When we started developing the functionality for enquiry keyword filtering, we thought it should be a Gold level feature, providing our subscribers with more reason to upgrade to our even-more-featureful top level.
We launched the feature a few weeks ago and from talking to the many people using it as part of their subscriptions or trials – and using it ourselves – it quickly became clear: everyone should have access to this.
There’s a lot of noise on #journorequest. Some days, as much as 90% of what’s posted is irrelevant, or simply spam (analysis: Dot Star Media).
From today, we’re happy to make keyword filtering available to all subscribers so you can further harness the power of Twitter, without spending all day on twitter.
Social media is a great source for media requests but with the noise – spam, spoofs and suspicious characters alongside other irrelevant posts – it can quickly become overwhelming. On average there are ~1500 posts a day to #journorequest alone; of these around only 10-15% are genuine media requests from established journalists.
The first thing Dot Star Media has done is reduce the noise. Simply by signing up to the service you can receive the quality 15% directly to your inbox, Slack or MS Teams, identified by the relevant topic.
Some companies have provided feedback saying that whilst these per-topic requests are great, there are still a lot of requests to sort through for relevance to their clients.
This weekend we’ve taken that feedback and implemented keyword filters within your subscribed topics, meaning you can streamline your requests even further by only emailing ones which contain keywords you’re looking for. This feature is available to our ‘gold’ level subscribers and those on a trial.
How could this work in practice? If your interest is specifically around gym equipment rather than general team sports, you can subscribe to ‘Sport & Leisure’ then add some relevant keywords – e.g. ‘gym’, ‘spin class’, ‘squat rack’ – and your inbox will only go ding when there’s a sports & leisure request mentioning those keywords.
Please let us know what you think of this new feature by sending us an email.
If you’re not currently a subscriber, register now to start receiving quality enquiries right away. If you’ve previous had a trial and would like to try out this new feature, send as an email and we’ll get you up and running again.
Dot Star Media ‘gold’ tier subscribers can receive noise-free journalist request notifications in Slack.
Receiving media request notifications in a Slack channel offers some advantages over receiving alerts by email: delivery to Slack is quicker than email and it’s easier for your team to collaborate on the best way to respond to a request.
How to set up alerts in Slack
In the Slack application, add a new channel and call it something like ‘journalist-requests’. Once the channel is created press ‘Add an app’.
Search for ‘ Incoming WebHooks’ and press the install button. This will take you to the Incoming WebHooks app in the Slack App Directory.
Press the ‘Add to Slack’ button.
Choose the Slack channel you created earlier (or you can create a channel from here).
Slack will then provide a WebHook URL. Copy this URL to your clipboard.
Then, as an account administrator, visit the Dot Star Media website and navigate to the distribution channels page. Paste in the endpoint URL created in the previous step. Click the checkbox to enable the service.
You’ll now receive journalist requests in Slack, making it easier to work on replies with your colleagues. Please let us know if you would like support setting this up or if you have any feedback on receiving requests in Slack.
Dot Star Media ‘gold’ tier subscribers can receive journalist request notifications in Microsoft Teams.
Receiving media request notifications in a Microsoft Teams channel offers some advantages over receiving alerts by email: delivery to Teams is quicker than email and it’s easier for your team to collaborate on the best way to respond to a request.
How to set up alerts in Microsoft Teams
1. In Microsoft Teams create a new (or choose an existing) team to place a ‘Dot Star Media’ channel in and add a new channel for Dot Star Media request notifications.
In the newly created Dot Star Media Requests channel click the three dots to the right of the channel name, click on ‘Connectors’ and search for and add an ‘Incoming Webhook’ connector.
2. Provide a name for your webhook, upload in image if you wish, and press ‘create’ to create a webhook URL. Copy the webhook URL for pasting into the distribution channels page on the Dot Star Media application.
3. Now visit the Dot Star Media website and log in. You’ll need to be an account administrator. Visit the distribution channels page and paste in the endpoint URL created in the previous step. Click the checkbox to enable the new endpoint.
4. You’ll now receive journalist requests in Microsoft Teams, making it even easier to work on replies with your colleagues. Please let us know if you would like support setting this up or if you have any feedback on receiving requests in Microsoft Teams.
Journalists use Twitter to post media requests all the time – but the platform can be noisy and chaotic for both journalists and sources. This can make identifying the best media coverage opportunities a difficult and time consuming task. Both businesses and the media can miss out as a result, and we want to help fix that.
Making media request monitoring less of an effort
Our aim is to provide an efficient way of monitoring, receiving and responding to the best requests on Twitter without having to spend hours wading through Twitter noise and spam. We’re solving this with a blend of automation technology and human oversight to identify, classify and deliver quality media coverage opportunities from verified journalists – at warp speed.
Helping journalists
Making it easier, and quicker, for communications professionals to find and respond to journalist requests helps journalists from outlets like this get their jobs done.
