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AI adoption is no longer the challenge—trusted context is. Most organizations have AI tools, but many still rely on disconnected, stale, or unverified data, limiting the quality and trustworthiness of AI-generated outputs. Meltwater MCP brings trusted, real-time intelligence into AI assistants.

Your Best Context is Already in the Room

Today, PR teams aren’t just tracking media coverage and share of voice. They’re also measuring how their brand shows up in AI-generated answers, search summaries, and large language models (LLMs). This new LLM visibility layer is quickly becoming a critical part of PR performance.

15 Must-Have PR KPIs and How to Track Them

See how one platform can power every decision across PR, communications, and marketing.

The Meltwater Blog

Blog Topics: Generative Engine Optimization, Media Intelligence, Media Relations, Social Listening, Consumer Intelligence, Influencer Marketing

Find out how you can leverage Facebook to boost your brand's online presence and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

Facebook Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage Instagram to boost your brand's visual appeal and gain a competitive edge. Explore our category page today!

Instagram Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage LinkedIN to grow your professional network and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

LinkedIn Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage TikTok to elevate your brand with creative content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

TikTok Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage X / Twitter to engage your audience effectively and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

X / Twitter Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage YouTube to create engaging video content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

YouTube Blog | Meltwater

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is transforming how brands show up in AI-powered search. Explore insights, strategies, and best practices to help your content rank and resonate across conversational engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot.

Explore insights and strategies for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) to help your brand stay visible and discoverable in AI-powered search.

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Blog Collection | Meltwater

Every day billions of conversations take place on social media: tweets, posts, comments, blogs, reviews, podcasts, and much more.
Learn how to use social listening to make sense of all of that data.

On our social listening category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around social listening and social media monitoring. Read more.

Social Listening Blogs | Category

Business Reputation Management: What does it take to add reputation management to your marketing strategy? More importantly, how do you keep your reputation sparkly and shiny? Here’s your all-access guide to online reputation management for the long term.

On our reputation management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around business reputation management. Read more.

Reputation Management Blogs | Category

From your brand's logo to your website, your social media presence to your customer support—these elements combined are what constitutes a brand in the minds of customers. But, there are thousands of other businesses that have a logo, website, social media presence, and website. So, how can you position your business on the market and make it stand out from the competition?
The key to success is branding & brand management!

On our brand management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around brand management. Build your strategy and reach your goals!

Brand Management Blogs | Category

Competitive intelligence and the act of collecting competitive data can be seen as growth drivers for a company. Our guide will help you understand the concept of competitive intelligence (CI) by answering questions such as: What is the definition of competitive intelligence? How is competitive intelligence useful to organizations? What is the goal of competitive intelligence? And more.

On our competitive intelligence category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around competitive intelligence. Learn how to stay ahead.

Competitive Intelligence Blogs | Category

Let’s dive into the customer journey framework and how to optimize the process by creating a customer journey map and using metrics that matter when analyzing the customer journey.

On our customer journey category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Customer Journey Blogs | Category

What Is Data Analytics?
How can I grow my business? 
How do customers interact with my newly launched product?
How do I increase the productivity of my employees?
How do I know if my marketing efforts are working?
We have just two words for you...Data analytics!

On our data analytics category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around AI and data analytics. Technical and still easy to understand.

AI & Data Analytics Blogs | Category

Public relations and media relations can add impact to any marketing strategy. It’s an opportunity for brands to grow their reach beyond traditional sales messages. PR helps to shape the image you want people to have of your brand.
So, what is PR and how do you use it? This guide shows you everything you need to know to build a strong public relations foundation.

On our public relations (PR) category page, you find all our blogs covering public relations and communications topics. Step up your PR game.

Public Relations (PR) Blogs | Category

We all know exactly what the roles of sales or accounting are in a company, right? We might even have a slight idea of what the IT guys are doing.
But there is another business discipline, that plays a crucial role in organizations, even more so during the pandemic – internal communications!
But what exactly do we mean by that, what purpose does it serve and what steps can you take to ensure you and your employees will communicate effectively?

On our internal communications category page, you find all our blogs about internal comms topics. Learn about the intranet, internal newsletters, and more.

Internal Communications Blogs | Category

As the internet has taken root in more areas of our lives — everything from entertainment to shopping to paying bills and more — traditional marketing is becoming less impactful. As any marketer knows, you need to focus on where your audience is if you want to reach them. Since the average person spends about seven hours a day online, it’s no surprise that content has maintained its hold on marketers.
Here's a closer look at what content marketing is and why it matters more than ever in our digital-first economy.

On our content marketing category page, you find blogs about content marketing topics. Learn about strategies, KPIs, tips, and more. Make your content king!

Content Marketing Blogs | Category

The rise of the influencer marketing space – today a $10 billion industry, growing 50% per year – is one of the clearest examples of how social media is transforming traditional marketing. These days having a business website, presence on social, PR coverage, and your own content isn’t enough to compete.
We'll dive into the intricacies of influencer marketing to help ensure that you're equipped with the insights needed to be successful in this space.

On our influencer marketing category page, you find blogs about influencer marketing topics. Build your strategy, find influencers, and measure results.

Influencer Marketing Blogs | Category

Have you just launched a new product or service that you want to get the word out about? Maybe you want to share with consumers why it is awesome and how it is so much better than the one your competitors offer.
Well, then, there is one thing you can't do without...Marketing!

On our marketing category page, you find blogs about marketing topics. Learn about all the different angles and types of marketing and improve your results.

Marketing Blogs | Category

In this guide, we want to give you a peek into the definition of social media management, the daily schedule of a social media manager, social media platforms to promote your business, and the do’s & don’ts of social media management.
Are you ready to begin the journey of becoming a social media superstar?

On our social media management category page, you find blogs about social media management topics. Build and manage your online community.

Social Media Management Blogs | Category

Building a following and using social media platforms to reach a wider audience requires a well-planned social media marketing strategy. In this guide, we’ll be looking at why social media marketing is so essential and how you can make it work for your business.

On our social media marketing category page, you find blogs about social media marketing topics. Learn how to get the highest paid social ROI!

Social Media Marketing Blogs | Category

In the fast-evolving realm of digital marketing and public relations, utilizing the right tools is crucial for success. Our interdisciplinary category showcases all the pertinent tools for digital marketing & PR. These tools help in enhancing your online presence and effectively reaching target groups, whether through reputation management, influencer marketing, or social media management.

On our digital marketing and PR tools category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Digital Marketing & PR Tools Blogs | Category

Media monitoring helps organizations stay informed about what’s being said across online news, print, broadcast, podcasts, and other media channels. Whether you're tracking brand mentions, measuring PR performance, monitoring competitors, or identifying emerging trends, our expert guides, best practices, and industry insights will help you build a smarter media monitoring strategy and make more informed communications decisions.

Discover expert media monitoring guides, best practices, and industry insights to track brand mentions, monitor competitors, and stay ahead of the news.

Media Monitoring: Guides, Best Practices & Industry Insights

Data is a sizzling hot topic these days. Marketers are learning how to use the right information to drive leads and close sales in record time. Data, refines strategy and optimizes efforts, driving your campaign to new heights.

But despite all the buzz data is getting in industry circles, most marketers are focusing on how it informs strategy rather than content. And we’re missing the boat. As Alexandra Samuel said in the Harvard Business Review, “Yet even as companies have embraced their new role as content creators, they’ve largely missed out on one of the hottest trends in the world of traditional media: data journalism.”

Not only does data allow for new insights and build authority, Samuel argues that “data-driven stories attract the kind of social media attention that publishers dream about: fresh data and infographics spread across Twitter, Facebook and other social channels precisely because they are able to tell a story in a concise, compelling and visually appealing way.”

Data storytelling hits an emotional and intellectual pulse that rivets your audience and keeps them coming back for more.

In 1921, a Guardian editor wrote, “Comment is free, but facts are sacred.” Almost 100 years later, the same holds true in content marketing. To gain a foothold as an authoritative brand, you need to build your content on data, not opinion.

Even if you want to craft an eye-opening opinion piece, facts will be the bones of your story. Sarah Slobin at Wall Street Journal reveals why data storytelling is the way forward:

We can paint pictures of our entire lives with our digital trails. From what we consume and browse, to where and when we travel, to our musical preferences, our first loves, our children’s milestones, even our last wishes – it all can be tracked, digitized, stored in the cloud and disseminated. This universe of data can be surfaced to tell stories, answer questions and impart an understanding of life in ways that is currently surpassing even the most rigorous and careful reconstruction of anecdotes.

Now that this kind of data is available to us, digital storytelling can be both energized and grounded in information.

Understanding the Different Ways to Conceptualize Data

Data storytelling means different things to different people. There’s no one way to tell a story. Data unlocks limitless possibilities — you can shape facts and statistics into any form. You can even create new content formats with data (check out the history of infographics).

As you start to see your data as a goldmine not only for your strategy but also for your storytelling, you open up your content production horizons – serving up formats your audience is asking for.

Here are just some of the many formats you can consider for data storytelling:

For more options, check out the Data Visualization Catalogue compiled by graphic designer Severino Ribecca. This ever-growing library of visual systems is an awesome resource for any content creator — it includes 60 form types, information about the best options for your data, and a list of creative resources that would make the best designers jealous.

Using data visualization as your storytelling method gives you the power to translate complex ideas and wide swaths of information into remarkable digital experiences.

Let’s take a look at five different narratives that showcase the power of data and how they work.

We’ll start with a seemingly simple infographic. Released as a summary of the Data Journalism Handbook Handbook, this infographic by Lulu Pinney gives the traditional table of contents a major upgrade.

Pinney used small circles to represent data floating in the digital world. As readers walk through each stage of data journalism, the circles morph into shapes or forms, until eventually, they are shared with the audience as finished stories.

Once dispersed into the world, data floats back to the beginning of the journey in the form of crowdsourced information. As readers move through each chapter, they gain the tools to apply new knowledge to the data at their fingertips. In other words, the journey through the handbook is a metaphor for the data-driven content creation process. Pretty cool, huh?

We can learn from the colour scheme as well. Bright orange and robin’s egg blue are snappy complementary colours that draw in the eye and act as the perfect backdrop for the graphic. According to a study from the University of Toronto, most people prefer graphics with two or three simple colours, so don’t get too complicated. Use this infographic as a blueprint for illustrating the steps of any process beyond the average listicle.

Ask yourself: what processes or steps could you illustrate with a graphic? How could you make the journey clearer through visualization?

Enlist the help of a talented designer to make your vision a reality.

Consider the color scheme – make it user friendly and easy to digest.

Don’t try to do too much! The best visualizations simplify complex ideas.

2. Use Data Storytelling to Illuminate Trends

Fried calamari is no longer the cool kid at the table — and it’s been replaced by brussel sprouts. (Yes, you read that right.) Neil Irwin, a senior economist correspondent for the New York Times, applied his analytical chops to measure food trends for the Upshot. He tracked the number of NYT articles using the term “fried calamari” as a proxy for its popularity over time.

Their graphic designer kept the calamari graph clear with one thin, purple line. Smaller charts in the article served dual purposes, showing the individual popularity of eight other foods over time, allowing readers to contrast and compare them against each other.

How could you use this in your own marketing? In some industries, measuring trends is itself a trend. Marketers that dig into their own data frequently discover interesting insights that might be worth sharing even outside their own four walls.

For example, Buffer recently conducted a study on their own blog traffic. What would happen if they stopped publishing new posts for a full month?

Their findings were fascinating and turned into an incredibly successful new piece of content for the Buffer blog itself. The team could have simply conducted this analysis, learned from it, and moved on – but they wanted to share it with their audience, who might want to apply those takeaways to their own strategies.

I love this example because the “data storytelling” element is so simple. Buffer is a fully transparent company, so they simply screenshotted their Google Analytics dashboard and inserted the graphic right into the post.

Next time, instead of mulling over your coolest finding at the water cooler with colleagues, share your off-beat finding with your community. They’ll thank you for it.

Identify a trend your audience cares about – that might mean digging into your own data.

Think about the “visualization” resources you already have – your technology dashboards can be a great place to start.

Share your insights with your community. Even if they aren’t necessarily earth-shaking, creating a show-and-tell can help foster customer relations and advocacy.

I stumbled on this epic piece of content in an article by Neil Patel on Quick Sprout. Patel’s findings are always gold — but this one surpassed all others by bringing data to a serious sports debate.

The question, “Who is better, Ronaldo or Messi?” has plagued soccer fanatics for years. FiveThirtyEight Sports decided to end the debate by breaking the question down to sheer metrics. Their findings: Ronaldo is a great player, but Messi is “impossible”. As Patel remarks, “He stands out so much on these graphs that no one can really make an argument against the conclusion.”

Neil Patel has a major point — FiveThirtyEight uses not one, but 18 different graphics to make the undeniable conclusion that Lionel Messi takes the cake…I mean, the cup.

If you ever need to make an argument, make sure to rely on visuals. Also, note how their graphic designer used the soccer field as part of the data visualization. Yes!

Identify the metrics you’re using in your persuasive copy and think of how you can represent them visually instead of just in numbers.

Whenever possible incorporate the subject’s theme into the design and display itself.

Provide variations on the data to show multiple perspectives and forms of evidence.

Data can end an argument, and it can also inspire people to action. George Washington University’s graduate program in health administration created this visualization about climate change to impart a sense of moral obligation.

Peter LaPuma, a professor at George Washington summarizes its impact, “This infographic helps to illustrate the environmental injustice issues related to climate change. The countries who have had the least to do with greenhouse gas emissions have the most to suffer from it.”

This piece of content makes a vast body of data absorbable for the average viewer. It uses the size of concentric circles as a metaphor for the injustice of the climate change crisis — the biggest emitters of CO2 are also the least vulnerable to the effects of climate change and vice versa.

A world map draws a second conclusion to the forefront, illustrating that most of the vulnerable nations are in Sub-Saharan Africa. The most amazing visualizations never leave you guessing — it clearly illustrates a point, and in the case of this infographic, move you closer to empathy and change.

Devote time to understanding your core audience and find out what interests them, what their pain points are, and what will motivate them.

Use data to inspire a connection that will resonate with them past the typical sales points, touching upon them as people and not just buyers.

Make your designs to clearly emphasize the main takeaways, not leaving any guesswork for the viewer.

5. Make Data Storytelling an Interactive Experience

Michael Schrage, a fellow at MIT’s Sloan believes that data visualization will not reach its full potential until it seeks to engage, not just enlighten:

Yes, accessibility, understanding, and insight are the wonderful products of wonderful visualizations. But truly transformative visualizations invite people to touch, stroke, and go deeper into the data that underlie them. They engage, and encourage engagement. They give their users a new way to view each other, as well as the data. (The London School of Economics and Political Science, 2013)

At SnapApp, we couldn’t agree more. Interactive data applications take visualization to the next level, engaging the audience with a malleable experience that shifts with individual interests.

This application from GapMinder illustrates the correlation between life expectancy and GDP per capita. You can also adjust the year of the data displayed, or view the progression of age expectancy over time by pressing “Play” on the bottom left button. Users can select certain countries to compare, and can also correlate the data with each continent.

Just in case you still want to dig a bit deeper, click their “How to Use” button for more tidbits on making the most of the data.

By having different dynamics users can alter and control, automatically gets them sitting and more interested in the results they are creating. Providing different functions piques different interests, giving you a bigger target.

Interactivity brings a new dimension to a visual experience, and we are just beginning to crack into its potential as marketers.

Repurpose your current infographics into interactive experiences where users participate with the interface.

Create dynamic calculators where prospects can apply their own numbers to see results based on your data findings. This creates a direct and personalized result.

Layer in questions into your data displays to learn more about your audience. Use this data to build better buyer profiles and inform future content.

In Review: Why Visual and Interactive Data?

Ninety percent of the world’s data has been created in the last two years alone! As a marketer and consumer, you have more access to information than any generation before you.

With so much of the same content formats constantly being promoted to buyers everywhere, creating unique stories and visual experiences with hard numbers can give your marketing the edge to stand out.

Start learning how to analyze information and mold your best gems into visual and interactive experiences. And remember — data and graphics are a winning pair, like mac ‘n cheese. Never leave your best assets hanging without their other half.

Meltwater’s Crowdsight can help uncover your brand’s data story. Our platform uncovers trends and influencers in pop culture, media, and business for data that will reveal connections between events, people, and topics. Crowdsight insights can spur valuable real-time conversation.

This article was written by Elizabeth Wellington from Business2Community and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.

5 Amazing Ways to Impact Your Audience with Data Storytelling

Each day brands and consumers alike leave a trail of digital breadcrumbs. When traced and analysed, this litter of online activity can be used to provide organisations with business-critical information on their audience, competition, industry trends, risks and more.

Did you know that 90% of the world’s internet data was generated in the last two years alone? This equates to 2.5 quintillion bytes of data created on a daily basis. That’s billions of individual data-points containing infinite amounts of business-critical information that can be used to inform corporate decision making.

Although we’ve seen an increase in executives leveraging alternative data (data found from outside of their company’s walls), we’re still seeing many making business decisions solely based on internal data. Even more worryingly, a study by Gartner found that 95% of leaders continue to make business decisions using intuition and significantly underestimate risks as a result.

Internal data, such as sales volumes, financial numbers, CRM data etc. is, and will remain, important. There are a bunch of companies out there, such as Salesforce and Oracle, doing a fantastic job in the business intelligence space, however, internal data looks at the past. The caveat is that it’s a lagging indicator. You wouldn’t drive a car only looking in your rearview mirror. The same should go for steering your business. You need to look ahead to spot hazards and stay abreast of the competition. Alternative data, give businesses the information advantage they need to do just that.

Mining and blending both internal and external insights helps you to stay fully informed and gain a 360 view of your company. Only then can you sleep well at night knowing you’re making decisions utilising the most complete set of data available.

During this article, I’ll walk you through the types of alternative data sources that can be tracked, as well as a handful of signals that can indicate the route to take when it comes to strategic decision making.

A treasure trove of valuable alternative data sources

Publicly available internet sources are a treasure trove for executives. When analysed, they offer insights into your ecosystem and surface threats/ opportunities in tandem. Being able to assess your company against the backdrop of the wider industry and understand the context of the landscape you’re operating in is critical for success. Here are a few examples of external data sources often monitored by the c-suite for that purpose:

Predictive insights lead to proactive business decision making

The remarkable evolution of big data technologies has led to an increase in companies creating data-driven business workflow processes, however, many execs are struggling to make sense of big data. Let’s admit, we’re drowning in it – and some companies are finding it difficult to stay afloat altogether. The truth is, executives need insights as well as data.

Advanced technology such as machine learning, natural language processing and AI are increasingly used in enterprise solutions for the purpose of making sense of big data. By converting unstructured sources into structured ones that enable Search, Alerting and Analytical capabilities, businesses are better able to harness the alternative data around them.

Perhaps one of the most promising areas in which AI helps us to make better business decisions is predictive insights. Using historical and real-time data, specially trained algorithms can look for patterns and signals which indicate what could happen in the future and alert you to real-time opportunities and threats as they grow.

Using external data, you can predict potential IPOs, growth patterns, investments and more. Extracting these trends can give you the edge you need to prepare for disruptions in the market, seize opportunities as they arise, and mitigate risks by solving business problems before they hit.

Systematically connecting the dots across different data sources instead of looking at them in isolation is vital. In doing so, companies can get to grips with casualties and surface insights used to benefit all functions of the company, from marketing, sales, R&D, HR and beyond.

Here are a few examples of signals that executives from various industries are using to inform critical business decision making.

As the saying goes, “no man is an island” – the same applies to businesses.

Each day your competitors leave behind plenty of online breadcrumbs that can be used to anticipate their next move and where your industry is heading. Competitive intelligence looks beyond financial data to provide you with an unbiased and comprehensive overview of your competitors’ strategies, company’s position in the market, customer perceptions, and rising trends to enable more proactive decision making.

Common ways businesses are conducting competitive intelligence include tracking conversation development around patent filings, R&D investments, hiring trends, and fluctuations in ad-spend with the aim of:

Predicting their competitor’s future focus areas

Defending market share from existing and emerging players

Evaluating the impact of current strategies vs how customers are responding to competitors’ strategies

A look at open job listings in competitor companies will show where they’re investing in terms of human resources and the new skills they are after. Significant discussions in the media or on social can indicate critical customer feedback, while financial changes indicate gaps in the market or new opportunities to take market share. Each of these factors demonstrates the wider position of the market and can help boards predict the impact of future decisions.

A search on the hiring trends of key automotive brands found AI giant, Tesla, to be at risk from competitor Volvo. The analysis showcases that Volvo is hiring x2.5 more engineers than Tesla and we see an uptick in jobs with Artificial intelligence, Machine learning & Virtual reality skills. Tesla should use such insights to defend their tech positioning.

News and social media information is a form of alternative data that’s growing in popularity among investors across the globe. Online media is filled with what the financial industry calls signals – or events which can indicate the growth trajectory (or lack of growth) for a particular company.

Below are just a few forward-looking signals used by investors to surface opportunities and discover potential threats since they offer a good indication of how a brand might perform when it reaches public markets.

Expanding on the above, employee turnover and mass layoffs are also indicative of the performance of a company. By tracking online news around mentions of mass layoffs (and the common job titles being let go), staff turnover, changes in leadership strategy, a new direction focus, poor company culture etc, as well as financial documents, investors are using insights to confidently plan where to part ways with their cash based on the general ‘health’ of the organisation.

From crowdsourced ideas to detailed consumer feedback and sentiment, insights drawn from alternative data are enabling product developers to get a much deeper understanding of their users and changing consumer behaviours.

The healthcare space is one example of a sector making positive strides in product development using external data. According to the Google Knowledge Graph, 1 in 20 Google searches are for health-related information. As long as a Google search remains more accessible than a visit to a doctor, there’s a good chance most consumers will continue to consult their search bar leading up to a conversation with a professional. If analysed in aggregate, this search data can be extremely helpful for healthcare professionals looking to better serve this population.

Search data gives us a micro glimpse into the public’s mindset, fears, concerns, curiosities and more. The use of such data points also helps to eliminate biases, so your teams can research and develop products that solve real problems. Leading pharmaceutical companies are also leveraging insights to inform the areas that stakeholders need further educating on, for example, side effects of particular vaccines.

The value of external data and predictive analytics has also increased significantly in the agricultural sector and is changing the culture of farming.

Platforms such as the CGIAR (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research) and the CIAT (International Center for Tropical Agriculture) are developing models to create strategic foresight scenarios which consider the impact of climate, water resources, and technology on agriculture. Farmers can use insights to make decisions, significantly reducing risk and increasing their chances of successful yield. And the industry has seen great success from doing so. In 2014, during a dry spell in Montería (Córdoba), the CIAT recommended farmers delay planting their rice crop. This advice was followed by 170 farmers. By leveraging external insights, farmers were able to mitigate risks. It’s estimated the farmers who followed advice avoided crop losses valued at over USD 3.6 million and produced a better crop yield in comparison to the neighbouring communities who went ahead with the rice farming as per usual.

By now you hopefully have a better understanding of the dynamic use cases of alternative data and the value it brings. Want to discuss leveraging this for your organisation? Fill out the form below and we’ll be in touch!

Using Alternative Data & External Signals for Decision Making

Tracking KPIs and reporting on them is the #1 most read topic on the Meltwater blog. Here, we discuss for the first time the importance of standardizing this effort across your organization, especially if you’re overseeing a multi-region operation. For a complete guide on KPIs and reporting for PR and social media, read our comprehensive ebook, Everything You Need to Prove PR ROI.

In the U.S., there is widespread acceptance and understanding that key performance indicators (KPIs) are critical for all communications professionals to translate the value of their work and find ways to more effectively execute their campaigns.

When teams are small, it’s easier to keep everyone in the loop on the KPIs vital to your success and to understand how all of your work ladders back to your goals. But once your company has expanded and has multiple regional communications teams engaging with multiple audiences, things become more difficult.

In some regions, standardized reporting and a focus on ROI is not the norm for communications teams. If you are used to being measured on awareness and impressions, the corporate office’s attempt to deploy a standardized dashboard can be seen in a negative light.

That’s why it’s important to align your teams and create buy-in on the reasons behind globally standardized KPIs. Doing so will also highlight how each regional team’s activities can affect the global brand sentiment. With this groundwork in place, comms professionals can amplify team efforts, more effectively deploy resources, and develop a more cohesive brand identity.

When companies expand globally, keeping track of the various communications teams and activities in play can feel daunting, and some groups may fly under the radar. Left unchecked, that means some locations may be underperforming or executing on ideas that may seem like a good idea at the time at the regional level but could be damaging to your brand as a whole (like a campaign serving up a “hot chick” driver from Uber).

Localization is a necessary component of any successful global strategy, but it’s important to remember that each of your local team’s efforts is still a reflection of your brand. This means that you need a brand voice that is flexible but maintains global consistency, as well as a shared understanding of what success means for your company.

Start by briefing your regional teams on your global comms goals and identify the unique opportunities for each region. KPIs will help explain what your company is prioritizing and keep your global team efforts focused, but you should not bundle everyone’s stats into one number.

Your global KPIs are a valuable pulse on your company’s overall efforts, but KPIs could vary significantly based on your region. However, these KPIs are critical to track on both a global and regional level to understand how regional activities are contributing—or detracting—from your goals:

Share of voice: How often your company is mentioned compared to your competitors. Your competitive company list will vary by regions, so there should be company-wide competitors, as well as region-specific.

Sentiment: The tone of the articles and/or social media activity regarding your company. By analyzing region-specific KPIs, your team can understand where a more hands-on media approach may be needed. Also, you may be able to proactively address a pending issue that has come to light in one region before it spreads to other regions, helping to save potential global brand damage.

Key message penetration: How often your company is mentioned alongside key themes. Your thought leadership measurement will likely involve key message penetration, and your team must keep a global lens when picking these themes. Trends may vary significantly from one country to another, and certain words or phrases may not resonate in the same way across countries. Use your regional comms leads as sounding boards on new ideas before developing a global campaign that may be offensive or carry a different meaning across borders.

Whichever KPIs you choose to track—and there’s plenty to choose from, so take your time—you need a system in place to review this data. KPI dashboards are a common way to set up views that are inclusive of both regional and global stats. This ensures you’re looking at the full scope of your data and can then easier know which regions to conduct more follow-up with.

Breaking down regional team silos is an ongoing process that requires active communication. Consider hosting monthly or quarterly meetings for all of your regional comms leads to connect, as well as separate meetings with each individual team and their agencies or freelancers. Because time zones can become complicated, record your meetings and distribute notes and action items so that anyone can access the material and stay focused between meetings.

Following these tips will further help set you on the right track, as well as adopting the right tools like Meltwater to help you make sense of your global data with ease.

If you’re interested in learning more about how to effectively set KPIs, download Meltwater’s PR Measurement: 8 Benchmarking Benefits Crucial to Success for the data-driven KPIs, tools and reporting frameworks you need to deliver the best results on your campaigns.

Globally Standardized KPIs for Enterprise Comms Reporting

At the tender age of 22, engineering prodigy Palmer Luckey unveiled his prototype version of his company’s product to several thousand engineers and developers at a conference he hosted himself. The product was the first commercially available virtual reality headset, and was named the Oculus Rift. While the ground-breaking technology had the world feverish with anticipation, another even more promising development was quietly gaining momentum. Enter augmented reality, or otherwise known as AR.

Augmented reality apps allow users to see a composite, false view of the world created by computer-generated images, while looking at the world around them in real-time. In layman’s terms, it provides the user with a mixed-reality – part virtual, part real world. Now, while VR offers users a more immersive and “trendy” experience, the broader application of AR technology in society tends to have tech enthusiasts far more excited.

AR technology gained mainstream attention after the introduction of augmented facial filters by popular mobile apps, Snapchat and MSQRD, as well as last year’s sensationally popular location-based fantasy game, Pokémon Go, but the probability of many more industries adopting augmented reality characteristics is high in 2017. It’s monumental successes like these that underpin why Goldman Sachs has gone on to predict that the AR and VR industry will be worth a whopping $80 billion by 2025.

Companies across the world are quickly realising the opportunity of leveraging this new technology to enrich their brand experience and improve customer engagement. They are doing this by bridging the gap between online and in-store brand touch-points, providing a more immersive experience, which can reduce time to purchase and increase conversion rates. What this means for your brand is that if you want to get ahead of the market, using augmented reality apps may be the way to do so.

In a recent Meltwater webinar on augmented reality, Johan Walters, Digital Solutions Consultant at Clicks2Customers, spoke about how augmented reality is changing customer engagement by measuring the results of some companies’ AR marketing campaigns, and gave tips for businesses attempting to experiment with the promising new technology.

Two Reasons Why You May Want to Get Going with AR Today

1. Augmented reality creates a competitive gap.

A company that has adopted augmented reality apps differentiates itself with challenger brands by creating an always-on digital channel in the offline world that didn’t exist before. AR allows consumers to bring the in-store experience home with them, keeping products top-of-mind and embedding an emotional connection to the brand. The competitive gap broadens as only a few companies have taken strides in staying ahead of trends and already implemented the technology, leaving their competitors behind.

2. Augmented reality apps move the customer through the purchase funnel.

The Pokemon Go craze may have faded, but augmented reality has not. It’s now not only used within the gaming industry, but the retail, e-commerce, education, healthcare, air and space travel, automotive and real estate industries are also catching on.

Audiences are no longer passive “window shoppers” – AR has suddenly provided customers with active brand engagement. With AR, customers can see what their future house will look like, how a different hair colour will suit them, or test drive a car, either in-store or in the comfort of their own home. Consumer interest is sparked and can immediately be drawn down to action, actively pushing the consumer through the purchase funnel.

Tip: With a consumer intelligence platform like Meltwater you'll get access to all data needed to map out consumer interests.

BBC Earth and AR discovery app Blipper collaborated in an incredible marketing campaign for the release of the series Planet Earth II. Users could scan one of seventeen everyday objects to reveal one of the animals featured in the film and learn more about the animal and environment. The educational experience and customer engagement concealed the fact that it was a great marketing strategy for a television series. Customers responded by spreading information about the series release and expressing their excitement on social media.

The massive fast-food chain had two main goals: to drive repeat visits and increase word-of-mouth.

They achieved this by launching an augmented reality Christmas campaign in December 2016, offering customers a unique way to celebrate the festive season. Customers could download the Blippar app, scan their food tray with their smartphones, and see their tray turn into an advent calendar. Each day of the month until Christmas (1 – 25 December), a new window was opened, with different activations including a selfie feature, camera filters, games and thousands of 10-pound Amazon gift vouchers up for grabs every day.

They achieved their goal of increasing foot traffic as customers came back to see what would be in the next day’s window and a major buzz was created surrounding the exciting prizes that McDonald’s was offering. The results speak for themselves – McDonald’s saw over 1 million interactions in the 24-day period and an average of 2 interactions per user, meaning customers had repeat visits at least twice in under a month.

Johan Walters gave webinar participants what he thinks are the keys to success in implementing augmented reality. According to him, there are five keys to success that fall into two categories: physical elements and digital elements.

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