United States

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

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

Kim Cattrall takes the lead in a campaign celebrating the intelligence behind confident brand decisions.

Intelligence is always in style: Kim Cattrall stars in Meltwater’s new campaign

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

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

Tom Hunt, Managing Director at Antidote, explains how client-facing AI tools, real-time measurement and Meltwater’s customisable analytics enable small communications teams to compete at scale, while strategic judgement, storytelling instinct and knowing when to stay quiet remain the true differentiators.

1. What was your personal PR highlight of 2026?

2. What might surprise comms leaders in the next two years?

3. What is something you believe about AI in the communications industry that some communication professionals probably would disagree with?

4. What is the biggest benefit of using the Meltwater platform for your team?

1. What was your personal PR highlight of 2026? 

Getting our AI tool stack into the hands of clients rather than keeping it behind the scenes. We spent the year turning capabilities we'd built for internal use into things clients can actually see and use, including live dashboards that pull earned, social and search data into one place, accessible whenever they want rather than waiting for a monthly report. We closed the fiscal year with double-digit revenue growth on 24/25, which suggests the appetite for this approach is real. The best part has been how much sharper the conversations with clients have become when everyone is looking at the same data.

How much clients start expecting from a small team. The tooling that used to require scale is getting cheap enough that headcount is no longer a proxy for capability, and I think clients will work that out faster than the industry expects. What that rewards is the consultancy and the instinct. 

Knowing how to build a story and why, who will care, and when to stay quiet. Judgement has always been the hardest thing to put a price on, and I think clients are about to start paying for it directly rather than as something bundled into the hours.

I think AI's most valuable contribution to comms is measurement rather than content creation, and I don't think the industry behaves as though that's true despite everyone jumping on the GEO bandwagon. 

Attribution in PR is still difficult, and for some clients it doesn't work at all, because the audiences are so niche and the buying cycles run for months (or years). Thanks to AI, we have far more visibility. 

We can properly map the journey, understand who engaged with which piece of content and where they went next, and then test the arguments that landed against those that didn't. That analysis shapes the strategy, and the strategy then shapes everything we do externally (and so on and so forth). 

Most of the industry still treats measurement as the thing you present at the end of the month or during the quarterly in-person with the client. I'd rather it was informing where to go next. 

How customisable the platform has become. The ability to spin up live dashboards to share with clients from day dot, combined with new integrations like MCP that we're keen to build on, has changed what we can credibly offer. We're a six-person agency pitching against groups many times our size, and insights and analytics that would once have needed a dedicated resource now run continuously in the background. Having AI-powered analysis to riff with on top of that has made the whole platform genuinely powerful. What interests me most is where it goes next: the more open platforms like Meltwater become, the less our size has anything to do with what we can deliver.

I've spent the last fifteen years spearheading communications programmes for technology companies - from hyper-growth trailblazers like Unity and Quantinuum, to Silicon Valley behemoths like Google and Intel. I'm obsessed with the intersection between human ingenuity, data and technology.

I have been agency-side for my entire career - holding senior positions at We. Communications and most recently, Cognito where I was Director, Head of Fintech and Head of Insights & Analytics. 

Conversations with Comms Leaders #7/9: Tom Hunt (Antidote)

Sara Palmbush, PR and Communications Manager at Fourthline, discusses the company’s planned merger with Veridas, the enduring power of earned media and human storytelling in the age of AI, and how Meltwater supports efficient brand measurement, media reporting, and journalist outreach.

This month was a major PR & Communications moment for Fourthline as we announced the signing of a merger agreement with another digital identity provider, Veridas. The KYC (Know-Your-Customer) and AML (Anti-Money-Laundering) technology space has been in demand because of the growing need both regulatory and social, to identify people as humans and to make sure those humans are who they say they are. You can imagine how valuable this is in a world of AI, bots and deepfakes.

We’ve been chipping away from a communications perspective on getting the word out about what Fourthline does, its role in creating trust in the digital world, and it’s always rewarding when there is a big PR moment that generates the kind of interest you’ve been working towards.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the way earned media and thought leadership have been validated by LLMs. As a former journalist and someone who has worked in the publishing industry, it was disheartening to see the way ‘content’ was taking the place of well-reported and researched stories. It’s also interesting to see how despite everything becoming digital, we have never collectively been communicating more. As new tools are invented, we will continue to use new ways of communicating, but like I always say, people aren’t interested in things. People are interested in people. That will never change. Prediction: People and their stories will still be here in the next two years.

I love using AI for research and reporting. However, I think it’s dangerous to use AI too often for writing content. I believe it comes at the cost of creativity. We will all sound polished, sure. But we will become less interesting. I got into the business of communicating because I like humans. Our task is to stay human.

We use it for our brand measurement and our media reporting, as well as media outreach. It definitely saves time for us in creating and sharing reports and insights and has been a great way to find the right reporters for pitching.

With more than 20 years of experience in public relations, communications strategy, and campaign execution, Sara Palmbush leads PR and Communications initiatives at Fourthline, one of Europe's leading KYC and AML technology providers, serving customers including Revolut, N26, Trade Republic, and Rabobank.

Drawing on deep expertise in thought leadership, corporate communications, and strategic storytelling, Sara develops impactful narratives that strengthen brand positioning and support broader business and marketing objectives.

Before moving into communications, Sara built a career as a technology journalist, providing a unique editorial perspective and an extensive network of media contacts across EMEA and North America. This background has enabled her to translate complex ideas into compelling stories that resonate with journalists, stakeholders, and customers alike.

Conversations with Comms Leaders #6/9: Sara Palmbush (Fourthline)

In the fifth edition of “Conversations with Comms Leaders,” Michael Scheuer, SVP Corporate Communications at the Freudenberg Group, discusses trust as the most important currency in a communications landscape shaped by AI, the rise of AI assistants as a new force in reputation management, the shift towards smaller communications teams with greater strategic influence, and the importance of global real time data for rapid decision making.

My highlight was not a specific project, but a realisation: Trust is once again the most important factor in communications. In 2026, almost anyone could suddenly use AI to produce an unlimited volume of content. As a result, credibility became the truly scarce resource. Organisations that communicated through authentic stories, genuine experts, and a clear point of view achieved far greater impact than those that simply produced more content. Communications is no longer about production. It is about trust.

The speed at which traditional search engines will lose relevance and be replaced by AI assistants. Until now, we have created content for two audiences: people and search engines. In the future, there will be a third audience: AI systems themselves. The key question will no longer be whether we appear on the first page of Google, but whether an AI assistant identifies our company as a relevant source at all. This will fundamentally change our work. Reputation will no longer be shaped solely by the media. It will increasingly be shaped by the training data and knowledge environments used by these assistants.

I believe that communications departments will become smaller, but significantly more influential. Those who use AI effectively will spend less time on production and have more time for their core leadership responsibilities: providing context and direction. AI will simply perform many tasks better than we can. Press releases, monitoring reports, translations, summaries, and speech drafts will increasingly be produced automatically.

At the same time, AI makes effective communications more important, not less important. Strategy, sound judgement, crisis awareness, cultural understanding, and the ability to build trust cannot be automated. In the future, our value will therefore be measured less by our output and more by the quality of our judgement.

For us, the greatest benefit is not monitoring itself, but the speed at which information can be turned into decisions. We have global media monitoring, social listening, alerts, and reporting within a single system.

The international perspective is particularly valuable to us. For a global company such as Freudenberg, it is no longer sufficient to focus solely on the German media landscape. We need to understand how topics are being discussed in North America, China, Europe, and Latin America, as close to real time as possible.

Michael Scheuer is SVP Corporate Communications at the Freudenberg Group. Born in Frankfurt, he began his career by completing vocational training in banking at Commerzbank. He subsequently studied communications, political science, sociology, and media law at the University of Munich. Rather than pursuing a traditional career in journalism, he chose corporate communications and gained experience in Germany and internationally at Siemens before joining Freudenberg in 2012. Today, he is responsible for the company’s global communications.

Conversations with Comms Leaders #5/9: Michael Scheuer (Freudenberg)

Lena Köhne, Head of Communications at Surventis, discusses the successful brand launch following the company's carve-out from BASF, the growing demand for fast, precise, and authentic communications, and how AI and data driven practices can enable communications teams to produce less content while achieving greater impact.

The carve-out of Surventis from BASF and its launch as an independent company was the most defining project of my career to date. Within eight months, we created and introduced an entirely new brand, rebuilt the website in three months, and elevated a corporate identity with more than 130 years of history to a new level.

Even we were surprised by the results from the first few weeks: a total media reach of more than one billion within the first seven days, a LinkedIn engagement rate 217% higher than that of our main competitors in the coatings market, and almost 5,500 colleagues participating in the launch events either in person or online. Within just a few months, a corporate division became an independent and highly visible brand. As a communications professional, this is the kind of project you live for. Seeing colleagues around the world embrace and celebrate the new brand makes us incredibly proud as a team.

Two things in particular. First, how quickly speed, precision, and authenticity will all become standard expectations. Response times are expected to decrease without compromising the depth of the content — and every piece of communication also needs a core, a heart that is genuine and distinctive, not just a generic patchwork of text fragments. This is exactly where it gets tight, because resources aren't growing at the same pace. Quite the opposite — we need smaller teams to develop significantly further so they're fit for these new ways of working.

Second, communications relating to change and restructuring will become part of everyday work for every team rather than an exceptional situation. Those who lack this capability will face significant challenges in the years ahead.

 AI will take over most writing tasks, and I see that as a positive development. I do not share the concern that this will result in organisations losing their voice. A distinctive voice comes from a clear position and consistent principles, not from typing every word manually.

I take a more critical view of how the time saved through AI is being used. Most teams are currently producing more content in less time. The real value lies in creating less but better content and working in a much more connected way. Strong writing skills alone are no longer sufficient. What communications professionals need above all is a mindset built around data sources and how to manage them: How do I feed AI the right background knowledge? What factual foundation do I need, and where do I source it? Without that, even the best AI stays mediocre.

This requires a very different range of capabilities. An excellent understanding of language and nuance remains essential, but it must be complemented by strong analytical and project management skills.

Naturally, we want to understand the impact of our work. Here too, the key benefits include connected collaboration across the team, access to data, targeted distribution, and the time saved through daily monitoring. This is vital not only during a year of significant change, such as a carve-out, but a compass for good work.

Lena Köhne is Head of Communications and a member of the Executive Leadership Team at Surventis, an international coatings technology company headquartered in Münster. In 2026, she was responsible for the complete brand and communications launch of Surventis following its carve-out from BASF. Previously, she led global communications at BASF Coatings and at SMS group, a global mechanical and plant engineering company.

Conversations with Comms Leaders #4/9: Lena Köhne (Surventis)

In this edition of “Conversations with Comms Leaders,” Julia Völzke, Head of Global Media Relations & Reputation Management at Rhenus Logistics, discusses the growing importance of trust and human judgement in an information landscape shaped by AI, the evolution of media relations at Rhenus, and the use of Meltwater to conduct research more efficiently.

2026 has been a challenging year due to geopolitical tensions, trade conflicts, and economic volatility, and it is likely to remain so. In this environment in particular, communications plays a vital role. We explain developments, provide context, and seek to offer guidance.

My personal highlight is therefore not a single campaign, but the evolution of our media relations at Rhenus. Over the past few years, we have deliberately adopted a more open approach to communications. In 2026, we have seen just how far we have already come. A few years ago, we still had to actively persuade journalists to speak with us. Today, many of them approach us directly to gain our perspective on developments in the logistics industry.

Seeing my colleagues engage with journalists every day, provide transparent context for complex developments in our industry, and give the company a strong and reliable voice is both rewarding and a source of great pride in the team.

What surprises me most is the speed at which AI is changing the rules of the game. It is no longer merely about creating content efficiently. It is also about how information is found and perceived.

The growing importance of trust is not a new insight for those of us working in communications. However, I believe that this issue will become even more relevant beyond our profession over the next few years. Unfortunately, today’s information landscape is often characterised by misinformation, polarisation, and a steadily increasing volume of content generated by AI.

For precisely this reason, reliable facts, transparent communication, and relationships with journalists that are built and maintained over time will become even more important. AI can make many things easier and faster. Credibility, however, continues to come from people who take responsibility, provide context, and build trust.

AI cannot and will not replace us. Full stop. The easier and faster it becomes to create content, the more important the skills that cannot be automated will become: judgement, experience, sensitivity, and common sense.

What experience can AI draw on when a situation becomes complex or contradictory? What happens when the real answer lies between the lines, or when it is necessary to recognise a particular sentiment and interpret it correctly? 

In a world where information is abundant, we need people who can provide guidance. In my view, this is and will remain the primary role of communications.

Meltwater and Mira enable us to gain a quick and efficient overview when researching specific topics. By using predefined searches, we can allow Mira to operate within a clearly defined information environment, giving us considerably more relevant results than an open search would provide.

In the past, searching for, reviewing, and sorting information took several hours. We can now obtain the relevant research results within minutes. We invest the time we save not in conducting more research, but in delivering better communications.

Julia Völzke is Head of Global Media Relations & Reputation Management at Rhenus Logistics, where she is responsible for international media relations and the strategic development of the company’s reputation. She previously held roles at SD Worx and HERING SCHUPPENER, now FGS Global, working in internal communications and corporate communications. Today, she combines her experience across industry, consulting, and logistics with a clear focus on credible communications and international positioning.

Conversation with Comms Leaders #3/9: Julia Völzke (Rhenus Logistics)

For the second edition of “Conversations with Comms Leaders,” we spoke with Christine Bossak of B. Braun about building credibility through corporate action, the disappearance of boundaries between internal and external communications, and whether AI genuinely saves time or primarily makes communications more interchangeable. She also explains how Meltwater helps her team assess critical media coverage more calmly and respond with greater precision.

My personal highlight was the opening of our expanded production facilities for dialysis machines and infusion pumps in April. This represents an investment of approximately €60 million here in North Hesse, at a time when many companies are reducing or cancelling their investments in Germany due to tariffs and other challenging conditions.

For me, the impact of communicating this development was almost greater internally than externally. For people at a location such as Melsungen, an investment decision of this kind means something different than it does to the media. It builds trust and gives people a sense of security.

At a time when virtually any claim can be generated within seconds, credibility is created primarily through what a company actually does, through what it creates or quite literally builds.

Our role in communications is therefore not limited to formulating messages. We must also recognise which business decisions already convey a powerful message in their own right.

I believe the distinction between internal and external communications will disappear completely, if it has not already done so. I am responsible for both areas within one team, so I see every day just how artificial this boundary really is.

B. Braun employs around 66,000 people worldwide. In an organisation of this size, no communication remains truly internal. Employees share information, talk about their experiences, and therefore play a significant role in shaping perceptions of our company. We cannot and should not try to control this.

This makes it all the more important to ensure that internal communications are credible, clear, and consistent, and that they align with what we communicate externally.

At the same time, internal communications is increasingly becoming a crisis management discipline. When something happens outside the company, employees hear about it within minutes through media reports, social networks, or private chats.

In such situations, we cannot wait until every detail has been clarified and several rounds of approval have been completed. We must be able to communicate and act within a very short timeframe, even when not all the facts are yet available.

The real challenge is often not a lack of tools. It lies in decision making and approval processes that date from a time when organisations had a day or more to respond.

I sometimes wonder whether AI genuinely saves us as much time as people claim. On closer inspection, AI may simply shift where we spend our time. Writing becomes faster, but reviewing, coordinating, and deciding may take longer because we suddenly have five drafts to consider instead of one.

In a highly regulated industry such as medical technology, writing is not necessarily the main bottleneck anyway. The much more important question is whether we are permitted to say something in the first place, or whether we actually want to say it. For me, the real value of AI therefore lies elsewhere. It gives us a broader range of material to discuss and perhaps debate more constructively. However, it also means that we have to make decisions more frequently. So the question of how much time AI really saves is not quite so straightforward.

I am also concerned that AI could soon make us all sound even more alike. Corporate communications at large organisations is already somewhat interchangeable. Every company describes itself as innovative, customer focused, and sustainable. If everyone begins using similar tools and prompts, this effect could become even more pronounced.

This makes specific stories, genuine proof points, a clear position, and language that reflects the individual company all the more important. Becoming more distinctive again is one of the major challenges where AI may not necessarily help us. Ultimately, it still comes down to people and their creativity.

Meltwater naturally allows us to see considerably more than we could without the platform. However, the greatest benefit for us is that we have actually become a little calmer.

In the past, a single critical article could sometimes cause considerable concern within the company. We would often respond somewhat erratically and on an ad hoc basis simply because someone happened to notice that particular article. Today, we can assess such coverage much more quickly, calmly, and precisely. Is it an isolated case, or can we identify a pattern? Do we genuinely need to anticipate a wave of public criticism? Fortunately, the honest answer is usually that it is an isolated case.

As a result, we respond less frequently, but with greater precision. To me, this is one of the most underestimated benefits of monitoring. It helps us decide when not to act.

As a family business, there is another important consideration for us. The company name is also the surname of the owning family. Reputation is therefore not something we assess on a quarterly basis. We need early indicators, not merely retrospective analysis. With its wide range of capabilities, Meltwater provides us with tremendous support. We do not have to identify everything ourselves, and we can make our assessment process both simpler and faster.

Christine Bossak leads the Group Internal & External Communication team at B. Braun SE, a global medical technology company. As part of the Group Communications function, she is responsible for global executive and employee communications, media relations, crisis communications, and communications for the CEO and Executive Board. Before joining B. Braun, Christine Bossak worked for international publicly listed companies in the energy and retail sectors, including as a spokesperson. Through these roles, she gained extensive insight into a wide range of communications requirements, industries, and cultural environments.

Conversation with Comms Leaders #2/9: Christine Bossak (B. Braun)

Andy Rowlands, who leads Accenture’s external corporate communications across EMEA, discusses the company’s return to European sports partnerships, the growing value of human talent and trusted voices in an AI-driven industry, and how Meltwater’s credible data and insights support effective communications planning.

My 2026 highlight has undoubtedly been seeing Accenture re-enter the world of sport in Europe across tennis, golf and football.

The announcements of our partnerships with the Women’s Tennis Association and golf governing body the R&A were amongst my highlights of 2026, and not just because I am a big sports fan!  The internal buzz has been just as exciting as the external one and the opportunities to engage with media, clients and partners in a different way has been exciting to see.

Add to those our new partnership with English football league team Salford City FC and our existing work with the NFL and we have a really exciting portfolio.  As we help each organisation reinvent how they engage with their players and fans, it'll create new opportunities to tell their stories for years to come.

In addition to this, working with our talented comms team across the globe is a constant highlight that it would be remiss of me not to mention!

We’ve all seen headlines about the potential for AI to replace entry level roles and many companies have reduced opportunities at that level as a result.

I think one of the ‘surprises’ over the next couple of years will be a talent shortage at the mid to junior levels of our profession as this reduced hiring moves through the experience ladder. Our communications profession thrives on new, fresh ideas and new, fresh talent is critical to that.

A second healthy surprise will be the comeback of entry level hiring. This generation has grown up using AI tools so will bring that skill into the workforce, but will probably need, instead, to be coached on boosting their human skills not their tech skills.

Indeed, the communicators who thrive will not be the most tech-fluent. They will be the ones with the deepest human networks, the sharpest instinct for narrative, and the credibility to say something others won't. In a world flooded with AI-generated content, a trusted human voice will become a scarce and premium asset. Scarcity, as any economist will tell you, drives value.

The pace and scale of what AI in comms can do is not slowing down. It will be able to do things that we can’t even imagine today. That prospect will energise some people and scare the life out of others. Our industry will include both types of people in the future.

There will be backlashes against AI, there will be evangelists preaching full AI adoption. Trust and responsibility will only grow in importance. Getting the right balance between what AI can do and what AI should do will be vital.

Meltwater is our eyes, ears and data goldmine.

AI tools can do wonders in terms of analysing and presenting data and insights, but they would be useless without the solid, credible information that we gain through Meltwater.

We are seeing new and more impactful ways of visualising our data through Meltwater which helps us to stay on top of emerging trends and plan ahead effectively.

Andy is an experienced corporate communications professional with a strong track record of leading country and international PR teams. Based in London, he currently leads external corporate communications across Europe, the Middle East & Africa for Accenture, the global professional services company.

Andy's expertise lies in strategic communications, media relations and reputation management across complex, multidisciplinary organizations. He has successfully led a wide range of strategically significant initiatives including the development of impactful thought leadership campaigns, executive profiling of board level executives and corporate rebranding. Prior to Accenture he worked at global engineering firm Arcadis and top PR firms including Burson-Marsteller where he specialized in technology, professional services and crisis related client work.

Andy holds an economics degree from the University of Bath. He has a strong passion for technology and its impact on society and ensures he stays up-to-date with the latest tech trends including AI. Andy has been recognized for his exceptional leadership skills, receiving several industry awards including Best In-House Media Relations Team, Best Use of Thought Leadership and Corporate Communications Professional of the Year.

In addition to his professional achievements, Andy is actively involved in his local community. He managed his son's football (soccer) team, Hemel Hempstead Town Youth FC, for over ten seasons and is a run director at his local parkrun.

Conversations with Comms Leaders #1/9: Andy Rowlands (Accenture)

Imagine a customer complaint starts on Reddit at 9 a.m. By lunch, it has been quoted on X and LinkedIn, picked up by a journalist, and shared internally by a client before your PR team has seen it.

Knowing how to track media mentions helps you catch that story while it’s still developing. The challenge is not simply the volume of online conversation, but finding the mentions that could affect your reputation, campaigns, competitors, or leadership team before they get buried.

This guide covers three ways to track media mentions, what to monitor beyond your brand name, and how to turn alerts and coverage into action. The right approach depends on how many channels you need to cover and how quickly your team needs to respond.

Why tracking media mentions matters for PR teams

How to turn media mentions into actionable insights

Start tracking every mention that matters

A story can change as it moves between news outlets and social platforms. For example, Wendy’s 2024 dynamic-pricing controversy began with comments from an investor call, but quickly became a wider story about “surge pricing.” By the time the company clarified its plans, customers and public figures were already criticizing the brand online.

The volume makes manual tracking unrealistic. To put the scale of online information into perspective, Google alone now handles more than 5 trillion searches a year, or roughly 13.7 billion a day. That's before counting everything happening across social platforms, forums, and broadcast that a search engine doesn't capture at all. 

Tracking mentions consistently helps PR teams act on four areas:

Reputation management. Catch negative sentiment while it's still just one story, not a pattern, so you can manage your brand's online reputation proactively rather than reactively.

Competitive intelligence. See where competitors are earning coverage, which topics they own, and what those gaps reveal through market research.

Earned media measurement. Track coverage volume, reach, sentiment, share of voice, and the effect on brand awareness instead of relying on a folder of press clippings.

Crisis detection. Spot a spike in mentions before it turns into a story your leadership team is asking about. That matters more given how much inaccurate news circulates on social platforms: most regular news consumers on major social networks say they at least sometimes see news that seems inaccurate, so a false or exaggerated mention can spread before you even know it exists.

The goal is to identify the conversations that could affect your brand and act while the story is still developing.

Most PR teams land on one of three approaches, and each one trades off cost against coverage.

Search your brand name across search engines, relevant social platforms, review sites, Quora, and priority publications. Include common misspellings, product names, executive names, any relevant hashtag, and campaign terms to catch mentions that do not use your exact company name.

This method is free and works for occasional checks or your brand with little coverage. But you only find what appears on the platforms you search, at the time you search them. It also cannot show whether mention volume is rising, sentiment is changing, or the same story is spreading across channels.

Google Alerts sends email alerts when new Google Search results match a term you choose. It’s free, quick to set up, and useful for tracking brand names, executives, competitors, and campaign keywords.

However, it only alerts you to content that appears in Google Search. That makes it useful for basic brand monitoring to help you track key brand mentions, but not a complete solution for social posts, broadcast coverage, podcasts, or time-sensitive issues. It also does not provide sentiment analysis, spike detection, reach estimates, or share-of-voice reporting.

Dedicated media monitoring tools monitor several media types continuously and bring the results into one dashboard. Depending on the platform, this can include online news, social media, forums, reviews, TV, radio, and podcasts.

They also add context that manual search and Google Alerts cannot provide, such as:

Alerts when mention volume changes unexpectedly

Competitor and share-of-voice comparisons

PR & Communications

Conversations with Comms Leaders #7/9: Tom Hunt (Antidote)

Conversations with Comms Leaders #6/9: Sara Palmbush (Fourthline)

Conversations with Comms Leaders #5/9: Michael Scheuer (Freudenberg)

Conversations with Comms Leaders #4/9: Lena Köhne (Surventis)

Conversation with Comms Leaders #3/9: Julia Völzke (Rhenus Logistics)

Conversation with Comms Leaders #2/9: Christine Bossak (B. Braun)

Conversations with Comms Leaders #1/9: Andy Rowlands (Accenture)

How to Track Media Mentions in 2026

The World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) 2026: The Conversation Split Between Policy, Technology and AI

Understanding Social Media Listening Metrics for PR Success

What we learned about PR measurement at Meltwater Summit

Find the Right Journalists with a Media Contact Database

PR & Communications

Conversations with Comms Leaders #7/9: Tom Hunt (Antidote)

Conversations with Comms Leaders #6/9: Sara Palmbush (Fourthline)

Conversations with Comms Leaders #5/9: Michael Scheuer (Freudenberg)

Conversations with Comms Leaders #4/9: Lena Köhne (Surventis)

Conversation with Comms Leaders #3/9: Julia Völzke (Rhenus Logistics)

Conversation with Comms Leaders #2/9: Christine Bossak (B. Braun)

Conversations with Comms Leaders #1/9: Andy Rowlands (Accenture)

How to Track Media Mentions in 2026

The World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) 2026: The Conversation Split Between Policy, Technology and AI

Understanding Social Media Listening Metrics for PR Success

What we learned about PR measurement at Meltwater Summit

Find the Right Journalists with a Media Contact Database

Interested in learning how Meltwater can help you? Fill out the form to learn more.