Focus Ireland
Focus Ireland is the largest homeless and housing charity in Ireland. It is driven by the fundamental belief that homelessness is wrong. Focus Ireland helps prevent families, young people and individuals from having to experience homelessness if possible. For those currently experiencing homelessness, their skilled staff help people to identify the best available support and options to aid them on their journey out of homelessness.
Meltwater Helps Ireland Focus to
Benchmark against competitors
Generate reports and measure performance
Keep on top of brand mentions
Challenge
Like many other dedicated staff in nonprofits, Annabel O'Keeffe, Strategic Marketing and Channel Development Manager, is part of a small team, juggling a great number of tasks. "I'm involved in digital and marketing focusing particularly on brand and digital strategy." Before Meltwater, Annabel found it challenging to know when Focus Ireland was getting mentioned in the press, and the impact such mentions were having on their brand. "Drilling down into the data before Meltwater was particularly difficult. I tried Google Alerts at one point, but didn't find it particularly useful as we couldn't see the entire picture due to poor mention pick up". Not only this, like most small teams juggling lots of projects, Annabel is very stretched for time, and manually scouring the web for press hits wasn't the best use of limited resources.
In addition to the above challenges, benchmarking Focus Ireland against the competition was made much more difficult without easy to digest social media and news insights. "It's difficult to know how we're performing within our industry, what our competitors are doing, and inform strategy when under tight time constraints".
"We rebranded a year ago, and I'm currently looking at how we've grown as a brand over the last six months. We're using Meltwater's report as part of a brand health check. With Meltwater, we can see what we're doing well, and not so well. This helps me determine where to focus my efforts strategically going forward. Some of our team members use Meltwater to analyse the reach of press hits and the engagement received off the back of them. However, I look at the data in a qualitative way - so not just the total number of mentions, but also the kinds of mentions we get. Meltwater's mobile app is my favourite feature of the platform - in fact, it's my favourite app that I have on my phone. I get alerts straight to my phone, on the go. I can then tap into the app in one click and determine whether press hits are worth looking into further."
Annabel O'Keeffe, Strategic Marketing and Channel Development Manager
Solution
"Since rebranding a year ago, I'm currently looking at the impact of this by understanding how our digital footprint has grown over the last six months. We're using Meltwater's media analysis report as part of a brand health check". Data and insights found through the report are used to inform long-term strategy. "With Meltwater, we can see where we're doing well, and not so well. This helps me determine where to focus my efforts strategically going forward".
Using Meltwater's media intelligence tool, Annabel digs deep into how Focus Ireland are performing in comparison to their competitors. "Some of our team members use Meltwater to analyze the reach of press hits and the engagement received off the back of them. I look at the data in a more qualitative way - so not just the total number of mentions, but also the kinds of mentions we get." After all, not all press coverage is equal. It's not about counting the mentions but the types of mentions that matter.
"Meltwater's mobile app is my favorite feature of the platform - in fact, it's my favorite app that I have on my phone. I get alerts straight to my phone, on the go. I can then tap into the app in one click and determine whether press hits are worth looking into further". Annabel loves that press coverage automatically goes to her, without the need for the extended communications team to send her updates. This is particularly beneficial because Annabel works part-time, but still likes to be in the loop about important brand mentions.
Summary
Meltwater Helps Ireland Focus to
See if their PR efforts have moved the needle
"With Meltwater's reports, we have an overview of our media coverage over the last 6 months, this will help me determine where we're doing well, and not so well. It's also important to understand whether the kind of coverage we're getting is true to the essence of our brand."
Quickly understand press coverage
"The mobile app provides me with insights in one click. I know what's going on outside of our brand without having to trawl through the web. Meltwater's dashboards provide visual graphs."
Inform Strategy
"Based on the insights pulled from the Meltwater's report, I will identify the areas to concentrate on and set objectives for the next three years."
— Annabel O'Keeffe, Strategic Marketing and Channel Development Manager
