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

Your Best Context is Already in the Room

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

15 Must-Have PR KPIs and How to Track Them

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

The Meltwater Blog

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

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

Facebook Blog | Meltwater

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

Instagram Blog | Meltwater

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

LinkedIn Blog | Meltwater

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

TikTok Blog | Meltwater

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

X / Twitter Blog | Meltwater

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

YouTube Blog | Meltwater

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

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

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Blog Collection | Meltwater

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

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

Social Listening Blogs | Category

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

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

Reputation Management Blogs | Category

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

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

Brand Management Blogs | Category

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

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

Competitive Intelligence Blogs | Category

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

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

Customer Journey Blogs | Category

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

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

AI & Data Analytics Blogs | Category

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

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

Public Relations (PR) Blogs | Category

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

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

Internal Communications Blogs | Category

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

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

Content Marketing Blogs | Category

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

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

Influencer Marketing Blogs | Category

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

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

Marketing Blogs | Category

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

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

Social Media Management Blogs | Category

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

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

Social Media Marketing Blogs | Category

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

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

Digital Marketing & PR Tools Blogs | Category

Businesses turn to a variety of strategies to grow their bottom lines: search engine rankings, social media, pricing, digital presence, branding, and more.

Aside from mastering these for your own business, you’ll also need to track your competitors’ performance. Competitor monitoring lets you see how your own efforts compare, which can help you get ahead of the curve, reach more customers, and build a stronger business.

Let’s look at how to do competitive monitoring, make it a part of your competitive intelligence strategy, and use it to your advantage.

Business Benefits of Competitor Monitoring

How to Use Competitor Monitoring Software

Competitor monitoring is the intentional and consistent process of evaluating essential aspects of your competitor’s performance.

This process has many moving parts, including but not limited to:

Checking a competitor’s content performance

Discovering keywords your competitors are ranking for

Gauging website traffic to specific content or campaigns

Staying alert when they publish new content

Seeing which sites are linking to your competitors

Learning which influencers they’re using 

Tracking how much engagement they receive on social media

Seeing how they promote, price, and discount their products or services

Ultimately, your goal is to get inside the business to see how they market themselves and how their marketing performs. Use these findings to review your own approach so that you can build on your strengths, improve any weaknesses, and create a stronger position in the market.

It is important to track your competition’s every move. Competitor monitoring helps you make informed decisions about your business’ marketing strategy. Performing a competitor analysis prevents you from repeating their mistakes and lets you improve on their successes by executing them better.

Competitive monitoring is a helpful exercise to improve your business. It allows you to see how you stack up against others in your industry and where you hold your competitive advantage.

No one likes a copycat. But seeing how your competitors are marketing themselves might inspire your next campaign. You might find opportunities they didn’t capitalize on or ways to put your unique spin on things.

2. Save time and money by avoiding ideas that won’t work

Pouring resources into channels and campaigns that don’t reach your audience can be downright discouraging. Plus, those resources could have been better spent on other initiatives that would drive better results.

Before moving forward with an idea, see if your competitors have done it first. Look into the results they received and whether you’ll be able to get the same or better results.

3. Learn what your competitors aren’t doing

When monitoring your competitors’ marketing, it’s important to look at what they’re not doing.

For example, do they not have a TikTok channel? Are they not investing in video marketing? Are they not posting new content every week? These could be golden opportunities for you to get ahead.

4. Gain actionable insights to drive your own marketing strategy

Data is a core component of competitive monitoring.

Armed with numbers, you can see the effectiveness of their marketing efforts and compare them against your own.

From keywords to traffic to engagement, data paints a compelling picture. Get better insights into what you should do next to match (or overtake) your competitors.

Doing competitor monitoring means figuring out who your competitors are. Sometimes, your competitors are obvious. But newcomers may enter the market, while mergers, acquisitions, and closures might remove some competition from the space.

Engaging in formal monitoring gives you an opportunity to re-evaluate who your competitors are and ensure you’re monitoring the right companies.

A basic Google search of your business or industry-specific keywords can show you who your top competitors are and what to pay attention to.

There are several ways to do competitor monitoring manually. Here are some options to get you started.

Tools like Spyfu and Ahrefs can show you which keywords your competitors are ranking for so you can go after those same terms. You can also see how high your competitors are ranking for those terms in organic search. (A tool like Accuranker is great for this).

The qualitative data that comes from online reviews and forum comments can be useful for seeing how others feel about your competitors. They might excel in getting new customers, but their products may have flaws, their service may be lacking, or their policies might not be customer-centric.

These nuggets of wisdom give you direct insight into the customer experience and can help you adjust your own policies, products, and processes to attract new customers.

You can set up alerts for the names of your competitors or keywords you want to rank for through Google Alerts. Google Alerts is a free and easy-to-use tool to help you track and stay informed of your competitors’ online presence.

The tool will send you notifications when it finds new matching content for the search term you set and is a great tool for monitoring your competitors’ backlinks.

By subscribing to your competitors’ newsletters and emails, you can monitor what they are sending their customers and learn information about new product launches, company news, the type of content they publish, and their marketing campaigns.

This can give you inside knowledge of what is working or not working for their business, which can help you outmatch their efforts.

Browsing your competitors’ websites can give you access to valuable information as well. For example, a brief glance at a competitor’s career page can tell you what jobs they are hiring for, which can tell you what areas they are planning growth. If they have listings for sales in a different city, you can gather that they might be looking to expand their reach, or listings for web developers could mean they are revamping their website or preparing for new campaigns.

This is also a good opportunity to check out your competitors’ pricing strategies. Beyond the price itself, do they follow a dynamic pricing model? Have they made price changes since your last competitive analysis? Are competitor prices higher or lower than yours?

Also, while monitoring competitor web pages, pay attention to the layout and flow, any website changes, and what is working and what is not to give you insight on some ways you can optimize your own website.

Reading tip: Learn how pricing fits into the marketing mix.

6. Follow competitors’ social media pages

Tracking your competition through social channels is another useful way to gain insights into your competitors and their marketing strategies.

You can see which social media platforms they are using and what type of content they post where. It can also tell you if a specific type of content is popular and if their social media strategies are effective or not.

Tip: A social media monitoring tool like Meltwater can help you automate that process. Here you find the best social media monitoring tools that are out there.

7. Monitor backlinks using Ahrefs or UberSuggest

SEO tools like Ahrefs or UberSuggest give you a wealth of information on your competitors’ website performance.

Backlinks are of particular importance, as these are signals of quality when it comes to SEO. You can discover which sites are linking to your competitors by plugging their URLs into a backlink tool.

Get a list of possible websites you can reach out to and see if they’ll link to you, too.

BuzzSumo is a great way to monitor your competitors’ share of voice on a particular topic.

You can set up alerts similar to Google Alerts and get a rundown of new content on a given topic or brand.

While monitoring your competitors manually is a great way to discover information, keeping track of all that data on your own can be very time-consuming and tedious. Instead, use a competitor monitoring tool, like Meltwater.

Softwares make it easy to track and analyze your competitors’ strategies, customers’ intent, and trends in your industry all in one place and at scale.

There are several types of competitor analysis tools that can help you monitor the data you are looking for. You want to make sure to choose the tool that is best for you or combines multiple monitoring tools into one. 

Some different ways you can conduct competitor monitoring:

Using social listening tools allows you to track and analyze specific content relevant to keywords, brands, and mentions across social media platforms.

These tools gather important information about your customers and help you understand more about what they are looking for. You will gain a more profound knowledge of your industry, its trends, and potential influencers.

Meltwater’s social listening tool can help you track brand reputation and create a powerful social media campaign with demographics, interests, and behavioral data.

Media monitoring automates the process of scanning various types of media, like online news, print, social media, etc., for mentions of your brand and competitors. Its analytics allow you to gain valuable insights into your industry and your competition.

Media monitoring helps you analyze content specific and relevant to the topics and keywords you choose. See what's working with your customers and decide how to adjust your campaigns.

Meltwater uses a comprehensive media analysis tool that allows you to track your own performance against competitors.

 Key features of media monitoring software

Unlimited keyword monitoring across all channels

The ability to build dashboards and share results with stakeholders

Tools that conduct sentiment analysis let you see whether customers are happy with your competitors. These findings indicate how likely customers might be to switch to a different brand or service provider. Their weaknesses in the eyes of their customers could become your new competitive advantages.

Meltwater measures customer sentiment to give you context behind what customers express online.﻿

A complete view of customer pain points and unmet needs

The Ultimate Guide to Competitor Monitoring

For most of us, life revolves around a few major tech companies. It’s nearly impossible to spend a week without Google these days, and many social networks are the same story.

In fact, chances are you found this article through Google, Facebook, or LinkedIn. Unless you’re reading this from South Korea.

Because unlike most countries in the world, where Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon reign supreme, Koreans have developed their own digital economy giants.

So what are the main social media platforms? And do Koreans really prefer them over their western counterparts? This article explores these questions in details.

But first, let’s learn a little more about South Korea’s technical infrastructure.

Top social media platforms in South Korea

Are local social platforms or western platforms winning in South Korea?

Korean social media: a story of demographics

Korean social media: a battle of East vs. West?

To understand Korean social media usage, let’s begin with the technological landscape. The Internet has reached more than 95% of the country, the highest rate for any Asian country outside the Middle East.

As the home of electronics giants Samsung and LG, it shouldn’t surprise us to learn that the country is number one in the world for smartphone ownership. And as long as smartphone users have a web connection, they’re probably on social media.

Good news on that front, too. South Korea also has one of the highest rates of LTE coverage in the world. 4G networks are available essentially anywhere in the country. Whether you’re on the subway, in the middle of the countryside, or on board a high-speed train, it’s always possible to connect to social media.

Most South Koreans already use 4G, and have done for years. But the country’s top three service providers rolled out 5G access in April 2019, and speeds are up to 100x faster than 4G.

In fact, South Korea regularly ranks first globally in terms of internet connection speed overall (not just 5G): 

Coupled together, these are ideal conditions for social media users.

Tip: You find more interesting digital marketing and social media statistics in our Global Digital Trends Report 2023.

As a country with such good Internet infrastructure, we’d expect to see social media use at incredibly high levels. Which is exactly the case.

As of January 2019, South Korea had the third highest rate of active social media users in the world. (Interestingly, the top six countries are all in Asia).

85% of South Koreans use social media, far ahead of the United States (70%), the United Kingdom and Canada (both 67%).

But as we’re about to examine, the Korean social media landscape is a little more complicated than westerners might expect. All your favorite social networks are present in the country, and many are thriving.

But South Korea has its own set of platforms that have proven equally or more popular over the last two decades.

A crowded field: domestic social networks alongside American giants

As we’ve already teased, South Korea is home to several social networks that many readers won’t recognize.

Some look similar, of course, and many features were developed as a way to stay ahead of interlopers. Here are the big names in Korean social media:

The Daum/KakaoTalk universe, a merger of two major Korean digital service providers, has managed to carve out a sizeable chunk in the market. According to StatCounter, Daum is the 3rd biggest search engine in South Korea with a market share of approximately 6.5% (behind Google and Naver, with market share rates of approximately 66% and 25%, respectively). 

KakaoTalk, on the other hand, is a WhatsApp-style messaging service, which is actively used by 97% of all smartphone users in Korea and serves more than 43 million monthly active users. 

KakaoStory, with its plethora of services, is the equivalent of Facebook. Launched in 2012 by Kakao Corp, it was the most popular network among Koreans. Its popularity is particularly impressive given the prominence of similar tools like WhatsApp and WeChat.

Like the Chinese WeChat, Kakao has since engaged in a diversification strategy, for example offering online banking and taxi services. Kakao users are also able to send each other gifts.

For instance, a Kakao user can easily buy his friend a pizza by sending a bar code to his account, which then can be redeemed online or in store.

KakaoTalk continues to be hugely popular in South Korea, despite the intrusions of other powerful social networks. But as we’ll explore shortly, this may not last.

Naver is basically the Google of South Korea. Of course, South Korea has Google as well, but Naver operates in much the same way. 

The company has a range of different search engines (Blog Search, News Search), Knowledge In (similar to Yahoo Answers), as well as popular products Naver Cafe, LINE, and BAND.

BAND is a communication app for teams and groups. In the US, it’s marketed as more of a business tool - similar to Slack:

But it really became popular in South Korea through the gaming community. When users played online in teams, they needed an easy way to talk to one another. BAND made this easy.

It’s even officially used by the Republic of Korea Army.

It’s to Cyworld that Koreans owe their enthusiasm for social networks. Cyworld created the first major social network back in 1999, well before Facebook or Twitter, and it rapidly became a hit.

One unique feature is that it allows its users to organise, manage and prioritise their relationships according to a hierarchy consisting of three different ‘ranks’, thus matching the structure of Korean society.

For a long time, the company resisted the inexorable rise of Facebook. But eventually Cyworld recently experienced a sharp decline in use:

Number of Cyworld vs Facebook users. Source: The Realtime Report

By 2012, Facebook had overtaken Cyworld for user numbers.

The other networks, however, are still going strong. And as of very recently, they were holding off the outside invaders.

It wasn’t long ago that the Korean social landscape was dominated by domestic companies. But just as it has done in most of the world, Facebook has climbed to the top spot.

Over 60% of South Koreans now use Facebook, 24% use Facebook Messenger, and 39% use Instagram (another Facebook product).

Note: YouTube actually has usage rates even higher than Facebook’s, but this is not what most people think of when they picture a “social network.”

The statistics on social media usage can be confusing

It should be noted that the numbers aren’t exactly clear on all this. Based on one survey, BAND actually has the highest number of active users.

If we choose to follow this survey, Facebook and Instagram are next, with Kakao story coming fourth. And to complicate matters, another study found that Koreans spend more time on Instagram than Facebook, and Facebook may even be losing users.

But really, what’s most interesting is how popular these networks are in the first place. Compared with their American and Chinese counterparts, their overall usage is tiny.

But as a percentage of the South Korean market, each punches well above its weight.

Aside from the fact that Facebook is simply everywhere today, demographics seem to have a large part to play in this pattern. There’s an interesting difference in social media usage depending on age.  

Facebook is enormously popular with Koreans under 24 years old. These young people spend 29-34% of their social media time on the network (depending on their age), far more than any other platform.

The same group of youngsters also uses Instagram heavily - it’s the second-most popular network among them.

Facebook is also the most popular option for users in their late 20s and 30s. But they also spend a relatively even share of time on other networks, including locally-built offerings.  

By contrast, Koreans in their 40s and 50s heavily favor two options: Kakaotalk and BAND. This could be because they were already using them, or perhaps older Koreans prefer Korean-made products.

Overall, these changes could suggest that domestic Korean social networks are in trouble. As more young people get their first smartphone and create new social profiles, they’re likely to join their peers on Instagram and Facebook. 

On the other hand, it might mean that some social networks are simply better suited to certain demographics. BAND, in particular, seems to appeal directly to users who need slightly more professional elements. It includes a shared calendar, lets users create polls, and has an inherent organization that likely fits older users.

Most likely, it shows the slow creep of companies like Facebook (and Instagram) across the entire world. Even in a country that already had a thriving social networking culture, it was only a matter of time.

If you're interested in never missing a mention in Korean social media, fill out the form below to get a free consultation and learn more about social listening.

Explained: The Unique Case of Korean Social Media

The popularity of TikTok just continues to grow, for influencers, brands, and other creators alike. The biggest TikTok stars recognize what their followers want early, and have built tremendous followings based on creating content that resonates.

The most followed TikTok accounts have also likely built a strong personal brand and maintained their standing by working with numerous brands and collaborating with other influencers. 

See below for the biggest TikTok stars, by number of followers. Or skip to your favorite creator from this list:

Tip: If you're looking for local TikTokers to partner with, take a look at the top TikTok influencers in Malaysia and the top South African TikTokers.

According to Statista, the person with the most followers on TikTok is Senegalese-born Khaby Lame (154.8M). Living in Italy, he has been making people laugh with his hilarious reaction videos since the beginning of the Covid pandemic in 2020.

To put his follower number on TikTok into perspective, he has 88 million more followers than Kevin Hart, Justin Bieber, and Drew Barrymore combined! 

Social Listening

The Ultimate Guide to Competitor Monitoring

Explained: The Unique Case of Korean Social Media

The 10 Most Followed TikTok Accounts

UAE Social Media Statistics [Updated 2023]

Which Brand ‘Won’ Football's Big Night?

What Topics Were Trending on Social Media in 2022?

Mental Health Monitoring in Hong Kong: How CSRP saves lives by listening

Current Instagram Trends to Watch

List of the Most Trending Hashtags in Australia

34 Twitter Stats Marketers Need To Know

Meltwater Celebrates G2 Best Software Awards Wins

How Much Does Media Monitoring Cost?

Social Listening

The Ultimate Guide to Competitor Monitoring

Explained: The Unique Case of Korean Social Media

The 10 Most Followed TikTok Accounts

UAE Social Media Statistics [Updated 2023]

Which Brand ‘Won’ Football's Big Night?

What Topics Were Trending on Social Media in 2022?

Mental Health Monitoring in Hong Kong: How CSRP saves lives by listening

Current Instagram Trends to Watch

List of the Most Trending Hashtags in Australia

34 Twitter Stats Marketers Need To Know

Meltwater Celebrates G2 Best Software Awards Wins

How Much Does Media Monitoring Cost?

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