PR News: How Social Listening Turns Black Friday Viral Noise into Brand Intelligence

The high-stakes world of fast-moving events like Black Friday shows a critical shift: success now requires gaining the approval of algorithms and Large Language Models (LLMs), not just human attention.

Meltwater's 2025 Black Friday analysis, featured in PR News, tracked a record 3.72 million mentions, highlighting a major communication dynamic: Broadcast TV set the early narrative (32% share of voice), but X (formerly Twitter) owned the moment, surging to 36% of real-time mentions on Black Friday itself.

Read the full article here: PR News, Cheese Recall, Black Friday Frenzy and a Holiday PSA That Hits Home

Meltwater Chief Strategy Officer, Alexandra Bjertnæs, explains the challenge: "Attention surges overnight, peaks in hours, and vanishes just as quickly."

Bjertnæs highlights a critical point that LLMs are now key to brand perception: “If your brand appears in AI-generated recommendations as a result of strong GEO and SEO strategy, you’re instantly positioned as a category leader.” Because LLMs rely heavily on credible media coverage, your earned media is a direct factor in your algorithmic authority, making earned media just as essential as SEO.

Meltwater’s AI Solution: GenAI Lens

Meltwater helps brands solve this challenge with GenAI Lens, empowering brand leaders to confidently shape their narrative in the AI era. This feature allows PR teams and brands to monitor and influence how they are represented across major LLMs (like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude).

GenAI Lens provides crucial transparency such as:

• Tracking LLM Responses: See the exact answers generated about your brand.
• Source Transparency: Identify the specific news links LLMs cite, allowing you to target the content driving the AI’s narrative.
• Monitor how competitors are portrayed: Uncover competitive opportunities, industry trends or emerging topics, helping you stay ahead of the narrative and refine positioning. 

With tools like GenAI Lens, Meltwater Meltwater is a global leader in media, social, and consumer intelligence, helping over 27,000 brands worldwide understand and shape their stories across media, social and LLM environments. Learn more about Meltwater.