Press reviews are a common and basic feature for surveying the market situtation, your company's public image and the coverage of your competitor's business. Only if you are well-informed about theses topics, you can make sound business decisions.

But can the traditional press review ? also called press clipping - with cut-out and pasted articles really retain its relevance in the age of internet, mobile computers and digitalised communication?

The internet has caused workflow processes to become much faster, and it is hardly possible to reserve time just to read business and news publications. Cutting out articles and then gluing them on a piece of paper has always been a rather messy job ? but now it has also become too timeconsuming. Even scanning the articles and then priniting them out takes up time.

Traditional press reviews also need to be stored and archived, something that just adds up to the loads of paper in your office.

An modern alternative to standard press review are digital formats. Online media sources are automatically scanned for selected terms and topics and the relevant articles ? already in digital form ? are combined. You then have a digital document, for example in PDF-format.

The press reviews can thus be stored as a file on your PC, without needing extra room for paper storage. Navigation through them is also easier, just think about the scroll button instead of turning page after page.

Press reviews are still an extremely valuable business tool to get an overview about the information circulating in the media, but only in a format adapted to today's fast workflow situation. If you are not yet accustomed to the creation of digital press reviews or if you think their composition is too complicated for you, you can still benefit from their advantages. Simply choose a provider of digital press reviews, tell them the search topic and let them deliver the clipping to you.

About The Author

Kathrin Koehler works as PR consultant for the company activemeta.net, specialised in media monitoring and ? analysis services. For more information, go to www.activemeta.net or email to koehler@activemeta.net