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Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Guide

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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!

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!

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.

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?

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.

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.

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!

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?

Did you miss our live webinar and panel discussion about the topic: Communicating in times of crisis? Or do you simply want to learn more about crisis communication? No problem! The speaker and CEO of PRlab, Matías Rodsevich, answered all questions asked during the session in this blog. Want to see the recording of the webinar and panel discussion? Find it here!

What are your thoughts on handling general internal comms from the international headquarter to all employees, versus internal comms from the local country organisations to the local employees? Might this be conflicting?

For companies that have international and local communications, it is important to organize the content at both global and local levels so it does not become mixed up. Some information is relevant at one level but not another so you need to set up a system to manage and filter the information flow. The important thing to convey is relevancy and precision. This is why employing regional and local administrators are necessary to direct the content flow to the right employees.

When do you ignore complaints on Social Media and when do you take action? We sometimes see certain people that continue to complain via the social channels which affects our image.

Some complaints are categorized more as hate comments rather than constructive feedback. While feedback and sincere complaints should be approached with a responsive action, the more ‘hateful’ complaints can still be acknowledged. Many companies will say things like, “Sorry to hear that,” and then provide a suggestion like a customer service chat on what they can do for the customer or offering a discount code, essentially some sort of reprise to appease the customer. This way you’re able to show that you still acknowledge all customers and respect their complaints. This is always better than not saying anything at all, ignoring such complaints can foster an even worse flow of negative comments. 

How do you prepare for crisis scenarios within the tech industry?

Case studies are very google examples of concrete crisis scenarios; we can learn from how they managed it.

For tech companies, data breaching and hacking is a common scenario and you must know how to prepare for it. For example, Equifax discovered a massive data breach in July of 2017 that leaked SSN and driver license info for nearly half of the American population. A plan would help prepare ahead of time for how you should work together, what steps to take, and what initial message to release and when.

Another example to be wary of, being in the tech industry, is an IT outage. Southwest Airlines was a classic example of this in summer of 2016 when their website and other key systems were down for more than 12 hours in peak travel season. They turned to social media to continue responding to customers but even social media outages can happen. Having a backup system to rely on but also having apologies and announcements ready for remedy are good preparations to have.

Do you have any additional advice as to how to make PR expertise count in an environment where PR might be not be prioritized by the final decision-makers?

Final decision-makers may prioritize finances for a short-term bounceback, but they should still have the same goals for the company as the PR team would, which includes putting employees first or managing your reputation first. 

After the 2008 financial crisis, there were many problems that followed for companies that tried to bounce back into business mode. They prioritized short-term shareholder interests, which did not create sustainable value as their incentives were clouded from financial reasons and could’ve even destroyed economic and social value. Good PR expertise will counsel the decision-makers towards long-term growth.

Should we respond to journalists contacting us for a statement about how corona has impacted our business?

Practicing PR in times of crisis is good for your business. Journalists want to know your take and input by having you share the impact on your organisation. You can not pretend the crisis is not happening but be mindful of the facts and the emotions. Know that many others around are going through the same crisis and dealing with the impact on their lives and businesses. I encourage you to empathize with them and show vulnerability in admitting your own impacts; it shows humanity and no one is going to judge you because most companies are struggling right now, it’s nothing personal.

What are the opportunities you foresee for PR professionals in a post-pandemic world? Which industries will gain more relevance/traction?

Digital media has increased as people spend more time at home, leaving them less ways to consume in person. Opportunities for PR in a post-pandemic world are amidst social networks that may have strengthened, video services and advertising, and media platforms for content. Clearly, the supply chain has the most immediate business impact and subsequently companies that heavily rely on supply chains for their business will suffer especially since global media ads will not be as effective. This pandemic only reveals the industries that are essential to our society’s function and that includes the need for 5G technology and other remote interactions.

What about fake news these days? Who could be your allies in this case?

Fake news is much more prevalent nowadays, especially with the rise in social media. Your allies lie in the sources and credibility. You can check the mission statement of the story site or the credibility and validity of the story’s author. Make sure to check the external sources, the date of the original story, and other primary sources such as quotes or press release documents

What is your perception about the role of PR after the corona crisis?

The role of PR during the corona crisis has been great, seeing all the big companies donating what they can to contribute to different communities of need. After the crisis, these PR actions should be sustained as to show it was not just merely a PR gesture during a global crisis. The role of PR during the crisis determines how people remember your company after the crisis. If anything we learned from this crisis is how to behave and be transparent. That will indefinitely be carried forward after the corona crisis in the hands of the PR team, communication. 

What do you do if your CEO already communicates to the press before you send out the official communication? Do you adjust or stay consistent and adapt the official communication? Even if the information is incorrect? 

This depends on the type of material and communication released. You obviously don’t want to harm the CEO’s image by correcting them but you also wouldn’t want to harm the CEO’s image by letting them support an incorrect statement. It’s better to adjust as necessary in a humble and non-aggressive way. Information and situations are always changing so if approached genuinely, you should embrace the opportunity to make adjustments to statements if needed. It’s important though to make sure he/she understands your role and double checks with you before communicating with the press. Try to get them on your side by getting them to understand that you’re not a burden but you’re there to protect the company’s reputation and you can bring a strong understanding of how to deal with the press to the table. 

What different perspectives or insights, if any, apply to public institutions in relation to private companies in front of a crisis? 

Public institution or private company, you will need to restructure different areas of the administration. Public institutions may deal more with the redesign process including efficiency, transparency, and quality while private companies are dealing with government, lawyers, brand image, and employees and unions. Mainly, the insight to keep in mind for public institutions is to define a vision and strategy for the institution so as not to lead to depreciation of authority from its constituents. 

Is there a difference in B2B and B2C comms during a crisis?

Social media as communication crisis strategy works across the board for B2B and B2C companies as well as other communication mentalities that are grounded in showing empathy and action. B2B and B2C companies alike should engage in a more service over sales approach. This means companies that are used to selling products should divert some energy to providing relief services or the best aid possible they can afford. Crisis management may look different in B2B and B2C in small variance among the normal products and services offered but overall there is no distinguishing B2B and B2C in a crisis; people just come together to help.

Shall the crisis comm ‘war room’ make decisions on the communications for all departments/HQ’s around the world if we are talking about a Multinational?

Yes, definitely. The more centralized the messaging the better. Although in the case of a multinational company,  it’s important to have the global managers of teams present who will cascade down and adapt the messaging to local markets. 

How can I make clear to the CEO’s that the crisis is a theme that is for the communication department. I noticed that a lot of these actions are given to HR. And they struggle a lot.  

You can let the CEO know that internal crisis can be allotted to HR with no problem, but other communication crisis’ should be handled by those in the actual communication department. As long as you are distinguishing the clear differences and categories that HR vs. Communication handles, it will be better understood that there is a place and a job for every department.

Bringing physical together with the leadership team might be an additional risk in times of crisis. What are your experiences regarding splitting up?

I think not much has changed as long as everyone is open to the idea of digitization. What you are referring to is basically a war room with your leadership team. Keep in mind the concept: bringing in the most important people all in one space to tackle the crisis, align on the messaging, deciding how to cascade it down to the company. You don’t need to be locked up in a room putting ourselves at risk to do this. It is easily replicated online, so there shouldn’t really be any difficulties.

What’s your point of view on how EU institutions have been handling the COVID-19 crisis?

I think that EU institutions have been handling the COVID situation to the best of their ability. No one was really prepared to deal with a pandemic, let alone one the size of COVID. So as everyone looks to bandage the situation, I look to see the adaptations institutions make for the future. Sometimes, that’s how it goes with crisis communication. If we are unprepared for a crisis, we just need to learn from it and decide what we did right and what we did wrong.   

How do you deal with having different comms decision makers across different HQ’s?How can you draw on efficiency if there are different comms decisions makers between different HQs who can affect your work  (e.g. when you work at EMEA but Global HQ and APAC is involved too)

It can be super frustrating to have conflicting communication coming from two different decision makers. Typically in crisis communication, we like to have a process to define what to say and who is going to say it. But like I said, no one was prepared for this. So everyone is kind of acting on the fly. What I would recommend is schedule an online meeting with both/all parties involved, so everyone is there to discuss it. Sometimes emails just don’t work in getting your message across. So it’s important to have everyone, face to face, to ask what they want to be communicated. It’s also important to adapt the messaging to local markets, so you might want to consider adapting the messaging to global HQ to where you are, backing it up with relevant data to demonstrate that you know what you’re talking about. That way instead of being told two different things, you are mediating the situation and allowing them to come to an agreement on what the proper communication is. 

I work for an animal welfare charity. A part of our messaging consists of highlighting the source of the corona crisis. Should we use the current crisis as an opportunity to push our message, or rather refrain and reflect after this crisis?

I think this is super tricky right? There are certain industries and companies that are having huge profits from COVID, but everyone is steering putting this in the public eye. That’s why you see edtech platforms giving discounts or becoming free to use during this time. I would say that the message does have it’s timing, but that time is not now. It is far too ingrained in everyone’s mind and the threat is still too real. So I would wait a bit to send the message and monitor the situation. 

When things start to clear up and there is an end in sight to the pandemic, then it might be the right time by framing it as “looking back” and in order to prevent such a situation from happening again, this whole thing would have not happened if it wasn’t’ for animal meat consumption.

Matías has +7 years of vast PR & Marketing experience in B2B, B2C, technology and product communications across corporate, startup and agency environments. He is specialized in B2B & B2C Tech PR. Now he works as CEO & Founder of PRlab, an integrated marketing agency specialized in Scaleups and the design industry.

Want to know how Meltwater can help you with your crisis communication? Fill in the form below and our consultants will get in touch with you as soon as possible. You can also watch the entire webinar and panel discussion via this link.

Q&A: Communicating in times of crisis

After I published a recent article about how to decide if a press release should be written, I found myself in a few deeper discussions about the release itself. From these conversations I learned I have 2 more related articles ahead of me: Press release anatomy/history, and press release SEO/effectiveness. In order to understand press release SEO/effectiveness it’s important to first understand the history and anatomy of press releases, how they’ve evolved over the years, and how they haven’t evolved at all.

Press Releases Really Haven’t Changed Much

OK, OK! Yes, Press Releases have Changed a Little

The first press release. The structure looks familiar, right?

PR history is filled with notable moments in time; many of them were powered by the press release. The first press release is credited to Ivy Lee: in 1906 his agency was working with the Pennsylvania Railroad at the time of an accident. Rather than waiting to see how journalists would cover the story he wrote up a release and proactively distributed it to journalists. The release told the story from the perspective of the railroad. The press release was born!

It is said that Edward Bernays, often referred to as the “the father of public relations,” took Ivy’s concept, refined it, and made it commonplace in PR.

Have a look at the image to the left: it’s Lee’s first press release as published in the New York Times. Look familiar?

When I sat down to write this article, I started as I usually do -with research. First stop: Google. A search for “press release anatomy” resulted in a thrill and a little embarrassment.

I wanted to see if my premise (that press release anatomy hasn’t changed much) was accurate. What I found, ranked at #1 on Google, was a press release anatomy article I wrote for CafePress 10 years ago. Given the opportunity I would go back in time and re-write that article, or I’d go talk to Then-Marc to give him some advice on voice, structure and layout.  But, the actual content of Then-Marc’s article remains accurate. The basic structural formula of a press release has not changed.

Headline: The most important element of a release, this should capture the readers attention and summarize your story.

Sub-Headline:  While not always necessary, this is your opportunity to build on the headline by adding secondary detail

Dateline: City of origin and the date of release

Lead Paragraph: Second only to headline, the lead paragraph needs to summarize tell your story and hook the reader.

Body Paragraph/s: The next few paragraphs are your opportunity to add story details beyond the lead

Quote/s: A quote is great when possible, preferable from C-level executives or industry experts. It’s your opportunity to have a person/voice validate the importance of your story

Boilerplate: This section allows you to explain your organization in a few sentences and if appropriate add a few hyperlinks to your website, social media pages, etc.

Contact Information: Make sure to include phone and email at minimum in case a journalist wants more info

There are two major differences in press releases today by comparison to years ago: distribution and multimedia.

Compared to 100 years ago, press releases are distributed quite differently, which of course makes perfect sense. To put it simply, distribution evolved along with technology. Its no surprise that with advances in communication technology the PR pro rolled with the times and shared releases with journalists in the ways that they’d be best received and most successful.

Tipp: Learn how to create a list of journalists and take a look at the best press release services in the UK.

Press releases in the early years = paper

Press releases in the middle years = paper + wire service

Press releases today = email +wire service + post on Website + social media

Press Release Additions Brought by Technology Advancements

Since today’s press release is a digital document, the PR pro has the opportunity to use today’s technology to better tell their story. Today’s press release often uses strategies to help stories get found by search engines, incorporate images, videos, and more.

4 multimedia press release elements to consider:

SEO keywords: What keywords would your audience use to find this news? Once you answer that question make sure that keyword is included in the release headline and body. Of course press release SEO is MUCH more complicated than that, but this is a good start. I plan to write more on press release SEO in a future article.

Video: People love video and they can be fantastic for offering more info on your story, or just making it more fun and interactive

Photos: Second only to the video, people love anything that helps them better understand a story, photos are great for illustrating your message

Links: Hyperlinks in a release, if inserted properly, can aid in SEO and drive traffic to your website

All in all, I find it amazing that – at their core – press releases have not changed all that much in over 100 years. The structure and their general purpose, getting your news to the public and journalists, has remained the same. Technology has helped press releases to evolve into a modern tool while still allowing them to maintain roots.

Up next, Press release effectiveness and SEO. Please comment if you have any input as I begin writing that story!

Press Release Anatomy and History | Not Much Has Changed

My first PR job came in the form of an internship in the University Affairs office. I was beyond excited on my first day; here I was, a student, and I was getting paid (a very small amount) to work in PR – an incredibly awesome achievement! And it was, at first. I quickly learned that some tasks, like sorting hard-copy press clippings, were dreadfully boring and highly inefficient. I dreamt of a day that the process could be automated, I had no idea how robust and customizable monitoring would become 20 years later - in a world of social media and living online. So much so that today’s technology leads to better public relations, and takes the grunt-work out of simple tasks, when used properly.

PR software offers highly customizable editorial and social media monitoring that makes it possible to think beyond monitoring as a scorecard to measure campaign success. Monitoring your brand’s media exposure is imperative, but if you’re only looking at your own clips and metrics you’re missing out on an opportunity to better understand your brand’s perception in the market, what your competition is up to and your place in your industry. Media monitoring can even be a powerful asset as you plan strategy and it’s an amazing ad hoc research tool.

As I explored this concept I talked with a few agency friends about how they see companies use media monitoring today. From what I gather, many companies simply don’t know about the media monitoring available today, don’t know much about their customizable power and some get too comfortable with the “we’ve always done it this way, why change?” mentality.

“While several companies have invested in technologies and services that provide deeper analysis of their media coverage, some are still relying on simple Excel trackers,” comments Jenna Martin, Account Director for Kaplow PR. “I think it ultimately comes down to available funds and executives’ preferences for receiving measurement information.”

Reading tip: See our media monitoring guide.

With that, five less conventional yet HIGHLY USEFUL uses of media monitoring:

1. Understand Your Brand’s Perception and Exposure

Using online monitoring to understanding your brand’s exposure in online media allows PR to step beyond simply grading PR efforts; and to rather offer its organization useful business intelligence. With today’s software and a few minutes of work you can access the basics (e.g. recent articles, clip counts, media reach/circulation) and dig deeper to compare your results to your competition, gauge the sentiment reflected in your media coverage, understand where you’re being covered geographically. Sharing this type of brand information is appreciated by virtually every department of a company, offering PR a way to contribute in new ways.

2. Let Editorial and Media Monitoring Tools Aid Strategy

If your life in this industry is anything like mine you often find yourself preparing to promote products or services that you wouldn’t have expected. Sometimes you might be pitching a product or service you know little about, which can be a problem. In these cases media monitoring tools are your best friend. Before you can think about campaign strategy you must understand the product/service you’re promoting and a quick look at related media can be a lifesaver.

“Many use monitoring ‘during’ [a campaign] to see the success in real time. However, the more experience I have under my belt, I see the need to begin monitoring as early as possible in the planning process,” adds Michael Goon, Senior Account Executive at FleishmanHillard. “It allows us to gain insight on a topic/industry, provides opinions and view points of influencers, and most importantly – it allows you to predict what will and won’t work, or improve an idea/concept.”

What Michael says is spot on. For example, if your new product is “Widget ABC” you can use your media monitoring tools to search for media about similar products. The articles you find will help you better understand how the media perceives similar products and what media is covering similar items; which will help shape your messaging and outreach strategy.

Whether we want to admit it or not, most of us can get a bit obsessive about our competition, even though we know it should not be a distraction to our daily work. Watching your competition is a good thing, it can inspire great ideas, encourage you and your team to work harder and sometimes even gives you a good chuckle when they stumble. But a healthy dose of watching the competition should not take significant time out of your day. If you think about all of the people across an organization that spend time looking at competition is begins to make sense for PR to proactively deliver competitive reports to those interested.

 Rather than doing daily searches or setting up media alerts through online browsers for each competitor in your space, PR can easily configure its media monitoring software to do the work for the organization; right down to delivering tidy reports. Technology today easily automates the process, and best part of all, you can avoid per-clip fees with some products on the market so you’re not paying extra money to watch the competition.

Similar to watching the competition, it is important to understand your industry. Watching industry developments not only helps an organization understand your brand’s place, it can help inform product development, media campaigns, acquisitions, finance, and more. For instance, if your in the SAAS business you can easily customize a media monitoring search that will deliver all news relevant to the industry to sales, legal, your CEO, CFO and CMO. This is another example of where PR can step in and offer valuable information and data that is not easily accessed by the teams who don’t have the proper media monitoring tools.

It used to be that your media monitoring company maintains a list of keywords, brands and people that they monitor for you, and you receive clips based on that set of criteria. Often times you pay-per-clip fee each time they send you a clip. In the good ‘ol days hard copies of these clips were sent and you manually filed them always as appropriate. PR software has changed the game as technology improved; with the right PR software you can eliminate the need to rely on your monitoring service sales rep to maintain a list, you can decide what you search for and alter searches on a whim. 

For instance, if your thinking of pitching your new Widget ABC you can set up a search for like widgets and instantly see coverage relevant coverage that helps you understand the media landscape you’re stepping into with your new product. Good media monitoring tools are DIY and allow you to customize of your searches as you please.

Mr. Goon sums it up nicely, he adds, “It’s important to know who’s talking about your brand? Who are the influencers and what are they saying? In addition, monitoring can show how to leverage an event, piece of news or insight to gain positive exposure for a client.”

The list doesn’t stop with my five examples, I’m sure you can think of other brilliant ways to use media monitoring and analytics that I haven’t thought of yet. Drop use a line, we love comments!

5 Ways to Turbocharge Your PR With Media Monitoring

PR metrics – like the metrics associated with other relationship marketing disciplines (events, social media) – have been traditionally hard to come by.  But in today’s communications landscape, it’s a lot easier than it used to be to set data-driven KPIs that upper management can understand and appreciate.

1) Understand that Engagement is the Goal of a Data-Driven PR Program

In the modern messaging landscape, success = engagement. Whether we engage a traditional journalist and receive placement in the “Wall Street Journal” or engage an influencer on Twitter and receive a RT, our payoff is the same: we are earning media, and as a result we garner the impressions that we’ve traditionally used to measure success.  (For more on that, check out this article on vanity metrics vs actionable metrics.)

The great thing about setting engagement as our primary goal in a socially-networked communications landscape from a PR metrics perspective is that – unlike “impressions” – it’s easy to prove: most engagement comes in the form of a click and can easily be monitored by standard social analytics.

2) Determine what Engagement Looks like on Each Channel

Engagement simply means that a consumer, or group of consumers, decided to share or interact with your messaging online.  With regards to traditional journalism, that’s media placement: how many articles or releases were picked up?  The social networks have their own metrics of engagement: a share on Twitter, a “like” or share on Facebook, or a favorite on Instagram, etc.  All of these channels work together, so understanding what engagement looks like per distribution channel is important, even if we’re just going for the traditional media placement.  The social engagement is what creates the message amplification we’re after, and as a result those are crucial PR metrics to track.

<div style="background-color: #c4f4f4; padding: 20px;">Tip: <a href="https://www.meltwater.com/en/blog/instagram-analytics-insights-guide">Learn how to access your Instagram analytics and metrics</a>.</div>

3) Measure & Qualify PR Engagement & Reach

How many people took an action on behalf of our brand?  Now that we know what engagement looks like, measuring it is easy with the right PR analytics tools.  A good traditional and social media monitoring tool will identify and quantify that engagement for us, as part of a data-driven approach.  One important delineation to bear in mind is the tracking of social shares - both from both paid and owned channels where possible (i.e. the article was on the homepage of the New York Times, and was then shared to Facebook whereupon it took on a life of its own. It was also on our own Facebook page, which spurred engagement from that audience.  This type of channel-specific analysis will help us both measure and qualify our overall PR engagement.

Now, to answer the age-old communications question: is our message actually being heard?  The qualitative side of measurement is less linear, but still doable:  A good traditional media monitoring tool, in addition to a social listening tool, allows us to set up a variety of searches complete with threshold alerts that can tell us who’s saying what – and pinpointing the locations of these sources.  In this way, we can track whether or not the language and positioning we’re introducing into the market is being adopted.  If it’s not, by listening we’ve identified both what messages are out there, and where we might insert ourselves and/or engage in order to change that.  This makes for a modern communications program cycle that looks like this:

The dialogue marketing cycle starts and ends with listening.

With this in mind, our PR metrics might list a hard number of RTs, and we might then qualify our success by showing a few concrete examples (i.e. screenshots or report snippets). This will prove that  of our message is being organically shared, as other Twitter users endorse it and make it visible to their followers. Similarly, tweets that people favorite become visible to their communities as well. This is a fairly recent development but affects impressions drastically. 

4) Measure and Analyze Reach for PR Success

The reach and impression numbers that our channel partners give us are also an important part of our PR metrics – impressions are, after all, at the top of a purchase funnel, and we want to understand the opportunity there.  This is the PR metric we’re most used to using: in a time of offline communications, it was the best one available that demonstrated the value of media placement.

The power of message amplification via social sharing is that we can get significant impressions from earned media – and those impressions might be made on important influencers.  Today’s media platforms don’t operate in a silo: reporters use blogs and social and bloggers use social media, and social media influencers use journalism and blogs. Or, as we learned from PRSA: paid, earned and owned media service to amplify each other.  With that in mind, measuring our PR and general brand reach, in conjunction with both hard engagement metrics and qualitative messaging analysis, gives us a data-driven and holistic view as to the success of our messaging campaign.

PR & Communications

Q&A: Communicating in times of crisis

Press Release Anatomy and History | Not Much Has Changed

5 Ways to Turbocharge Your PR With Media Monitoring

Data-Driven PR Metrics in 4 Easy Steps

The 3 PR Dashboards Your Comms Strategy Needs

First Day in PR: 6 Essential Tips for a PR Newbie from a Seasoned Pro

The Art of Asking for Important Introductions

PR Pros: 10 Strategies To Improve Your PR (Without Chasing Media Coverage)

How to Leverage Facebook in Your B2B Public Relations

6 Common Client Misconceptions About Public Relations

How to Measure PR ROI: Align KPIs to Business Goals

8 Successful Communication Strategies for the Higher Education Sector

PR & Communications

Q&A: Communicating in times of crisis

Press Release Anatomy and History | Not Much Has Changed

5 Ways to Turbocharge Your PR With Media Monitoring

Data-Driven PR Metrics in 4 Easy Steps

The 3 PR Dashboards Your Comms Strategy Needs

First Day in PR: 6 Essential Tips for a PR Newbie from a Seasoned Pro

The Art of Asking for Important Introductions

PR Pros: 10 Strategies To Improve Your PR (Without Chasing Media Coverage)

How to Leverage Facebook in Your B2B Public Relations

6 Common Client Misconceptions About Public Relations

How to Measure PR ROI: Align KPIs to Business Goals

8 Successful Communication Strategies for the Higher Education Sector

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