Google Alerts: Free has a price

Being the last to know about something sucks – and if you’re being paid to know, it may even be ‘career limiting’. That’s why reliable and real-time media monitoring matters – and why you shouldn’t be relying on Google Alerts. If you’ve ever been involved in either public relations or media, you probably know about Google Alerts. It’s the grandaddy … Read More

Media monitoring contracts: How to avoid getting locked in

In the last decade media monitoring has evolved continuously to match the pace of change in how news is consumed. There’s just one exception – the contracts used by media monitoring companies haven’t evolved – at least not in the way clients should expect. The average media monitoring contract used in New Zealand is nothing short of a disgrace. We’ve … Read More

Behind the scenes: How Fuseworks works with media

If you want your news to have the widest possible reach, make sure you send it to Fuseworks Media. We often get asked how content from Fuseworks ends up on news websites like Yahoo – or for more information about how journalists use our services. Here’s the scoop … Every day Fuseworks receives hundreds of NZ focused news leads in … Read More

Why pay for media monitoring?

So you’ve decided to monitor media. Good decision. You may be wondering if you can justify paying for it, or should try to rely on free tools. The short answer is that it’s absolutely worth paying for. Here’s why… The cost of free tools ‘Free’ doesn’t necessarily equal ‘rubbish’, but it does invariably mean ‘limited’. Whether the free tools are … Read More

Why do media monitoring?

When we talk to organisations about media monitoring we tend to find people fall into one of two camps. There’s those that believe they couldn’t possibly do their jobs without it – and those that believe ‘yeah, nah – we don’t need that’. There’s a few reasons for the ‘yeah, nah’ response: Small organisations often believe that since they don’t … Read More

Broadcast TV media monitoring – faster, better, cheaper

Like anyone that’s been involved in the communications industry for a few years, I’ve known the frustration that is broadcast TV monitoring. Some time after the broadcast happens you get a little snippet from a traditional media monitoring company, which indicates that a news programme mentioned a topic of interest. You then go through a process to order a transcript, … Read More

2013 -Year in review

Four years in and building momentum As we kick off what is sure to be another busy year, we like to review what we’ve accomplished in partnership with our amazing clients in the last twelve months. We started Fuseworks with the belief that the ways media and communications professionals track and participate in the news cycle could be dramatically improved. … Read More

Auckland Regional Public Health Service Case Study

Charlotte Reynolds is the Communications Manager for Auckland Regional Public Health Service – the largest public health unit in New Zealand – she and her team are responsible for communications strategy and its implementation. Charlotte has worked in a range of comms roles, primarily in the public sector and NGOs. Media monitoring is a key part of the service the … Read More

Forest & Bird Case Study

Jay Harkness is the Communications Officer for Forest & Bird – New Zealand’s largest independent conservation organisation – and he spends most of his time on media management. As a former journalist, Jay has a very well developed understanding of the life-cycle of a news story and knows exactly what tools he needs to make the most of it. Forest … Read More

TrustPower Case Study

Graeme Purches is the Community Relations Manager for TrustPower – the 7th largest company by market capitalisation on the NZX – and, he and his team are responsible for much of TrustPower’s communications efforts. As former President of PRINZ with 23 years of large corporate PR experience under his belt, Graeme knows a thing or two about public relations. He … Read More