Whether you have a deep passion for it or avoid it at all costs, business reporting is essential for a company’s success. But just putting numbers and charts on a page simply isn’t enough. Your reports should tell a compelling story or answer key questions. This is done by carefully selecting the right metrics and aligning them to your business objectives.
This year we’re putting our focus on impactful, meaningful and engaging reporting. And it all starts with these four metrics we recommend using in 2025.
Sentiment Analysis
You’re likely already familiar with the term sentiment or have at least heard of it. But let’s define it again so we’re on the same page.
Sentiment measures whether an item reflects positively, neutrally, or negatively on a brand or topic. Our analysts approach each individual item and ask themselves - if I were what we call the ‘reasonable reader’, would I go away feeling good, nothing one way or the other, or bad?
This type of analysis is often used to measure the overall reputation of a brand or topic, as well as to measure the impact or influence of media on the public. Sentiment analysis can also help identify trends in reputation and can also be used to measure the reception of a particular media campaign.
Article-Level Sentiment vs Entity-Level Sentiment
While sentiment has been around for a long time, the way we analyse sentiment is changing with the advancement of modern technology. All current sentiment analysis can be categorised as “Article-Level Sentiment” - meaning that you are looking at the overall sentiment of a single article, media item or social post.
More recently, however, Medianet has developed the technology to introduce “Entity-Level Sentiment”. This means that instead of just measuring sentiment broadly, we can pinpoint sentiment around specific people, brands, or issues within an article or media item, giving you a more targeted understanding of public perception.
This new technology is currently only available in Medianet’s Media Monitoring solution.
Prominence
Prominence takes into account the focus of a news item and the position of a mention to determine the degree to which a brand or topic is mentioned in an article.
For example, is your brand the main focus of the article, or just a passing mention? Where does the mention appear—headline, introduction, or body?
Unlike metrics like volume, which treat all mentions equally, prominence determines how much attention and visibility a brand or topic will receive. It's important to note that prominence doesn't necessarily mean the most coverage, but rather the most important coverage. Therefore more prominent coverage will focus on a brand's most important messages and accomplishments, rather than just a brief mention of the brand's name.
Key Messaging
Key messaging represents the core ideas a brand wants to communicate through its media coverage. This could be a proactive message about a campaign, a general message about how an organisation is trusted and reliable, or how they’re sorry for an error they’ve made and are working to rectify it.
While it's important to identify which messages are being picked up by the media, it’s equally important to determine from a set of target messages which didn’t appear, and why. Sometimes this comes down to wording, media appetite, or the mix of current affairs at the time.
Key messaging can be a great tool for diving deeper into some of the metrics we've already discussed. For example, you can assess audience reactions to specific messages or showcase how your strategy succeeded despite challenges, such as negative sentiment or external crises. In situations where positive coverage isn’t expected or maybe isn’t possible, key message delivery can show an effective media engagement strategy, where messages cut through despite criticism or extraneous issues. This provides you with data to educate internal and external stakeholders on their success, despite a less-than-desirable sentiment rating.
Media Impact Score
Much like Entity-Level Sentiment, the Media Impact Score is another metric exclusive to Medianet.
The Media Impact Score is a single score out of 100 that combines metrics such as sentiment, prominence, active coverage and volume to determine the true impact of a brand or organisation's media activity.
This unique score was developed by our Medianet Insights team to allow businesses to track their media impact over time and even compare their impact with competitors. 
Why these metrics matter in 2025
2025 is going to be all about impactful reporting. As such, it is essential to have a good grasp of the metrics available and to use the ones that are most relevant to your objectives. Using these four metrics (sentiment, prominence, key messaging and media impact score) as a guide, you can gain a much better understanding of how effective your media activity is, allowing you to make more informed decisions when it comes to your media strategy in the future.
Ready to take your media strategy to the next level in 2025? Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you make informed decisions and measure success with the latest metrics and insights.
Read more about Medianet's exclusive Entity-Based Sentiment Analysis here.
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