14 Nov 2018 15:00

Interfax creates comprehensive system for assessing company reputation risks, PR effectiveness

International information group Interfax announces the launch of a series of indexes designed to assist PR firms in resolving reputation management tasks for companies and other organizations. The indexes are accessible on Interfax‘s updated comprehensive news analysis system SCAN.

"We have made SCAN to assist companies, banks and government organizations to manage their reputations, a job that gets more difficult with each passing year: public sources of information are multiplying and regulatory requirements are expanding. The very concept of ‘business reputation‘ is no longer an abstraction but a vital business asset," said Yulia Mikhailova, the director for development of the SCAN project.

PR and business security specialists can now analyze the media space using three SCAN indexes: Direct Speech, Visibility of Companies and Personalities and Reputation Risk.

"The majority of the indexes are based on the number of mentions and their tonality. Often, neither the one nor the other depends on the actions of the company or its press service. The Direct Speech Index shows the direct contribution of media-picture communication specialists. Therein lies its value," Mikhailova said.

The Visibility Index shows the qualitative characteristics of a media-space presence, taking into account the influence of media outlets and how publications depict a company or personality.

The Reputation Risk Index is an integrated business image indicator. It takes into account risks from financial, economic, shareholder, legislative, market and ethical factors.

All these indexes are available in the updated SCAN system. Aside from gauging the effectiveness of corporate and industry PR services, the new SCAN can be used as a state-of-the-art high-tech platform for resolving everyday tasks.

When dealing with a media monitoring task, PR managers can make edits using their smartphones on the way to work, and a PR director after a citation can view the statistics: how many recipients opened the monitoring and the depth of the views. "You virtually have your own media with the publication system, website and system of metrics that editors-in-chief use," Mikhailova said.

In order to resolve analytical tasks, SCAN project specialists together with the PR industry have created standard analytical reports. Now, an analytical report employing best industry practices can be created in a couple of clicks.

When preparing reports on the placement of press releases, in addition to a ready-made press clipping, users can see which portions the media used most.

The main functions of the system are accessible through the SCAN Interfax mobile app for iOS and Android.

SCAN (www.scan-interfax.ru) is an Interfax system for analyzing the media space designed for managers in communications, PR, marketing and risk assessment.

SCAN analyzes media materials, provides notification of publications the moment they appear, creates visual analytical reports based on user requests, shows the connections between companies, people and events, makes it possible to forecast reputational and economic risks associated with partners and counteragents and resolves other tasks of varying degrees of difficulty associated with media analytics. SCAN currently adds more than 300,000 publications from over 28,000 sources to its database every day.