How can I start monitoring mentions?

Build a search query in our Media Monitoring tool to automate the process of collecting coverage of your brand or product from online media.

Getting started

From the dashboard, go to Monitoring and start working on your monitoring project. If you don't have any projects yet because you're setting up monitoring for the first time, you'll be taken directly to the query builder when you click Get started.

What is a project?

A project is, basically, a folder where you keep all your search queries. It's useful to have separate projects when, for example, you're a PR agency working with multiple clients. In this case, you can keep all search queries of a single client under separate projects.

If you want to add a new search query to your existing project, open the project and click the button New search query

New search query

The process of creating a new search query begins with a selection related to the kind of information you'd like Prowly to monitor. You can select one of the following:

  • Brand - monitor brands, see how popular it is and what’s the sentiment of the articles when the brand is mentioned
  • Competitor - track competitors and have a possibility to compare the results on the share of voice
  • Keywords - track keywords/phrases of your choice
  • Person - monitor people from top management, experts, and new hires
  • Backlinks - track how many articles with the provided URL were found on the Internet. Use it to get an idea of how and what is the impact of SEO

And then, fill in the text field with your keywords, names, or links, depending on your choice. 

media monitoring query builder 2 add your brand keywordYou can also have a look at a sample of coverage that should be displayed to the right.

If you need some more advanced keyword configuration, you can use the settings described below to increase the search accuracy.

Keyword options

You can check two additional options that will help you get more relevant results:

media monitoring query builder 2 exact match case sensitive

Exact match - check this option to make the search work in the exact mode. When checked, it will look for articles with the exact combination of keywords you provide. Uncheck this option to allow searches with the right-hand side wildcard.

For example, let's say the keyword you want to monitor is Apple. If you want to search for exactly the keyword Apple, make sure to check the exact match checkbox. If you want to get results such as Apples or Apple's, uncheck it to enable the right-hand side wildcard.

Case sensitive - you can check this option to make your search match keywords only when the letter case is exact with what you provide. Uncheck to make the search case insensitive. 

Additional required and excluded keywords

Click the + Add more keywords button to insert two types of keywords that will help you get even more relevant results:

  • Results MUST ALSO contain ALL of these keywords - fill in any keywords that must also be present in the article. Type a keyword or phrase and press Enter to add it as a requirement. It will look like this: 
    Screenshot 2022-11-18 at 16.39.01
  • Results MUST NOT contain ALL/ANY of these keywords - it works in the opposite direction of the field described above. Use this section to specify keywords or phrases that you don't want to have in mentions with your required keywords. Type a keyword or phrase and press Enter to add it. Here's how it looks: 
    Screenshot 2022-11-18 at 16.39.15

Email notifications

Set up email notifications for your search to be notified whenever there's new coverage found by Media Monitoring. You will only need to select an notification type and recipients of the email. You can read more about notifications in this article.

Backlink tracking

Fill in the Track backlinks field for Media Monitoring to look for it in the coverage (applies to queries configured for Brand, Competitor, Keywords and Person). This can be a URL to your landing page, newsroom, or website that is included in an article. If you add it, it will allow you to use the backlinks filter when browsing coverage. It's not a filter, though, which means your query can find mentions with and without the URL if the keyword conditions are met.

Backlink tracking vs. Backlinks search queries

  • Backlink tracking is used to find a specific URL in the coverage associated with the keyword search query 
  • Backlink search queries are used to find mentions using a specific URL

Filters

Apart from keywords, you can use the following filters to refine your search:

  • Sources - filter based on the type of mentions (news, discussions, blogs, posts from Facebook, posts from X)
  • Social media profiles - add links to social media profiles to effectively monitor specific pages (you will still see mentions from different social media profiles in your search after filling this property, but you will be able to filter out the ones you have added here)
  • Countries - filter based on the outlet's headquarters location
  • Languages - filter based on the article's language
  • Look for mentions in - choose between:
    • title - select to look for keywords present in the title of the article only.
    • text - select to look for keywords present in the body of the article only.

Save your search

When you're done with setting keywords and/or filters, you can go ahead and save your search.  Click Create query to save it. Prowly will gather all of the mentions it can find on the Internet. The monitoring is constantly on, and, as soon as any mention matching the conditions is found, you'll find it in the dashboard. What's more, the moment you save your search, we'll also look for articles published in the past - up to 30 days ago. Trial accounts will include results from the last 30 days as well, but there will be a limit of up to 120 mentions only.