A compact brief helps agencies, vendors, and internal teams deliver the right monitoring output.
Define the monitoring scope
List your priority entities first: brand names, senior leaders, flagship products, and critical topics. Then list exclusions that cause confusion, such as common words or unrelated businesses with similar names.
Pick a geographic scope that matches your business reality. For UK teams, that often means national outlets plus select regional sources aligned to major sites or customer clusters.
Agree on delivery formats
Executives typically need a brief summary, the key headline, and a link. Comms teams need more detail, while analysts may want raw data feeds.
Write one paragraph per audience and specify the frequency. This avoids one size fits all outputs that satisfy nobody.
Set the alert rules
Define what counts as urgent. Examples include safety issues, regulatory actions, or high reach outlets. Write the rule in simple terms and document who receives the alert.
If the rules are vague, the alerting system will be noisy. If the rules are clear, you will see the value quickly.