Reaching your audience at the right moment, with the right content, on the right channel is a goal every communicator dreams of.And achieving this goal is possible if you have the right data … Data that gives you insight into what your sector is talking about, who’s talking about it, where they’re talking about it, and whether or not the content you’ve already created and distributed is aligned with these conversations.However, there’s so much data and so many places to collect it from that there’s not nearly enough time to sort through all of it by hand. Having to combine brand and industry monitoring from multiple sources is a time-consuming process. To then analyze and act on this research is even more resource intensive.Cutting corners on any step in the process can result in inaccurate intel and ill-informed decisions.One way to ease the pain is to look for a tool that packages your monitoring, targeting, distribution, and reporting into one central location. You need to ask the right questions, though, to make sure you’re selecting a tool that’s truly multifunctional.Ask these four questions of the media monitoring and targeting tools you’re considering to determine which one will work best for you.1. Can you monitor multiple topics across multiple mediums?Having to jump between multiple tools to examine what’s happening on social, online, broadcast, print and other media is not just inefficient, it can cause you to miss overlapping trends.At minimum, a multifunctional monitoring tool should enable you to observe different mediums and see how brand and/or topic mentions compare and contrast on each one.Moreover – whether you’re an agency representing different clients or a brand targeting different audience personas – you need to be able to monitor conversations around more than one topic.Competitor intel, emerging trends, and customer behaviors are a few of the things you should monitor beyond brand mentions.After identifying what type of information is important to you, look for a tool that makes it easy to save all of your searches in one location, customize notifications for each, and update searches as new needs arise.

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