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Media Relations: Managing Media Lists with Labels, Merging and Comparison Tools

Create, maintain, and manage your rolodex more efficiently with our new media list management experience.

Blake Corman avatar
Written by Blake Corman
Updated yesterday

Media Relations > Media Lists is your home for contact management. This overview page features dedicated tabs that display information about your media lists, all journalists or other contacts on your media lists, and all imported or created (private) contacts. Soon, we will support adding newsdesks (sources) to media lists as well.

What's the Value?

Streamline contact management with customizable table views, detailed list analytics, and a powerful List Comparison tool. Spend less time wondering about the content and quality of your lists and redirect that time toward engaging authentically with the right people.

Understand who’s in your rolodex at-a-glance by maintaining organized lists, either by assigning labels to or merging your media lists.

  • Improved Organization: Easily label lists based on priority, geography, or client, ensuring targeted outreach.

  • Comprehensive Targeting: Prevent list overlap, identify unique contacts, understand open rate engagement at the contact level, and refine your targeting strategy for maximum impact.

  • Simplified List Management: Merge or delete outdated lists, eliminate duplicates, and maintain updated records for effective communication.

In the Media lists tab, you can customize which data appears by editing table columns, visit the media list details page by clicking any list, and apply labels for better organization.

Additionally, the List Comparison tool allows you to compare two media lists, as well as take actions to merge, update, prune or create derivative media lists.

This article will cover:

Let’s get started!


Media Lists Overview

To get started, follow these steps:

  1. Select Media Relations in the left-hand navigation bar

  2. Click Media Lists

The Media Lists pages feature multiple tabs for the different types of records that you store related to media lists. This includes a tab for media lists themselves, a tab for all journalists or other media contacts on your media lists, a tab for all newsdesks (sources) you’ve added to media lists (coming soon!), and a tab for all privately imported or created contacts.

Media Lists Actions Button

When clicking Actions in the top right-hand corner, you can:

  1. Create a new media list

  2. Search for journalists or sources

  3. Create a new profile

  4. Import private contacts from a CSV list

  5. Compare or merge media lists using the list comparison tool

On the Media Lists landing page, you can toggle between Media lists and All journalists

Note: ‘All journalists’ includes all journalists or other contacts added to your lists.

Table Viewing Modes

In the All journalists and Private contacts tabs, you can toggle the viewing mode between default or compact view. The default view is a compact table featuring the ability to edit which data columns appear, but you can toggle to an expanded view that showcases specific information about your journalists or contacts.

Note: By clicking on the viewing mode button, the table will adjust. You will be prompted as to whether you would like to set the alternate viewing mode as your default.

Media List Details Page

On the Media lists tab, click on a list to expose more details about the list, including labels to which the list belongs, the date last updated, contacts on the list, and the last interaction between a member of your team and the list (to set this up, learn more about Shared Inbox).

From here, you can also see specific analytics, such as the number of emails sent, as well as open, click-to-open, and unsubscribe rates.

In the toolbar, you can take a range of actions from the file actions button or purple page actions button. These include editing the media list name/description, duplicating or deleting the media list, exporting the media list to a CSV document, or sending an email to the list, provided that it contains less than the maximum number of recipients.


Editing Data Presented in Table Columns

Whenever your table viewing mode is set to compact and not expanded, you have the ability to customize which columns of data are presented. You can toggle particular columns on and off, as well as change their order in the table.

From the Media List Table

  1. Navigate to the Media lists tab

  2. Click Edit table columns


  3. Toggle the desired columns on or off using the toggle

  4. Click apply

  5. We will remember your selection for next time

Columns you may use for media lists

  • Name: This is the name of your media list

  • Created by: This is the name of the user who created the media list

  • Contacts: This is the number of contacts that are on the media list

  • Emails sent: This is the number of emails that have been sent to the media list from Media Relations Outreach

  • Last updated: This is the date when the media list was last updated

    • The ‘settings’ drill-down allows you to customize the display format for dates

  • Last updated by: This is the name of the user who last updated the media list

  • Date created: This is the date when the media list was created

    • The ‘settings’ drill-down allows you to customize the display format for dates

  • Topic (coming soon!): This column will display the topics mainly covered by the contacts in the list based on a statistical analysis of the content they published in the last 30 days.


💡 Do you have ideas for additional data columns? Send them our way in mCommunity.


From the Journalist and Contacts Tables

  1. Navigate to the All journalists, All newsdesks or Private contacts tabs

  2. Click Edit table columns

  3. Toggle the desired columns on or off using the toggle

  4. Click apply

  5. We will remember your selection for next time

Columns you may use for the journalist and contact tables

  • Name: This is the name of the journalist or media contact

  • Email: This is the primary email address for the journalist or media contact. If you’ve added a user-modified email address to the profile, it will appear here.

  • Lists: This column will show the lists to which the journalist or media contact belongs

  • Open rate: This is the cumulative open rate for the journalist or media contact, based on delivered Outreach distributions to that contact.

  • Last contacted: This is the date when the contact was last contacted

    • The ‘settings’ drill-down allows you to customize the display format for date

  • Source: This is the primary source at which the contact works

  • Location: This is location we have for the contact

    • The ‘settings’ drill-down allows you to customize whether one or all of the following are displayed in the location column: Country, region and city

  • Phone number: This is the primary phone number for the journalist or media contact. If you’ve added a user-modified phone number to the profile, it will appear here.


💡 Do you have ideas for additional data columns? Send them our way in mCommunity.


Labeling your Lists

There are two different ways to label your lists. Either from the Media list tab’s table or the Media list’s details page.

From the Media List Table

  1. Click Media Relations in the left-hand navigation bar

  2. Click Media Lists

  3. On the Media lists tab

  4. Label individual lists by hovering over the list and clicking the Add label button, or

  5. Label multiple lists by selecting the desired lists and clicking the Add label button in the aqua toolbar

  6. From here, you can create a new label or select an existing label

Note: if you have edited your table columns or your screen is not accommodating the full width of the table, you can right-click to open a menu for taking all of these actions

From the Media List’s Details Page

  1. Click Media Relations in the left-hand navigation bar

  2. Click Media Lists

  3. On the Media lists tab

  4. Click on a Media list to be navigated to its details page

  5. Select Add Label

From here, you can create a new label or select an existing label.

Labels can be assigned to your lists by campaign priority, initiative, region team member, or any other characteristic that makes sense to you. By clicking on a given label in the Labels panel, you’ll filter the media list table to show only the lists with that label. Labels can be managed by accessing Content > Labels in the left navigation bar.


Taking Action on Media Lists

Bulk Actions Available for Selected Media Lists

  1. Click Media Relations in the left-hand navigation bar

  2. Click Media Lists

  3. On the Media lists tab,

  4. Click on a media list

  5. Select the check box next to one or multiple media lists

  6. Select a desired bulk action from the aqua toolbar in the table.

  7. From here, you can email, label, compare, merge or delete the media lists.

Individual Actions Available for Media Lists

  1. Click Media Relations in the left-hand navigation bar

  2. Click Media Lists

  3. On the Media lists tab,

  4. Hover on a media list in the table

  5. On hover, you may email, label, edit, duplicate or delete the media list

Note: If you have edited your table columns or your screen is not accommodating the full width of the table, you can right-click to open a menu for taking all of these actions.


Taking Action on Journalists and other Contacts

Bulk Actions Available for Selected Journalists

  1. Click Media Relations in the left-hand navigation bar

  2. Click Media Lists

  3. On the All journalists or Private contacts tab,

  4. Select the check box next to one or multiple journalists

  5. Select a desired bulk action from the aqua toolbar in the table.

  6. From here, you can download a CSV of the selected contacts’ details, email the selected contacts, add to another list, or remove them from all lists

Individual Actions Available for Journalists

  1. Click Media Relations in the left-hand navigation bar

  2. Click Media Lists

  3. On the Media lists tab,

  4. Hovering over the compact view table of results, you can

  5. On hover, you can copy the journalist’s email address, email the journalist, add them to another list, or remove them from all lists

Note: if you have edited your table columns or your screen is not accommodating the full width of the table, you can right-click to open a menu for taking all of these actions


Searching for Media Lists

You can search for media lists by their metadata in the table, or by a journalist’s name. To search for a Media list, follow these steps:

  1. Click Media Relations in the left-hand navigation bar

  2. Click Media Lists

  3. On the Media lists tab,

  4. Click on the finder icon (magnifying glass) to open the search bar

  5. You may search for either media lists or journalists by name to identify all relevant media lists that match

Alternatively, search for media lists by their name or journalist names in the All journalists or Private contacts tabs.


List Merging and List Comparison

List Merging

To merge two or more lists, follow these steps:

  1. Click Media Relations

  2. Select Media Lists

  3. On the Media lists tab,

  4. Check the boxes to the left of the media list names you want to merge

  5. Select Merge lists in the aqua toolbar

You will be prompted as to whether you’d like to keep or delete the underlying lists you are merging together.

Note: You may only merge lists together that include no more contacts than your Outreach distribution limit. For most customers, this is 1,000 contacts.

Note: You may also merge two lists together from the List Comparison tool’s toolbar.

List Comparison

To compare lists, follow the below steps.

  1. Click Media Relations

  2. Select Media Lists

  3. On the Media lists tab,

  4. Check the boxes to the left of exactly two media lists you would like to compare

  5. Click Compare lists in the aqua toolbar

  6. You will be navigated to the List Comparison tool with both selected lists pre-selected.

  7. The left-most list displays contacts only in the first selected list. The right-most list displays contacts only in the second selected list. The middle list displays all contacts that belong to both lists.

  8. From here, you may switch the lists you are comparing, filter the lists by Beats, Language, Location, Profile type, or Open rate. Be sure to click ‘Update results’ to apply your filter selections.

  9. You may select individual or all members in each shown list and choose from options including Add to another list, download a CSV of the details for the selected contacts, or remove those contacts from lists.

Note: From the Media Lists overview page, you can navigate directly to the List Comparison tool from the purple Actions button.

Click ‘Compare or merge media lists’ to be navigated to the List Comparison tool.


Importing Journalists

To import private journalists, follow the below steps.

  1. Click Media Relations

  2. Select Media Lists

  3. Select Actions in the top right-hand corner

  4. Click Import from a CSV List

  5. Select Browse files

  6. Select your CSV file. You can import up to 10,000 records at once.

Note: Please ensure all CSV files follow the template associated with your desired country

  1. Select a media list you’d like to which you’d like to import these journalists, if applicable. While you can import 10,000 records at once, we recommend adding to lists no more than the number of contacts to which you are entitled to email per distribution. This is 1,000 for most customers.

  2. Click Add contacts. The import will process in the background, and you will be notified when it is complete or if there are any errors.

  3. Contact matching will attempt to match your imported records with those in Meltwater's database. They'll be added to a separate media list for your review.

FAQ

How do contact level open rates work?

We've back-filled open rates for emailed contacts back to 01-01-2020 for most clients, and moving forward, all delivered and opened emails to contacts we are tracking will have those opens counted toward their cumulative open rate.

Can I add a newsdesk (source) to a media list?

In a future update, we will enable Newsdesks (sources) to be available for adding into media lists and used in outreach

How many contacts can I import?

There is a limit of 10,000 contacts per CSV import.

Is there a limit to the number of contacts in lists that can be merged or added to a media list?

There is no limit on the number of imported contacts that can be added to or merged together in media lists, but if you add more contacts to a media list than to which you are entitled to send to via Outreach, your Outreach will be sent to the first 1,000 recipients (your Outreach will not be sent properly).

If your media lists contain too many members, we encourage you to reduce the total number of contacts manually, or by using the list comparison tool.

Why can’t I see all of the columns in my Media List Management table?

Sometimes, the Media List Management table view has a limited amount of columns visible on the screen. If you run into this, just right-click on the table to open a menu to take relevant actions and scroll horizontally to bring all columns into view. These settings will continue to be applied after you customize them.


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