In a world where 67% of journalists use social media to source information, can a brand’s traditional media mentions be analysed separately from its mentions on social media? Or have we already reached a point where comms strategies will suffer if this analysis is not integrated?
What used to be two separate worlds of media have intertwined to a point where the line between journalist and influencer has blurred.
Take internet celebrity Abbie Chatfield’s interview with Anthony Albanese on her podcast show ‘It’s a Lot’ during the 2025 Australian federal election, which led to the second-highest day of traditional media coverage of podcasts in Australia for 2025 (following Taylor Swift’s guest appearance on Jason Kelce’s show ‘New Heights’).
Today, the best PR and communications teams are using this intertwining of social and traditional media to their advantage. Here’s how.
1. Understanding Correlation and Causation
Getting the full picture of how a news story has spread and evolved can be harder than anticipated. The most important piece of the puzzle is understanding correlation and causation: how events are related in the timeline and what has driven those events.
Without analysing both channels in realtime, it can be difficult to identify the source.
- Did a viral post on Reddit spark a TV story, or did the TV story act as the catalyst for social buzz?
- Did a journalist’s live blog prompt a post on X (Twitter)? Or was it the other way around?
In hindsight, the cross-platform flow of information is easy to track. But for communications teams that need to be seconds, not days, behind the news, integrated analysis needs to happen right alongside monitoring.
This is also the only way to avoid misinterpreting trends. You might think, for example, that social chatter about a particular brand or topic is organic when it’s actually been driven by traditional coverage.
Recent literature also suggests that social media is often an ‘attention driver’ for traditional coverage where sentiment is intense or very positive on a topic. Popovic et al. (2021) did an interesting study on stock-related articles and social posts with this in mind, finding “...that the social media post volume of a stock… is associated with traditional media viewership of the same stock.”
There’s no better example of this than when attention on the GameStop stock within Reddit’s infamous r/wallstreetbets subreddit in 2021 caused an unprecedented short squeeze. Many professional investors anticipating a decline in value were blindsided when the stock temporarily rose 1700%, becoming the most actively traded stock on Wall Street at that time.
Within this ecosystem, understanding correlation and causation often unearths key stakeholder insights.
What platforms and audiences are most interested in this content? Where will similar stories be picked up first in the future?
2. Tracking Story Evolution and Full Impact
A common misconception about the story lifecycle is that there is a channel of ‘most’ importance. The flow of information today is cross-platform by default, and the ‘priority channel’ often changes multiple times depending on how a narrative lands with audiences across each.
Take this hypothetical.
Say an unhappy customer starts a conversation on Reddit in which they claim to have found something unsavoury in a new can of your tinned food brand. Social media mentions of your brand increase exponentially as engagement climbs, and other users recount similar experiences with the same product.
(Hypothetical product recall data)
Two weeks later, a product recall is announced. Although traditional media is now providing the most important and credible information about this recall from your brand directly, social media mentions remain the highest in volume due to high consumer interest. It’s only when social media mentions taper out that sales figures return to their original standards.
The lesson here is clear.
Teams need a clear visual that integrates both traditional and social media mentions to not just see, but accurately measure, the full lifecycle and impact of a story. Not only this, but the lag time between channels, or how long it takes for one to pick up on the other, can identify the most engaged audiences. This is particularly relevant when you’re discussing PR and marketing campaigns with a budget behind them.
Stories will more often than not jump back and forth between social and traditional media, bringing subtle shifts to their key messages along with them, depending on many volatile factors like platform affordances (e.g. short-form video or text threads) and who’s leading the conversation on different platforms.
These insights can be used to time press releases and other content for maximum amplification and best audience engagement.
3. Spotting Early Warning Signs and Emerging Opportunities
For PR and communications teams, time can sometimes literally be money.
Being able to find where conversations are sprouting online before they go mainstream is what professionals aim to do. In-platform, integrated analysis of social and traditional media mentions is the only way to seriously achieve this.
Before crisis communication becomes necessary, practitioners look for early warning signs of an issue to get ahead of it, whether this is a shift in sentiment, misinformation, a viral customer complaint, product malfunction, data leak, or otherwise. Foresight is invaluable, and not just for crisis comms. New business opportunities are caught in this fashion as well.
Social media uptake of a story in particular can often be used to gauge the volume and sentiment of subsequent traditional coverage. This was already the case back in 2009 when the infamous Hudson River plane crash was first reported by X (Twitter) users in the U.S. Today, impending layoffs and corporate scandals are leaked on subreddits like r/AusCorp.
4. Comparing Key Themes and Reception Across Channels
Understanding the discrepancies between a story’s reception on traditional and social media is critical to long-term planning for strategic communications and audience segmentation.
These differences can mirror different platform affordances, leading voices (journalists, influencers, or otherwise), timing, and other substantially influential factors for PR and communications efforts, refining a clear direction for media outreach.
When we compare key themes within the conversation on electric vehicles (EVs) in Australia from July 1 to September 30, 2025, there is a clear discrepancy between key messages.
(Streem Data: Mentions of “EVs” in Australian Print, Online, Radio, TV, Magazine & Podcast Sources VS Facebook, X, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, Blogs, Forums, & LinkedIn from Jul 1-Sep 30, 2025)
Earned media coverage focused 15% more on affordability than on climate change and the environment, while the opposite was true for social media. The latter was mentioned 30% more than pricing.
What this demonstrates is the existence of a stakeholder issue that EV producers may miss or address improperly if they’re not doing an active analysis of these discrepancies.
These misses can be significant holes in communication strategies that lead to long-term issues.
In Conclusion
PR and communications professionals know the importance of realtime monitoring and analysis. More than ever, this analysis has to compare social and traditional media mentions side-by-side to provide a true picture of events as audiences continue to segment themselves online.
Doing so increases how well-informed you and, therefore, your campaigns are.
Streem’s Commitment to Keeping You Informed
At Streem, we are committed to keeping you informed about the latest developments in the media landscape. We deliver a complete media intelligence solution backed by trusted local experts. Featuring realtime media monitoring, integrated traditional and social analytics and reporting, social listening, and press release distribution, Streem supports 1000+ corporate, government, and agency clients across Australia and New Zealand.
Ready to elevate your media monitoring and insights? Contact Streem today, and let’s start shaping your communication strategies.