Skip to main content
Trend Reports (for Journalists)

Track past and current coverage to inform your own

Sara Sorenson avatar
Written by Sara Sorenson
Updated over 2 months ago

The information in this article applies to Journalists listed in Muck Rack's database. For information specific to a PR Professional using Muck Rack, check out our Trend Reports article.

Trend Reports (for Journalists)

banner, decorative

Trends on Muck Rack instantly analyzes and compares articles published to show how news is trending. Search for two or more topics, and Muck Rack instantly combs through millions of articles to bring you insights like the number of articles published over time as well as top media outlets and journalists.

Exclusive to Verified Journalists

The Trends feature is only available to Muck Rack-verified journalists.

Watch the video below to learn more about Trend Reports.


Create A Trend Report

  1. From the main navigation bar, select Trends, or go straight to https://muckrack.com/trends/.

    NOTE: If you are logged in, you will have the option to save your Trend report.

  2. Enter Terms or select Saved Searches to include in your report. Each of these will correspond to one line on a graph.

    Shows terms being entered into the text field of the Trends page


  3. Select the Generate button.

    Closeup of the Generate button

  4. Review your results.

    Shows a Trends report being generated and scrolling down through the full report


Navigate a Trend Report

There are a few key areas to note when viewing a Trend Report:

  • Terms & Saved Searches: This section appears at the very top. It can be edited at any time to add or change terms to include in the report. If adding or editing any terms, be sure to select the Generate button to refresh the report. This is also where you can Reset terms or Save Changes on a Trend Report.

  • Date Filters: At the top of the report you will find date filters; these can be adjusted manually to update the data.

  • Widgets: Report widgets appear below the Date Filters, with the top section showing data for all of the Terms or Saved Searches compared to one another. At the top of any data visualization widgets for this section, you will see an Export option which allows you to export the data for that individual widget.

    Below the top section, each Term or Saved Search is broken out individually to show Top Authors, Top Outlets, and Unique Outlets for each.

Shows an example of a full Trends Report


Edit A Trend Report

  1. From the main navigation bar, select Trends, or go straight to https://muckrack.com/trends/.

  2. Select the desired Trend Report under Saved Trend Reports.

    Shows the Trends page with the 'Saved Trend Reports' section highlighted at the bottom and the name of a report circled in red

  3. Enter a new Term or Search or modify existing ones, then select the Generate button to add them to the report.

    Shows a new term being added to an existing Trend Report


  4. Delete an existing Term or Search by selecting the three dots on the right then Remove.

    Shows a term being removed from a Trend Report


  5. Modify the assigned color of any Term or Search in the report by selecting the matching circle on the left.

    Shows the color menu expanded next to a Term on a Trend Report


  6. Rename the report by selecting the name in the top left, editing the text, then selecting the checkmark to save the new name.

    Shows the name of a Trend Report being updated


  7. Update the date filters by selecting any of the presets in the first dropdown or selecting specific dates in the next two.

    Shows the various Date filters being selected


  8. Select Save Changes to save the changes on your Trend report.

    Shows a Trend Report with the 'Save Changes' button circled in red



Filter a Trend Report

For more control over the data included in your Trend Report, we recommend leveraging Saved Searches as your data sources rather than terms. This is because you can add custom filters to your Saved Searches to ensure you are only capturing the most relevant mentions.

Here is our suggested workflow:

  1. Run an article search with your keywords and add any filters you have in mind on the left-hand side.

    Shows the search results page for an Article search with the Filters menu highlighted on the left-hand side


    NOTE: Date filters applied to Saved Searches will be overridden by the date range applied to your Trend report.

  2. Select the Save Search button to save this search.

    Shows the search results page for an Article search with the 'Save Search' button highlighted and circled in red

  3. Navigate to a Trend report by selecting Trends, then selecting the report under the Saved Trend Reports section at the bottom.

    Shows the Trends page with the 'Saved Trend Reports' section highlighted at the bottom and the name of a report circled in red


  4. Select Add Saved Search, choose the search you just saved, then select the Generate button.

    Shows a Trend report with the 'Add Term or Saved Search' section highlighted and 'Saved Search' circled in red

  5. Select Save Trend Report to save your changes.

    Shows a Trend report with the 'Save Changes' button circled in red


Trend Report Data

Muck Rack offers various data points and metrics to make it easy to analyze trends. Learn more about the data available in Trend Reports below.

Metric

Description

Articles Over Time

thumbnail of this section of the report

The number of articles (by published date) that include the specified terms.

Total Articles

thumbnail of this section of the report

The total number of articles published that include the specified terms.

Top Authors

thumbnail of this section of the report

The number of articles published by a person.

An author that has published the most articles appears first in the list.

Top Outlets

thumbnail of this section of the report

The number of articles published by a publication.

A media outlet that has published the most articles appears first in the list.

Share of Voice

thumbnail of this section of the report

The number of articles from each specified term is displayed in a pie chart and as a percentage.

Unique Outlets

thumbnail of this section of the report

The number of distinct media sources (such as newspapers, websites, blogs, or TV channels) that have covered the specified term.

Each outlet is only counted once, regardless of how many times it publishes articles or reports on the topic.


Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Question

Answer

How are Top Authors and Top Outlets determined?

Top Authors and Top Media Outlets are calculated by the number of articles published by a person or publication.

An author or media outlet that has published the most articles appears first in the list.

Select any author or outlet to view their Muck Rack profile.

Can I export a Trend Report?

You cannot export the Trend Report as a whole, however, you can export the following select widgets:

  • Articles Over Time

  • Total Articles

  • Share of Voice

To do this, select the Export button in the top right of the widget, then select the format you'd like for your export.

How are Muck Rack Trends different from Google Trends?

While Google Trends provides data about what people are searching for, it doesn’t paint a full picture of what is getting the most press and only measures terms on a relative scale of one to 100. Muck Rack Trends shows how many articles mention a term over a set period of time.

What's the source of the article data?

Article data comes from the news sources around the world that Muck Rack indexes.

What is the 'Articles Over Time' graph useful for?

The Articles Over Time graph shows how many articles were written about a given term over time. A term can consist of any topics or keywords you’d like to evaluate.

Hover over points on the graph to see the specific number of articles written in a given month. You can currently analyze up to 10 terms concurrently.

What is Share of Voice?

Share of Voice provides a breakdown of the number of articles mentioning a given term out of the total number of articles written about all searched terms.

Hover over the share of voice graph to see the %s each term represents out of all articles analyzed.

What are some real-life examples of how I could use trends for my reporting?

  • See if there have been any spikes or dips in the number of articles published about a given topic or set of topics

  • See who has published the most articles about a given topic or set up topics (e.g. top authors about ‘baseball’ and ‘basketball’)

Have other ideas of real-life use cases of Trends? Let us know at hello@muckrack.com



Get Help

For additional help, contact support by choosing the chat icon in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen and selecting Messages > Send us a message.


💬 Was this article helpful?

Share your feedback and let us know how to improve our Help Center content.

Did this answer your question?