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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

Paris 2024 may prove to be one of the most-watched Summer Olympics since London 2012. Case in point: It’s already generating significant buzz in the media and online. From January 1 through May 31, 2024, there were about 1.05 million posts about Paris 2024 that generated 138 million engagement actions. To better understand how organizations use high-profile events like the Olympics to transform their brand identities on the world stage, we used our consumer intelligence solution to take a closer look at Olympic sponsors and their partnerships with competing athletes.

For our full analysis, check out Paris 2024: The Art of Transposing Brand Identity into a Global Event​. In the meantime, let’s take a closer look at our findings on one important marketing aspect of the Games: brand ambassadorships.

Note: This blog analyzes data from January through May 2024 of global conversations in English and French from Instagram, X, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs, websites, media, forums, and reviews. 

The Olympic Games has partnered with corporate sponsors since 1920, when corporate ads first appeared in the official program for the Games in Antwerp. Coca-Cola began its Olympic partnership with the 1928 Games in Amsterdam, while Omega became the Official Timekeeper for the Games in 1932. Today, those leading brands are joined by more than 30 others as Worldwide Partners, Premium Partners, and Official Partners of Paris 2024. 

Our analysis of mentions, engagement actions, and estimated reach of content by and about these brands found that sponsorship tier did not necessarily correlate with higher visibility. For example, Coca-Cola and Airbnb, two Worldwide Partners (the highest tier of sponsorship), generated comparable mention volumes to LVMH, a Premium Partner (the second-highest sponsorship tier). 

However, LVMH far outperformed all other sponsors across tiers in terms of engagement and estimated reach. With nearly 3,000 related posts which generated about 748,000 engagement actions (primarily driven by the Louis Vuitton and Dior owned social profiles), the company has succeeded in translating its luxury brands’ identities for Paris 2024 audiences.

Its campaign deems its brand ambassadors as Artisans of All Victories (Artisans de Toutes les Victoires), directly linking athletic excellence with luxury craftsmanship.

Ambassadorships with competing athletes are a primary way Olympic sponsors tie their brand identities to the excitement and global prestige of the Games. To learn more about how they are performing ahead of Paris 2024, we analyzed online and media mentions of 14 highly-discussed ambassador-athletes. 

Among them, three emerged as significant conversation drivers in terms of engagement actions:

Louis Vuitton ambassador and French rugby player Antoine Dupont

Omega ambassador and Indian javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra

Dior ambassador and French para-cyclist Marie Patouillet

Along with generating the highest volume and estimated reach of the 14 athletes analyzed, mentions of Dupont also had the most engagement actions. Those engagement actions first spiked (by 500%) the week of March 11, just days after LVMH and Louis Vuitton announced the partnership. Louis Vuitton saw a corresponding 326% spike in engagement actions that same week. 

Patouillet had two corresponding spikes in engagement actions with Dior. The first occurred the week of February 19, when the partnership was announced. The second, smaller corresponding spike occurred the week of May 20, when Patouillet wore Dior while carrying the Olympic flame on the Cannes Film Festival red carpet. Both spikes suggest that Patouillet’s ambassadorship has been particularly valuable for the luxury brand in the lead-up to Paris 2024.


By contrast, Visa ambassador and American sprinter Noah Lyles generated spikes in engagement actions for his personal brand, but those did not correspond with spikes in engagement for Visa. This may be due to the timing of the partnership announcement, which occurred back in November 2023. As a result, when Lyles set a new personal best time as he won the 60m at the Boston Indoor Grand Prix on February 4, his boost in visibility wasn’t reflected in Visa’s engagement actions. 

Our report about the road to Paris 2024 offers a multi-faceted analysis of the Games, from examining top conversation topics to tracking sponsorship performance over time. When it comes to sponsor and athlete-ambassador visibility, we found:

The timing of sponsor brand ambassadorship announcements can have a significant impact on their success. 

Debuting partnerships in the few months before the Games begin — timed to coincide with major entertainment events or sports tournaments — can boost engagement actions and reach for both athletes and brands.

Brand Ambassadorship Lessons from Paris 2024

Our latest report analyzing consumer trends in the retail sector confirms what many discerning, internet-savvy shoppers know well: Reddit is the place for researching before you buy. 

The forum-based social network now has more than 73 million unique daily visitors and a potential global ad reach of 233 million. For shoppers, the site’s thousands of communities, or subreddits, are a treasure trove of unbiased reviews and first-hand experiences.

Our analysis found that Reddit is the top social network for researching apparel, beauty, and consumer electronics items. Electronics, in particular, are a popular topic, with top subreddits for asking questions and getting answers about gadgets being:

Download our Retail Consumer Insights report to discover the top subreddits for other retail sectors and learn more about Reddit marketing.

Most marketers are only beginning to explore the possibilities of Reddit, but some brands, both in retail and beyond, have already found innovative ways to use the network. Here are five brands making a splash on Reddit that marketers can learn from.

Purple Innovation, the company behind the Purple mattress, has its own subreddit catering to current and prospective customers. Users post reviews, questions, observations, and gripes for input from the community’s more than 3,800 members, and discussions are helped along by  prompts and comments from brand user accounts. Through this centralized hub, Purple has a direct look at its customers’ biggest questions and concerns, as well as which other mattress brands they are eyeing most. 

This post, in which a Redditor shares their detailed review of a Purple pillow, generated 40 comments in the LifeOnPurple subreddit.

Mint Mobile's subreddit, partially moderated by official Mint Mobile customer service accounts, lets current and prospective customers explore the ins and outs of its wireless service. Along with answering questions, the company also uses comments to direct users to further support if needed. The key to this subreddit’s success is Mint Mobile’s light touch — not jumping into every conversation lets the Redditors take the lead, building trust within the community and fostering discussion. 

Learn more strategies for building trust in our 2024 Consumer Insights: Retail report.

With more than 150 comments, this post asking for opinions about Mint Mobile generated the kind of honest reviews that prospective customers are hungry for.

Customers can connect to Blizzard’s official subreddit directly from the company’s website. Boasting more than 94,000 members, it’s where fans of the video game developer go to discuss new releases, old classics, company news, and more. The company’s official Reddit presence complements the larger ecosystem of unofficial, and extremely popular, subreddits dedicated to its hit games. For example, r/Overwatch, a community for Blizzard’s Overwatch franchise, has more than 5.5 million members.

Comments on this post on Blizzard Entertainment's official subreddit offer insight into what fans love about video game villains.

In 2017, The Washington Post became “the first national news publisher to debut a Reddit profile page.” Seven years later, it’s still going strong, using posts, comments, and AMA (ask me anything) sessions in relevant communities to drive interested audiences directly to its stories. With its original reporting on a range of subjects, u/washingtonpost has endless context and information to add to Redditors’ discussions.

The Washington Post shares content in a range of subreddits, including those shown here dedicated to politics, Washington, D.C., and Joni Mitchell.

There are many active communities of U.S. basketball fans on Reddit, dedicated to both the National Basketball Association and its individual teams. The league taps into that built-in audience with its official Reddit profile, u/NBA. Though it does so sparingly, u/NBA has posted guides and AMAs to r/NBA, an unofficial NBA subreddit with more than 11 million members. One, with the league’s Head of NBA Basketball Strategy & Analytics, generated 200 comments. 

With its AMA sessions, the NBA's Reddit account engages with fans directly. Its response to question gave Redditors a behind-the-scenes peek at how the league operates.

Across industries, marketers are experimenting with new ways to engage consumers through Reddit and are landing on some creative and effective strategies. Let them be inspiration for your own approach — brands that are seeing what works now will have an edge down the line as advertiser presence on the platform continues to grow. 

Social listening and consumer intelligence can reveal what Redditors are saying about you and your competitors. Explore platform-specific insights about your brand with a demo of the Meltwater Suite.

5 Brands Making Waves on Reddit

Measuring marketing ROI is a definitive way to assess whether your marketing efforts are working, what needs to change, and where to allocate budget. Here's how to calculate marketing ROI, the marketing ROI benefits, and examples for how to apply this important metric to different marketing initiatives. 

Return on Investment (ROI) is a business term used to describe profitability: the amount of money you spend on a campaign or other initiative compared to the amount you earn from that campaign. An ROI formula is used to calculate profitability, and ROI can be applied to all different marketing efforts. 

For every dollar you spend, how much are you generating back? This is the question that marketing ROI calculations try to answer. Given that one of the main goals of marketing is to drive sales, it is critical to understand the relationship between your marketing costs and the yield of your marketing activities. The answer will help you determine if your marketing strategy is working and which marketing investments are most effective.

ROI can also be thought of as a way to allocate time and energy balanced against short and long term goals. For example, if the return on the time it takes to research a new vender isn't worth it in the short term, based on other priorities for your team, then perhaps it's a project that can be delegated to someone else, or pushed to a later date.

Here are a few different ways that proving ROI can be helpful to marketers:

In order for the C-suite to allocate resources and budget to your team or campaign needs, you need executive buy-in. And demonstrating consistently positive ROI is one of the best ways to justify your proposed budget needs. 

Tip: Download the Marketers Guide to Unified Reporting

You need to know how and where to properly distribute the budget, once it's been approved. So understanding the revenue generated from different teams and channels is helpful. 

For example, if your paid social campaigns are generating a high volume of qualified leads, you may want to consider allocating more budget to your paid social program. This isn’t to say that if a program is not performing well, the budget shouldn't be allocated. Different programs have different marketing KPIs and every marketing strategy is different. 

Measuring ROI establishes a baseline for campaign success that serves as a reference for future marketing spend. Analyzing your results allows you to adjust your team's efforts accordingly and you can use these insights to forecast the impact of upcoming campaigns on revenue growth. 

An important tool in marketing involves analyzing your competitors; whether it’s identifying what kind of content they're producing, what channels they're on, or how many customers they have. When we talk about tracking the ROI of your competitors, we mean how their brand is performing against other competitors in our same industry. 

The objective of ROI calculation is to connect the dots between marketing efforts and revenue. There are numerous ways to calculate ROI, but the basic formula is simple:

(Sales Growth - Marketing Cost) / Marketing Cost = Marketing ROI

Put another way: Sales minus marketing cost, divided by marketing cost = Net ROI

Another common way of representing marketing ROI is in the form of revenue to cost ratio, also known as an efficiency ratio. This calculation represents how much an organization needs to spend to earn a profit. Put simply: if your marketing expense is $40 and the revenue yield is $50, the efficiency ratio is 40/50, or 80%. The goal of any company should be to have this percentage be as low as possible. A lower efficiency ratio means your spending less and making more.

Calculating customer lifetime value (CLV) is also important, as it gives insight into long-term ROI across the consumer lifecycle. Here is the formula to measure CLV: 

Customer Lifetime Value = (Retention Rate)/ (1 + Discount Rate/ Retention Rate)

Your marketing efforts will ideally contribute to new customers becoming returning customers, which will significantly add to your ROI. A customer that purchases once from you will have a return of X, but if that customer purchases 3 more times they will have a return of 4X. 

Good ROI is ultimately subjective and will depend on the specific goals your marketing team has set. Negative ROI from a financial standpoint, could be the result of positive ROI when it comes to brand awareness. After brand awareness and increased market share is established, you can turn your attention to generating more sales from your marketing efforts, leading to a positive financial ROI. 

Brand awareness is harder to measure, but some metrics that are strong indicators include: UGC, social media followers, social engagement, and email sign ups. 

While the formula for ROI is straightforward, measuring it accurately has been a thorn in marketing teams' sides for decades. Correct and quantifiable attribution for the business revenue that marketing contributes can be incredibly difficult to track. Then throw in more qualitative marketing goals, like brand awareness and ROI becomes even more nebulous. 

As digital marketing, email, paid and organic social, and other forms of advertising have grown in sophistication, it's gotten easier to calculate marketing ROI, but it's still not an exact science.

Here are some examples of marketing ROI for the digital age that can help form a complete picture of all the hard work your marketing team puts in to help grow the business:

Email is a tried and true avenue for reaching new and existing customers. It's a great way to offer deals, promote new products, and move inventory. Email subscriber numbers and activity are also a great indicators of consumer trends and interest. Measure email marketing ROI in a few different ways: by weighing the time it takes to create and send an email vs creating and posting a blog post for example. You could also track the sales attributed to email subscribers to determine if you should invest more or less time in your email strategy.

Another way email marketing factors into your marketing ROI is on the advertising side. You might use some marketing budget to buy a sponsored post in another company's email newsletter, in order to get in front of a new audience. Using a tracking link on the ad, you can calculate how many new customers you gain, and this will factor into whether or not you buy the spot again in the future. 

As we mentioned above, companies that may burn cash for the sake of rapid consumer awareness or market share growth. This is the classic measuring short term hardship against long term gains, and is very common amongst startups. 

Perhaps a  venture-backed app has a $3 million annual marketing budget and doesn’t expect to be profitable for a couple years, but has begun to generate some revenue ($250,000) through in-app purchases. The calculation here would be $3,000,000 - $250,000, yielding a net negative marketing ROI of -$2,750,000, or -91%.

A type of marketing that has gained significant traction in the world of e-commerce is podcast advertising. These ads generally follow a standard format and call-to-action to visit the website. You can track the leads generate through UTM links or promo-codes.

Say a T-shirt company pays a podcast $500/month for two ad reads. They are able to track their traffic and see that the ads have directed 62 leads to the site, and of those 62 leads, 7 made a purchase of $80, yielding a revenue of $560. The calculation would be (7 x $80) - $500 = $60.

Plugging these numbers into the marketing ROI formula cited above, we get (560-500)/500 for a marketing ROI of 12%.

It doesn’t have to stop there either. What if 3 of the 7 purchasers signed up to be on your newsletter list, encouraging them to become longtime customers? Potential future purchases by them could additionally be factored into this ROI formula.

Understanding and proving marketing ROI not only helps the effectiveness of your marketing strategy and campaigns, it provides invaluable insight into industry and consumer trends. 

Hopefully, now you have a clear understanding of what marketing ROI means as a metric and how to calculate it! Let us help you prove your ROI as a marketing professional! Fill out the form below to get a free tour of our platform.

Understanding Marketing ROI: Definition & Measurement

The term “Teleconferenced peer influence groups” was originally coined by psychologist George Silverman in the 1970s, after using focus groups to discuss different pharmaceutical products. Today, this is known as "word-of-mouth marketing".

Silverman's observations outline the basic tenets behind how word-of-mouth works: "One or two physicians who were having good experiences with a drug would sway an entire group of skeptics. They would even sway a dissatisfied group of ex-prescribers who had had negative experiences!” (Source: thefreelibrary)

Now, some 50 years later, this approach has grown into a widely used marketing tactic — with the data to prove it: 74% of consumers identify word-of-mouth as a critical part of their purchasing decision. And a whopping 92% of consumers say they trust recommendations from friends. So, if it's not already top of mind for your marketing team, it should be! Word-of-mouth marketing is cost-effective, builds brand loyalty, and reveals new ways you can reach potential customers.

So what's the word on word-of-mouth marketing? Read on to find out.

Why is Word-of-Mouth Marketing Important?

What are Some Word-of-Mouth Marketing Strategies?

What are the Benefits of a Word-of-Mouth Marketing Strategy?

Word-of-mouth (WOM) is one of the oldest and most effective forms of marketing. And, it has evolved relatively seamlessly into the digital landscape. At its core, it can be defined as:

A marketing method that relies on casual social interactions to promote a product.

Word-of-mouth marketing involves businesses finding ways to encourage individuals to share recommendations, news, and accolades about their brand, products, and services.

For example, when was the last time you had an interaction with a brand, positive or negative, and then told someone else about it? Think about a time when the food and service at a new restaurant you tried were so good, you had to tell your friend to go try. Or, maybe it's a software tool that has greatly improved your team’s workflow, so you left a review on G2 or recommend it to a peer. 

These types of consumer interactions build trust and increase the front-of-mind real estate presence for your business in the ever-crowded landscape of messaging bombardment people receive these days. (Of course, it should be noted that WOM can also hurt you based on the sentiment of the discussion).

Word-of-mouth marketing is about a face-to-face interaction (or avatar-to-avatar as the case may be in today's digital age) that is built on pre-founded trust. It's a cost-effective way to spread the word about your company and products among online and in-person communities. 

Referrals from word-of-mouth can come from several sources, but for marketing purposes the most important channels to know about include:

A friend says to a friend “I just had the best meal at a restaurant downtown. I think you’d love it!”

This is arguably the most basic form of word-of-mouth marketing. When you get a recommendation from a peer that you respect and trust, you’re far more likely to check out the recommended product, restaurant, etc., yourself. For marketers, this type of interaction is tough to really measure accurately or influence directly. 

Tip: To improve your reporting, ask new customers how they found out about you. If they say “I heard about you from my friend” you can ask them to expand on what specifically their friend liked. These learnings will help you invest time and energy confidently into brand-building marketing and acquisition efforts.

A sales rep is set up at a kiosk in the grocery store and offers you a sample of their new line of cheeses. Mmm cheese….

Face-to-face marketing is usually set up as a more “professional” relationship between the recommender and recommendee. It has a more clear sales factor, but it’s still a 1:1 tactic. 

Think of a software product demonstration to a new prospective client, or free samples at a grocery store. 

In both cases, you may not purchase that day, but you’ve had a face-to-face interaction with someone who is passionate about what they’re selling. 

They had the opportunity to tell you about their brand, and offer a business card. So they’ve had that extra touchpoint to remain memorable when it comes time to make your purchase decision. 

Face-to-face marketing tips: Let your personality shine, and incorporate brand values into your selling story. Today's consumers gravitate heavily towards authenticity and shared values (such as eco-friendliness and inclusivity). Highlighting these during your product pitch will help you stay top of mind.

You go to the restaurant your friend suggested and liked it so much you hit the "big 3 of UGC": posted a picture of your meal to Facebook, added tagged the restaurant in your Instagram Story, and wrote a 5-star Yelp review.

UGC (User-generated content) is what marketers like to refer to as “low hanging fruit” - once it’s created that is. And, brands can use this content in their own content marketing strategy to (1) show off an unbiased testimonial and to (2) build an even stronger relationship with the customer who posted. Much like peer to peer recommendations, this content can reach a larger audience that the poster may or may not know directly. 

If you can figure out how to cultivate user-generated content, you’ve unlocked one of the quickest and cheapest ways to grow your online presence.

Tip: Respond to both positive and negative online reviews. Be honest, appreciative, and genuine, and more people will want to publicly share their experiences!

Social posts on any platform that mention your brand are powerful instances of social proof.

There are components of social media in all of the above marketing options, but it’s so important it deserves its own call-out.  

To put some numbers to the value of WOM on social media: over half of purchases inspired by social media sharing occur within 1 week of sharing or favoriting, and 80% of purchases resulting from social media shares occur within 3 weeks of sharing. [Source: VisionCritical]

It’s important to think of social media in a broad context here: consider everything, from the major channels like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram to the new and exciting like TikTok, to forum-based platforms like Trip Advisor.

Tip: Engage when you're tagged! Consumers love when brands respond, so encourage your social media manager to like, share, and comment when posts tag you or use an official brand hashtag.

WOMM is ultimately quite ubiquitous, which is what makes it so incredibly valuable — but it’s also what makes it incredibly difficult to track and control. 

How do you measure success? How do you implement a strategy for improving and increasing your face to face recommendations? 

How do you swiftly find and address negative reviews or comments and protect your carefully crafted reputation? Let's explore how to implement these tactics into your marketing strategy. 

Word-of-mouth marketing is about real people sharing their thoughts about your brand and products, thereby indirectly encouraging more sales and recommendations for you — like a ripple effect. 

But how do you keep the conversation going? Chatter matters so you need to help generate that buzz!  

Find out where conversations are happening

This comes from understanding your audience. Where do they hang out online? Jump in on forum discussions around related topics to your industry, products, and services. Facebook groups or Reddit threads are a great place to start.

Be sure to adhere to any forum guidelines in place (which often include strict no advertising rules). Otherwise, your comments will be swiftly removed by moderators.

You can’t market unless you understand who you are talking to, right? And in today’s ever more complicated world, the psychosomatics of your customer base go far behind the demographics data.

Tip: Gather the data from previous campaigns, email sends, and social interaction to analyze what type of content your audience reacts positively to, such as discounts, contests, or polls.

If you start seeing a lot of negative word-of-mouth buzz, you’ll want to address it swiftly and professionally. Don’t let it fester. Not only does this go a long way toward solving the issue, but it also leaves a very positive impression for current and potential customers. 

So, rather than recording their frustrating conversation trying to cancel their internet service and posting it for millions of people to share in their misery, you instead have someone posting “I just had a surprisingly pleasant customer service experience with XYZ. I’d highly recommend them!” If someone was thinking of switching, this could be what helps convince them.

Having a comprehensive crisis communication strategy is essential for any marketing team. But especially important when you’re prioritizing your WOMM efforts. To get help monitoring and responding to these types of situations, get a free tour of our real-time alerting tool. 

The Drum found that 75% of people feel user-generated content makes a brand more authentic.

So how can businesses encourage people to create content? Here are some tips:

Create a brand hashtag to invite participation

Jump on a trending topic and apply it to your brand

Run a contest - you can always offer incentives here too

Ask for feedback so you can hear straight from customers what they want 

Customer reviews are a great tactic and should absolutely be part of your word-of-mouth marketing strategy. 

70% of people trust consumer reviews online according to HubSpot. That’s actually huge if you think about it. Thousands of strangers are trusting what thousands of other strangers say about a product online. 

Accolades can be featured on your website, social platforms, in campaigns, or 3rd party sites. They can be written statements, quotes, video interviews, or a comprehensive story in a blog article.

Here’s an example of a quote from a Meltwater customer that we may choose to share in key customer journey locations because we think it accurately represents our solution and who we are: 

If you haven’t invested in 3rd party review platforms, here are some popular ones to get started:

Do note that you need to ask permission to re-share anything. 

An influencer or brand ambassador is an individual with a significant and engaged following who works with brands to promote products and services. Some of the biggest social platforms for influencer marketing are Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. 

Influencers are powerful in that they are a trusted source for consumers, but unlike a 1:1 connection, they are speaking as a “friend” to a much larger audience. And the best part is, the ROI is far more trackable if you’re working with them in an official partnership capacity.

Tip: Bigger isn’t necessarily better when it comes to influencer follower count. Ask prospective influencer partners about their engagement metrics to get a sense of how active their audience is.

Example: If you're vegan and struggling to find everyday recipes or are seeking a community where you can connect with other like-minded vegans, you may follow someone like Michelle Cehn a micro-influencer and founder of World of Vegan.

Influencer marketing is deserving of its own blog post altogether, and we just happen to have one, but here are some of the main points to consider:

Making an Impact With Word-of-Mouth Marketing

The financial services industry in South Africa is fast-paced, highly competitive, and often affected by external factors. Added to this, consumers are increasingly digitally-savvy, and unless loyalty is already high, consumers will look elsewhere for the financial service experience they want to receive.

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Klear is officially part of Meltwater!

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Marketing

Brand Ambassadorship Lessons from Paris 2024

5 Brands Making Waves on Reddit

Understanding Marketing ROI: Definition & Measurement

Making an Impact With Word-of-Mouth Marketing

South Africa's Financial Services Industry: Top Marketing Trends

Digital 2024 April Global Statshot Report Analysis

The 19 Best Tech Podcasts You Should Be Listening To In 2025

How to Kick Start a Digital Transformation Strategy

List of the Most Trending Hashtags in South Africa

The Ultimate Guide to Personal Branding: The Power of a Personal Brand

Klear is officially part of Meltwater!

Influencer Engagement Rate Calculator & Guide

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