Utah News Clips

Posts for News Tracking

I've heard this phrase many times, and each time it strikes me as a riddle. Is there more to this question than the words convey? When it comes to your name, personally, the words of your name tend to take on the personality of the man or woman behind the name, not the other way around. Similarly, the name of a company or service says much about what they do...or at least it should.

At Utah News Clips we've been providing broadcast monitoring services for almost 30 years. However, since May of 2009 we have become a complete news monitoring and media analysis service. In the first 26 years we provided just what our name implied, broadcast news clips from the Utah area only. After purchasing the company in 2009, I added in the full scope of print, web, and social media monitoring to compliment our comprehensive TV/Radio monitoring. Additionally, we are now a leading provider of media measurement and analysis services.

Beyond what we do, news monitoring and analysis, our region and client base has also expanded. No longer limited to primarily the Utah region for clients, we are now serving clients across the country. What this all means is that Utah News Clips has quickly transformed into a service that can provide all the services clients need in Utah and beyond. For this reason you will begin seeing some new names coming from us. First and foremost we have brought on Chad Carpenter to power our sales and client relations effort. Chad has extensive experience in demonstrating the value of a service, which we believe will help bring our solutions to a wider range of clients. Secondly, over the next several months you will see a gradual transformation on how our brand reflects our services.

Like our primary competitors, Cision and Critical Mention, our branding and marketing will begin to better reflect the true personality of our company. We will always be a Utah company, headquartered in Salt Lake City, and staffed with Utah residents, but more information from us will reflect our expanded services and region. Again, we are still the only company with a full staff on the ground in Utah, ready to serve any need, but we need to get the word out that there is more to us than just Utah news clips. Your help in spreading that word is certainly welcomed.

Yes, we have many #newtools, but the #samerules of service apply now as much as ever. Our Core Values are:
-Deliver consistent Quality
-Always Accountable
-Surpass Client Expectations
-Honest & Direct Communication
-Maximize each team member’s strengths

I believe that it is our attention to the above values that have so strongly driven our growth in the past two years and I look forward to a very long relationship with all of our clients. Please leave a comment if you have any suggestions or feedback on what service means to your brand. We're also interested in all feedback as we begin the process of re-branding Utah News Clips.

Comments (1)

Looking back over the past week I see a couple lessons to be learned from the bankruptcy of VMS. Many things will be said by competitors, and some past employees, but here are my takeaways.

First, the Video Monitoring Services team, VMS employees caught in the bankruptcy, are great people. I'm glad to see quality services like cision hiring some of these employees. Soon we hope to also be working with former VMS staff. These people were clearly dedicated to their jobs and serving their clients.

Second, don't believe all that you read...especially in advertising. Whether a blog or an ad, some lofty claims are being made. Phrases like "biggest", "best", and "only" are hollow terms that don't tell you a thing about the level of service and support you can expect from a news monitoring service. I encourage you to speak with Amber Smith in our office, but also do your homework. What vendor is best situated to provide the service and support you need? Technology is a tool, the people serving you can make the difference.

Finally, if you are a former VMS client the best thing you can do is interview prospective monitors. If you are a local or regional organization, there is undoubtedly a monitoring service better located to serve your needs. Local and regional monitors know what news is important to you. They know your city, state, issues, problems, etc. Our news data service has 40 offices ready to customize and serve your needs.

Use the wonderful search of Google to locate news monitoring services that may be better positioned to provide what you need. Yes, I think Utah News Clips is one of the best news monitors in the world. I would not be able to fake passion for what I do if I did not truly believe in the team I work with and the client missions we serve. We make your news our business...period.

Please let me know your thoughts, or share your experiences. Communication is what we do.

By now most have heard the biggest broadcast monitoring news in the last 35 years. The father of TV news monitoring, Video Monitoring Services, has file Chapter 7 bankruptcy. As they move to liquidate the assets of this once great company, all VMS clients are scrambling to find a service offering a similar balance of real-time reports, access to broadcast news segments, and true customer support.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, VMS did not close because of their service. Some competitors, obviously looking to grab clients by stepping on the grave of VMS, have eluded to a notion that VMS was out of touch. Just because they started the broadcast monitoring industry doesn't mean they fell behind in terms of tools, innovation, and attention to customer service. As of noon on 8/26/11, the time VMS closed forever, VMS had as powerful a set of client tools and remained focus on fulfilling every need of their clients. In fact, I stand by the notion that VMS was the company that every other broadcast monitor bench-marked themselves.

Yes, Utah News Clips has updated all their services over the past two years to compete with any national service available in the news monitoring space. Yes, Utah News Clips has been helping former VMS clients get on-board quickly so they have their news monitoring reports today. And yes, Utah News Clips sees innovation as the key to success. But as we look back on what happened to VMS I think it is important to see all that they did right. If it were not for the attention VMS gave to development, fulfillment, and customer service, they would not have been the "company to beat". In the end, it appears that a shift in management may have contributed to a loss of direction for VMS. Management structure is where we differ.

I own Utah News Clips. I am also an owner in Universal Information Services, a family business. Together these companies have lead our industry for over 20 years as innovators of news monitoring and analysis services. Our approach is very simple, we have built all the services our clients need, and the tools our competitors offer, but we also provide true customer service. True customer service is something you can't find in those who offer only an online platform for monitoring your news. Absent in the SaaS (software-as-a-service) companies is your immediate ability to reach a live person who knows your account, get on the spot training when you need it, and the ability to have someone to "just make it happen" if you're in a crisis management situation.

Today we will be working diligently to help those clients who no longer can use VMS. Our service team will continue to provide any callers with immediate attention and have their news flowing within 24 hours. We can do this because we know there are only two things that matter: Your ability to get the news you need and access to a vendor who can help you anytime you need it. Please call us if you need a company that works very much the way VMS did...and you need help now. (801) 463-0101

Utah News Clips is here to help with all your nationwide news monitoring and broadcast clip needs. We are here to help.

Comments (2)

Welcome to our first ravings related to news, information consumption, social media, tools of dissemination, and how all this is impacted by Human Nature. Universal Information Services has created this blog to illuminate ideas related to the intersection of communication fundamentals and new channels of information distribution. Basically, our media analysis and position as a news monitoring service has led us to the conclusion that the fundamental rules of public relations communications has not changed, only the tools we have at our disposal are new (#SameRules #NewTools).

We’ve even chosen to hash tag these two phrases to underscore the importance that social media has on media engagement, media placement, and public perception. It is true, social media has greatly enhanced our methods of communication. But be careful, professional communication by any mode has not fundamentally changed. Therefore our blog will feature postings related to two areas of public relations and communications. We'll also focus on issues related to news monitoring, media analysis, social network influence. From press clipping to TV news clips to web monitoring, our broad spectrum of news monitoring and media analysis experience opens a wide door for discussion.

First, the fundamentals of writing style and the need for compelling content are not new. If you can’t write, spell, structure a sentence, or convey compelling ideas, it does not matter what channel you use to communicate, your audience will remain small and ephemeral. The same basic rules of communication survive today and are only slightly modified to match each medium (print, broadcast, web, social).

Second, how you harness the enormous power of the new tools like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Foursquare is a testament to your ability to apply your skills across the #NewTools. You should be thinking “in addition to” rather than “instead of”. Human nature, as well as common sense, dictates that one should meet their target audience through whatever communication tool they prefer. For this reason all of us need to stop referring to social media as something outside of mainstream media. Never has a new medium supplanted an older medium. Newspapers did not kill discussion, radio did not kill newspapers, television did not kill radio, the Web did not kill television, and social media will not kill any of the aforementioned mediums. The communication pie only expands while dividing into smaller pieces for each medium…growth instead of replacement.

I’m sure some will hold on to the false notion that there has been a complete shift in the communication paradigm. I hope to receive comments that the world has changed as we know it and we will forever be changed. These comments will help prove that no matter what our technical mode of discourse may be, human nature controls how we communicate…and that is fundamentally unchanged.

I am not a writer. You will see an overabundance of commas in my postings and I may not always structure my sentences correctly. Yes, you may correct me if you want, but in the end it is the ideas I’m hoping to spark interest with, not my writing prowess.

#SameRules #NewTools represents an extension of the media research we do here at Universal. This blog is for the “engaged community”. This does not mean only those who are social media savvy, but anyone who understands that humans create content and humans consume information. Those who fail to consider human nature when creating tools are doomed to repeat history by creating solutions that are DOA. There will be little acceptance of their #NewTool because they have chosen to ignore the importance of the #SameRules.

Future topics include: Niche content and The Long Tail, The Importance of Compelling Content, and an answer to the “Who Cares” question (ROI).

Comments (2)