In January we announced significantly enhanced online media monitoring capabilities within the MediaVantage platform. Today, we’ve got more good news to share. Powered by Lexalytics, a leader in sentiment analysis, MediaVantage now offers automated tonality scoring and sentiment analysis in English and French.

The French speaking community is an important audience for Canadian organizations and inter-listed US companies. Now, even if you don’t speak French, you can understand how the market is responding to your brand online and in social media.

Here’s what Nicole Guillot, CNW’s Vice President of Product Management and Operations, had to say about the announcement:

For more on this announcement, check out our Social Media Release. And if you’re still scratching your head on what the heck sentiment analysis is all about, check out these recent posts:

• What the Heck is Sentiment Analysis Anyway?
• How public relations and corporate communications can leverage sentiment analysis

Not surprisingly, social media once again topped the list of public relations trends and predictions for 2011. As more consumers move online, it becomes imperative for professional communicators – from PR to IR and everything in between – to always have their finger on the pulse of online chatter. Enter MediaVantage, CNW’s web-based media monitoring application.

MediaVantage’s most recent product update has significantly enhanced online media monitoring. Highlights of the release include:

• Expanded social media content
• Automated tonality scoring
• Improved search results interface

See the updates for yourself our latest MediaVantage release video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4h-Sf7Iawk

For more, check out the social media release or visit www.mediavantage.com.

In the past, it was the sole responsibility of the corporate communications team to preserve a company’s reputation. However, with the advent of social media, all corporate departments – including investor relations – need to play a role in monitoring and upholding corporate reputation.

For IR, that role is about being aware of where investors are gathering information and helping to shape that. The IR team has a unique perspective on what topics could be of interest or detriment to the organization, and also has its own set of stakeholders and influences to watch.

Incorporating social media into your investor relations program is easier than many think and it needn’t be fraught with worry. The benefits of engaging in social media can be immediate and scalable to the time and effort you can devote to it.

Our latest white paper, titled Investor Relations: Taking on Social Media, is filled with tips to help your IR team develop a social media strategy that works for your company.

Download the white paper now.

At the end of September, more than 140 social media, measurement and monitoring experts, enthusiasts and gurus gathered at the Third Tuesday Measurement Matters Conference in Toronto. It was a jam-packed day full of insightful commentary on the importance of developing a comprehensive monitoring measurement plan.

CNW’s Director of Product Management for MediaVantage, Charles Funk, sat on the panel Show us your ROI- Yes, we can demonstrate a return, moderated by Donna Papacosta. Check out Charles’ ROI and Uncertainty slide deck and learn how to estimate a return on investment when you don’t have hard numbers.

http://www.slideshare.net/cnwgroup/ttt-measurement-mattersroi-under-uncertainty

Also don’t miss Six Tips for Developing a Monitoring and Measurement Plan.

Social media has evolved from a platform designed for personal interaction to a powerful marketing tool. Organizations are now seeing the benefits of social media to establish, retain and grow brand reputation and loyalty. While it may have hit the mainstream, both for personal and business uses, navigating social media can still feel like unchartered waters.

As a savvy communications professional you know that every successful program begins with a plan – and social media is no different. Start by asking yourself some basic questions:

• What do I want to achieve? A stronger brand presence? Lead generation? More customers?
• Who do I want to reach?
• How do I want to do it? What social media channel is the right one?
• What tactic will work best for my audience? A Twitter message? A social media release? White paper on my website? A Facebook presence?

Your customers and audiences are no longer getting their information only from traditional sources. They are talking about your brand whether you choose to listen or not!

Our latest white paper, Evolving Uses of Social Media, looks at how social media can benefit your organization and how you can make it work for you.

Social media experts warn that one tweet is all it takes to ignite a firestorm of online rumours. And it was just one tweet that brought the web’s attention to the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this week – and it had nothing to do with glitz or glam.

In case you haven’t heard – a Toronto writer tweeted that she had been bitten by bedbugs after watching a movie at the Scotiabank theatre in Toronto. A few days later her friend and movie journalist, James Rocchi, tweeted, “Bad, bad news from Toronto re: #TIFF10. Torontoian friend got, yes, bedbugs at the Scotiabank – aka where all press screenings are.”

An hour or so later the fest’s co-director, Cameron Bailey, responded. “Before bedbugs becomes today’s meme: we’re on it, we’re talking to Cineplex and are planning for an itch-free #TIFF10.” Cineplex also chimed in on Twitter, assuring their 3,000 followers that they were looking into the issue. Less than 24 hours after the Rocchi’s tweet, Cineplex confirmed that the theatre was pest-free.

If there’s anything that can outlive a bedbug it’s an online rumour. Countless blogs and newsites including all three of Toronto’s major dailies, Hollywood Reporter and Perez Hilton grabbed headlines about the possible infestation and a quick scan of the #TIFF10 hashtag reveals folks are still a-Twitter over the rumours.

Given how quickly TIFF responded to Rocchi’s original tweet, one can only assume that someone was listening closely to online chatter. For communicators, this should serve as a cautionary tale that you must be listening online for mentions about your brand.

Should you ever find yourself in the festival’s shoes, use this six-point checklist for responding to an online rumour.

Six Tips for Responding to an Online Rumour

• Take action immediately.
• Use the same media your audience uses use.
• Respond appropriately (it can be one-on-one, or a mass communication approach).
• Be open and transparent when you respond.
• Stay on the high road. Don’t engage in a negative way.
• Be flexible. Sometimes tactics don’t work out the way you want them to. But don’t give up… your reputation is at stake.

CNW’s blog, Beyond the Wire, is a way for us to connect public relations, investor relations, communications and media professionals with the tools they need to work more efficiently and be more successful.

We are pleased to now feature content originally published on Beyond the Wire here on the Power of Presence – one of the perks of the acquisition earlier this year.

Here is a roundup of the posts we’re featuring:

• Five Easy Tips to Achieve Better Planning Results
• The Best Time to Send Your News Release
• Your Bottom Line is Showing
• Newsrooms in Canada: The New Reality white paper
• Social Media Release Checklist

For more CNW news and the best the web has to offer in PR, IR and communications, be sure to check out Beyond the Wire.

Planning and research is an essential part of the communications lifecycle. Regardless of what tools you use to gain insight to analyze trends in thinking or other patterns among your audiences and stakeholders, it’s important to scrutinize the basics.

Here are five tips to help you achieve better planning results – whether your focus is on online or traditional communications, or somewhere in between.

1. Ask your stakeholders what they want. Most organizations still reach customers and stakeholders through the news media. Most media and analysts will tell you that a simple wire-issued news release is still the best way to deliver information. But these days they also want multimedia assets to enrich the story on their website or blog. You could benefit from packaging all your information in an easy-to-share format of a social media release. It pays to ask.
2. Review your contact lists. Whether investor analysts, association contacts, or mainstream media, if you review your lists you’ll likely discover your contacts gather information through more than one channel – on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter. The channels are changing.
3. Cultivate relationships. If you’re planning to target Facebook or MySpace channels, you can forge relationships by offering information, correcting misinformation, and contributing to conversations in ways that offer value. Brand reputation is all about confidence and trust. If you bring a trusted voice to a social media conversation, you’ll earn respect.
4. Stay fresh. If the goal of your communication strategy is to get noticed, make the most of it. Keep your website, Facebook and other social media channels dynamic by posting new information frequently. Your followers ‘make the rounds’ when they’re gathering information. If they see you update your information often, you’ll become the ‘go to’ destination for what’s new and interesting.
5. Enable sharing. If your website isn’t equipped to enable visitors to share the information you’re posting to their Facebook account or to the email address of a friend or colleague, you’re missing an opportunity to grow your brand. It’s easy to do.

Download a copy of our latest white paper, Continuous Measurement and Analysis, for more on maximizing your communications planning efforts.

It seems like an easy question and one CNW is asked often: when is the best time to send a news release? The answer, however, is frustratingly vague and every newswire, journalist, editor, analyst, broker and public relations professional will offer their own interpretation of “best.”

In the past, a nine to five workday; a trading day that opened at 9:30 am and closed at 4:00 pm; rigid print production schedules and top-of-the-hour newscasts provided a good indication of when and whether your story would be noticed.

These days, the immediacy of the web and a never-ending communications lifecycle means the best time to send your news release is now. “Send it as soon as it’s ready. We really are up and running all day and night,” advised Kirk LaPointe, Managing Editor of the Vancouver Sun at CNW’s Breakfast with the Media this past April.

Scott Anderson, Editor-in-Chief, CanWest News Service, concurs:

Jeremy Porter, digital communications strategist and blogger at Journalistics, recently concluded that there is no single best time to send your news release. The trick to optimizing your potential for news coverage is finding the best time to send your news. He offers a list of helpful tips to determine when that time may be. Among them:

Figure out where you’d like your news to appear

Is it the 6:00 news or is the top-ranked blog in your industry? Your objectives for media coverage should guide when the release is distributed.

Make sure you really have ‘news’ in your news release

When drafting your news release, ask yourself “who cares.” If you can’t answer this, you probably don’t have news.

Web traffic is an okay outcome for a news release too

There was once a time when only media read news releases, but now anyone can find your release online. Drive traffic back to your website and social media properties by including links in your release.

Read the complete list at Journalistics.

When do you find is the best time to send your news release?

Long the domain of the public relations team, reputation management and social media monitoring is becoming an essential part of the investor relations officer’s daily routine. With reputation capital making up to an estimated 63% of the average company’s market value, it’s safe to say your bottom line is showing online.

Check out CNW President and CEO Carolyn McGill-Davidson’s presentation from the 2010 CIRI Investor Relations Conference: Your Bottom Line is Showing – Why Reputation Management Matters to Investor Relations.