changes were made to the development model. New customers were included in the service in a controlled manner a couple at a time.
  • Continuous development: After the first major public release in August 2015, the development of the service has been continued according to the same principles. It is a matter of understanding users, continuous development and maintaining the concept fresh and competitive. A good service is never complete, and new features are introduced continuously.

Benefits of the new media monitoring to the users

• Provides reliable and relevant information from a specific perspective and for certain needs. It collects relevant information from newspapers, magazines and/or online sources customer-specifically. The service provides extensive applications for collecting specified pieces of information from a large amount of noise and irrelevant information. The amount of data processed by the service and the number of various channels ensure a high quality and reliable end result.
• The service reduces the amount of manual labour and frees up time for the user. The service reduces the amount of manual labour carried out by users by completing tasks in a comprehensive manner. It allows the customer to concentrate on matters that are relevant in terms of their work.
• The service is designed to be clear and easy to use. The service has been changed from an IT solution that was difficult to use to a user-friendly service with minimalist design. Customers are able to use the service without extensive training. The service will make the procedures following media monitoring observations easier in the customer’s organisation.
• Serves the user in a comprehensive manner and supports making the correct decisions. It is vital in supporting the decision-making and operation in the customer organisation’s operative business. The service collects, structures, analyses, reports and measures specified items and produces user-friendly reports. With the help of the service, the user will have a current view of their organisation’s public image and obtain information on their competitors, interest groups and the whole industry. Both in real time and retrospectively.
• Enables new business operation benefits. The service promotes a new kind of ecosystem approach: Micro services that form media monitoring can be used as the basis of future service development in a cost-efficient manner.