The Centre for Peace Studies is a human rights organization whose primary goals are social changes based on non-violence, equality, and solidarity. They’re trying to achieve social changes through activism, education, advocacy activities, and working with other organizations, institutions, media, and individuals in Croatia and internationally. Currently, they’re active through three programs – Asylum, integration and human security, Peace education and the affirmation of non-violence, and Combating Inequalities.
For this case study, we talked to Lovorka Šošić, the Head of PR at The Centre for Peace Studies. She’s been working there since 2016, and her responsibilities are coaching people for public appearances, creating online and offline campaigns, preparing press conferences, and monitoring current political topics, to name a few.
Challenge
Lovorka says that before Determ, they tracked their topics of interest manually or through free Google tools. Also, they’ve used another service to collect data from the print media. However, they’ve realized they need something comprehensive to track all their topics, statements, and posts of interest so they can react in real-time. They’ve got recommendations for Determ, tested the tool, and decided it’s a good fit.
Solution
When they started using Determ, they used it primarily to monitor online media outlets, but with time they saw extra benefits, such as monitoring social media. Determ helps them monitor socially engaged campaigns, whether their messages reached the public, and how they were received. Equally important to them is reporting on project activities – they have a better overview than they could without the tool.
Impact
Lovorka summed up how Determ helps them in their everyday work in three main benefits:
- Being informed in real-time about important topics and keywords
- Faster reaction
- Making monitoring and reporting much easier
“It seems to me that Determ has changed for the better over the years, and this is something that we, as a long-term client, notice. I have already recommended it, so I would say I give it 10 out of 10. Determ is more than a tool that we use; there are people behind it who are ready to support and help us in situations where we do not know how best to establish metrics we can measure. And what I have already mentioned is constant quality improvement. It's changing so much, and it's changing for the better. I feel that trends are being followed and that new social networks are being included. I would say that Determ is sometimes a step ahead of what we need, so I would continue to recommend it.”
Lovorka Šošić
Head of PR at The Centre for Peace Studies
One of the most common ways they use Determ is to monitor which media outlets wrote about them and analyze how to reach audiences that weren’t covered through those outlets.
Regarding features, Lovorka says that she uses all of the features in the toolbar – feed, reports, export, digests, alerts, and automated actions. Among those, she singled out alerts, reports, and digests as the ones she uses the most. When it comes to reports, they mostly use the Basic and Advanced dashboards in the tool, which they find sufficient for making predictions, and they like that creating reports is so quick and easy.
But Lovorka isn’t the only one that uses Determ in The Centre for Peace Studies – she says the whole team is using the tool one way or another. Also, she says that in the beginning, she was using Determ on a basic level, but our team showed her new options and explained how to use the tool in the most productive way, which she appreciated.
“Every time I talk to someone from Determ, I find something new that’s really important to me. I think that people are one of your biggest qualities!”
Lovorka Šošić
Head of PR at The Centre for Peace Studies
When asked what she would say to users who are testing out Determ, Lovorka said:
“Primarily, I think that it is a tool that speeds up and facilitates our work and gives us insight into data that we could not have without it. If you have a budget for it, it is definitely worth it. In our case, as a civil organization, it does not create profit, but it creates greater visibility for us. Lately, Determ has started to invest more in educating the people it works with. Over the past year, I have been to several educations organized by Determ, and I heard and saw something useful at each one. I think it's important to try it and get around it, but that's all something that will make it easier for you in the long run.”
Lovorka Šošić
Head of PR at The Centre for Peace Studies
