Live Alerts in Mediaportal allows you to create near real-time broadcast SMS and email alerts to keep track of important issues on the go. Unlike your regular Mediaportal Alerts, Live Alerts don’t use your current brief keywords, instead, the keywords you add to the alert will be monitored across selected voice-to-text and closed caption broadcast coverage.

Here’s a quick video to introduce you to Live Alerts:

Want a quick guide for setting up your Live Alerts? Check out the Live Alerts Cheat Sheet. There is also a Cheat Sheet available for recipients of your alerts here; send this to your Live Alerts recipients so they know what to expect.

Creating an alert

Access Live Alerts using the tab in the left navigation panel.

Once on the Live Alerts page you can create your first alert using the “Create your first alert” button in the center of the page.

This will open the alert building window where you can add the keywords and select the channels you would like to track. After reviewing the tips for keywords, click Okay to start adding some.  More information for adding search terms can be viewed under the “Tips for search terms” drop-down.

Adding keywords

There are three different keyword fields in this window, allowing you to add open keywords, qualifiers, and exclusions. At least one keyword must be placed in either of the first two text fields to create an alert.

1. Use the first text field to track either one term or a list of keywords individually. Say I want to track a list of different cereal brands, I can add them here as “Nutri-Grain, Weet-Bix, Coco Pops”, I will now be alerted to any media items that mention at least one of these cereals.

2. The second text field can be used to track one term or a series of connected keywords. If multiple keywords are added here, all must be mentioned in a media item for it to be picked up.  For example, if I only want to be alerted to stories that mention all three of the following terms: “Coca-Cola, soft drink, and CEO”,  I can place them in this field. Stories that mention just one of these terms will not be captured.

You can use a combination of the first two text fields to qualify keywords. For example, if I want to track all of the above cereal brands individually, but only in relation to “cereal”, I would place the list of cereals into the first text field, and type “cereal” into the second field, as in the screenshot below. Now I will only receive alerts of coverage mentioning cereal where either Nutri-Grain, Weet-Bix or Coco Pops are also mentioned in the same media item.

3. The last text field can be used to exclude keywords.

Keywords added will be listed as Boolean at the bottom of this window.

Selecting channels

Once you have added your keywords, click on the Channels tab to select which locations and channels you would like to track. Add channels by clicking on the checkboxes next to them in the list.

To limit the number of Alerts you’re sent, we’ve introduced an option to  exclude repeated content. This means, if your keywords are mentioned multiple times on the same channel within a given time period, you won’t be notified more than once. Use the drop down to select the time period that repeats will be excluded.

Alert format and recipients

Clicking the “Next” button will take you to the format step where you can add a title for your alert and add recipient phone numbers. Once you have created a title, enter the name and mobile numbers of the recipients that you would like the alert to be sent to.

You can add up to 5 mobile numbers to each alert. Please note that only Australian mobile numbers can be added as recipients for Australian users, New Zealand mobile numbers for New Zealand users and Singapore mobile numbers for Singapore users.

When you are happy with the options you have selected, click “Save & next” to finish creating your alert. This will add the alert to the main Live Alerts page. Use the blue “Add a live alert” button to set up additional alerts.

Email delivery

As well as SMS, your Live Alerts can also be delivered via email. Email addresses can be added as recipients in the delivery settings of the alert in the email tab under recipients.

Once you have entered a name and email address into the correct fields, click the plus button to add the recipient.

The tickbox indicates that the email address is subscribed to the alert. If at any point the recipient chooses to unsubscribe using a link on the bottom of an alert they receive, the checkbox will appear as unticked in the alert settings. Be sure to click “Save alert” after you have made any changes.

Managing your alerts

Each Mediaportal login can have up to 5 alerts active at a time. The number of active alerts you have will be listed at the top of the page.

If you have reached your limit of 5 active alerts, but want to add another one, you can either mute or delete an old alert to replace it with a new one. There is no limit to the number of inactive alerts you can create in your login. This means you can save as many alerts as you like and mute or un-mute them at your will. You also have the option to edit your alerts if you would like to make changes to the settings.

Viewing alerts on your phone

When a broadcast story matches your alert requirements, the recipients will be sent an SMS message with a link through to the content within just a few minutes of the mention. This link will be available for one month, and can be easily shared with stakeholders by simply forwarding the link on.

Clicking on the link in the message will take you to a web page where you can view a 2 minute video or audio clip at no charge, as well as the associated transcript below with your keyword mentions in bold. The stream will begin playing 3 seconds before the first mention. (Please note some Android devices may start playing at the beginning of the 2 minutes stream instead, however.)

Alert recipients will have the option to opt-out using the second link in the SMS. Recipients who have opted out of a Live Alert will no longer have a tick in the box next to their mobile number in the delivery section of the alert. Re add them by selecting the check box and hitting save.

Have a question about Live Alerts? Check out our Live Alert FAQs. Alternatively you can reach out to your account management team.