Croatian mountain rescue service (HGSS) uses Determ to aid their rescue missions.

  • Conversation with

    Jadran Kapović, Head of HGSS’ Information and Analytics Committee

  • Company type

    Voluntary association

  • Location

    Croatia

  • Best impact

    Reporting, Export, Alerts

Croatian mountain rescue service (HGSS in Croatian) is a national, voluntary, professional, humanitarian, and non-partisan association working in the public interest. Established 72 years ago, the association has over 1100 volunteers and over 15 000 actions behind them. Their work consists of rescuing efforts in inaccessible areas and preventative efforts such as providing educational materials and guidelines. Their preventive measures are essential because they significantly reduce the number of rescue efforts.

For this case study, we talked with Jadran Kapović, the Head of HGSS’ Information and Analytics Committee and a volunteer. He’s been a volunteer in the association for ten years and became the Head of HGSS’ Information and Analytics Committee in 2018. HGSS is known for its excellent social media presence, which got them two Grand Prix awards from the Croatia Public Relations Association (HUOJ) for Best Communicators in 2017 and Best Event Communication for their tweet exhibition Trending #HGSS70.

Challenge

Jadran says they realized they needed a solution like Determ when they started working on their 70 years of HGSS campaign. Also, they’ve realized that digital media is far more vital to them than traditional media, but manually monitoring and analyzing what’s being published wasn’t an option for them.

Solution & Impact

Determ proved to be especially beneficial for HGSS in two ways – during the tweet exhibition Trending #HGSS70 and during the 13-hour-long rescue mission of a dog who fell into a deep pit.

In the first instance, Determ’s data and reports helped them document how many online media outlets covered their event and measured social media presence and media value during the exhibition. By proving that their exhibition was widely covered, they secured a Grand Prix award for Best Event Communication.

"Otherwise, we would have to do it manually, and it wouldn’t look as professional as it did. We simply did the data export, divided reports into social media and online media, and then compared it with other events happening at the same time. If it weren’t for Determ, everything would go much, much harder. At that moment, we realized that we have a simple tool that can provide us with great results.”

When it came to the dog rescue mission, they saw another benefit. They noticed that a foreign media outlet published a story about the rescue mission and started getting spike alerts in Determ that other outlets were also picking up the story. Jadran says that spike alerts showed him that the story is quite interesting and that they should start preparing press materials. When the media outlets contacted them, they already had all their materials ready.

"We noticed that one foreign media outlet published the story and then came spike alerts. A lot of other media outlets started contacting us… I think it was at least 15-20 foreign media outlets. Then we’re able to monitor everything through Determ. That was definitely the most published story about HGSS ever. At least that I know of.”

Aside from spike alerts, Jadran pointed out that the most significant benefit of the tool was getting measurable data in the reports, which helped them justify their work and results.

“Firstly, the cost/benefit ratio is fantastic! There are a lot of benefits to it that might not be visible when you first start using it. Also, you can monitor emerging trends. We noticed which news performed better, and we could adjust our communication strategy accordingly. Secondly, your customer and tech support are superb. Absolutely one of the most pleasant customer support ever. There wasn’t a problem we weren’t able to solve.”

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