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Generative AI is everywhere now. You see it in content, campaigns, customer experiences, and even internal workflows. It promises speed, scale, and efficiency, but there’s a harder question sitting underneath all that progress; Do your audiences actually trust it?

Trust in the Age of AI: What Consumers Really Think About AI Generated Content

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? [Beginner’s Guide 2023]
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

It's possible to predict a trend before it becomes widespread. Knowing how to read the social zeitgeist can inform thought leadership, help you find influencers, and determine business decisions. Learn how to forecast trends from an expert by downloading our on-demand webinar, Secrets of a Trend Spotter Revealed.

Trendjacking is wildly popular. It can garner you kudos or widespread condemnation from fans and influencers. In the always-on social media sphere, knowing when to trendjack or calmly step away from the ledge is a delicate dance. Cultivating the skills necessary to read and react to the social zeitgeist during the crucial six hours after a trend starts to spread is invaluable. Here’s how to keep ahead of the curve, so your attempts at trendjacking results in a win.

Infographic: Should I Trendjack on Social Media?

The Scottish people have embraced immersive technologies, supported a movement towards more liberal human rights policies (by and large) and embraced low-carbon behaviours faster than many of their global counterparts. How do we know this? Well, we’ve done the research and looked into what Scottish audiences, in particular, are talking about.

Through survey data, event info, government policies and behavioural insights, a brand can start to gain a fundamental understanding of who they are talking to in a specific location. However, gaining this insight can involve a lot of manual labour and can be very time consuming.

In a fast-paced environment, where popular themes and discussions change daily (within greater conversations) it can be difficult to keep up using traditional methods. As brand custodians this presents us with a few difficult challenges when speaking to Scottish consumers – especially in a digital world.

It’s easy to miss mentions about specific topics, as well as brand complaints and slander due to the sheer magnitude of information on the internet. According to statistics directly from the Scottish government, 97% of adults said they used the internet at home. With this level of accessibility, drastically higher than in most parts of the world, a flood of opinion-based content can be released about your brand, and you might not know until it’s too late.

Scottish audiences have phenomenal access (compared globally) to the internet and are not afraid to share their opinions online – which makes this audience a potentially lethal opponent to any brand.


Scots are tech-savvy. And, this isn’t an assumption based on connectivity alone. In a report by Public, 3 Scottish cities were named among the most digitally savvy urban areas of the UK, namely: Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh. Generally, we know that tech-savvy audiences expect user-friendly, familiar interfaces, instant gratification and high levels of customer service and delivery.


Scotland is a leader in terms of global conversations and highly conscientious. Twitter data shows that topics, such as climate change and politics have been highly prioritised by Scottish audiences.


Mobile take-up is high, reportedly at 70% since 2016, according to Ofcom. Therefore, a mobile-first approach is necessary for brands targeting emerging audiences.

So, with all of this in mind, you’ve got a powerful audience embracing digital on a daily basis. How will you ensure that your brand stays positioned in a positive light? And that you meet these growing needs of this computer literate and plugged in market?

The Herald Scotland claims that one third of Scots are ‘addicted to social media’. According to a survey by polling firm Censuswide Scotland, ‘17% of Scots feel anxious if they cannot access their social accounts, while 14% say they could not go 48 hours without visiting them’.

In light of this, your brand needs to be where its consumers are, monitoring the conversation on popular social channels like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. So, how do you do this “social listening”?

You can start with media monitoring software and set the monitoring location to Scotland. Essentially, this software will trawl social channels for you looking for specific keywords or mentions of your brand, which you choose. It centralises the instances where these words or related themes have come up into a dashboard, where you can quickly see top tweets and posts in a few minutes. This helps you to assess which of them needs to be addressed urgently as the top mentions will have the biggest social impact.

At the same time, you can view the sentiment of each post, marked by positive, neutral or negative indicators. You can also see an overview of sentiment for all mentions, over a time period that you select. This way, you can quickly establish if there is a crisis brewing or if your consumers are generally saying positive things about your brand on social media.

There are a number of metrics you can set to monitor and help you stay on top of social, and each is easily downloadable or in ready to report format.

Beyond the social, lies an equally important world of media and editorial content from third-parties and journalists looking to discuss relevant topics and brands. It’s easy for your company to be in the public eye before you’ve even become aware of it, and while most journalists will request a direct comment from you in line with a mention.

However, in the famous announcement from Forbes, we as humans create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data each day, which is almost unfathomable. There’s no way that you could manually crawl through all of that yourself. A search engine is a good starting point but it doesn’t allow you as much control over what you need to see first and how you can share that data. In the same breath, the digital landscape is about more than just your brand. It’s about threats and opportunities too.

Monitoring the media with a data-driven mechanism allows you to suss out your competitors, identify opportunities for new creative ideas and products and find out who is doing what you do, but better. You aren’t limited in terms of the keywords you can use, which opens up a gateway of curated information that can revolutionise the way you do business.

Other important benefits to monitoring Scottish media

If you think back to earlier in this post, we spoke about Scots being a generally tech-savvy audience with high expectations. In light of what we know about media monitoring, this is an extremely relevant point. Scottish consumers have expectations for excellent customer service and many of them turn to the media to have these expectations met – particularly social media.

With monitoring software, you can pick up on complaints about your brand even if they aren’t tagged, clearing up disputes from disgruntled customers before they escalate. You can also preemptively offer your services and exceed expectations when it’s so easy to see who is talking about what.

Want to really connect with and understand your Scottish audiences? Have a look at our media monitoring software and see how easy it is to do so. Simply contact us and we’ll give you a free demo.

Media Monitoring in Scotland – A Brand Gateway in a Promising Market

Now that the formalities – and an extremely awkward atmosphere – are out of the way at the United Nations Climate Action Summit, environmental activists and climate change analysts are left frustrated with the paradox of inaction sitting in the cavernous hall. The biggest emitters – namely the US, China and India – have offered little to effect change.

Amid the fog of collective resignation at the assembly hall, there were a few rays of light flickering through the throngs of stuffy, suited bureaucrats discussing ways to settle their disputes. The positive outcomes – 70 countries pledged to boost their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) in 2020, almost eight billion dollars in fresh funding from both the Green Climate Fund and Bill Gates and a band of countries and companies have committed to ending coal reliance.

However, a little voice of hope, despair and fury torched the conscience of the reluctant leaders at the summit like the inferno engulfing the Amazon rainforest now. Her braided pigtails slung over her fiery red blouse with eyes fixated at the cumbersome world leaders. The unassuming Swedish 16-year-old Greta Thunberg took them to task with a speech that unabashedly pointed the finger of blame to the bureaucrats in the room. Thunberg, who has addressed the British Parliament and staged protests against her nation’s administrators, admonished the weak steps countries have implemented like only providing financial aid.

The salience of Thunberg’s voice thundered in the media space. Between 20 to 26 September, there were more than 7.5 million social mentions of the young student-activist since her impassioned speech while news outlets around the world mentioned her 93,800 times. However there was a polarity between supporters and detractors on the merits of Greta during the summit. Supporters called the firebrand girl “inspiring” and praised her for being a role model to people who have Asperger’s Syndrome, a developmental disorder suffered by millions. Contrarily, there were some who believed she was a child being exploited by climate change activists and her efforts were unhelpful to the cause by shaming those who had the wherewithal to enact change.

A key point of discussion amongst the myriad of topics was Thunberg’s arch climate change nemesis, US President Donald Trump. Netizens and commentators on social media highlighted the divisive tweet that the “leader of the free world” made in response to Thunberg’s speech. In his tweet, Mr Trump professed that Thunberg “seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!”. This, in Mr Trump’s nutshell, dismissed any reciprocity from the US.

Donald J. Trump on Twitter: "She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!… "

Meltwater also discovered that 21.5% of the total social mentions of Thunberg originated from the US. This is unsurprising as the summit was held in New York and also included the highly publicised spat with the Commander-in-Chief. However, a quick glance at the top five countries highlighted an anomaly – the two other biggest emitters, China and India, were far from that number, with China not even on the list. In fact, there was not single Asian country, aside from India, in the top ten. Does this mean that social conversations on climate change were not prominent enough in Asian countries? Probably, and hopefully this insight can help spur key leaders to raise awareness in their regions.

Social media analytics on Global Climate Strike

Another event that preceded the UN Climate Action Summit is the ongoing Global Climate Strike (GCS). Climate change activists have been in full force globally with more than 3.58 million social mentions of the event since its launch on 20 September. Strikes were reported across numerous major cities including Melbourne, Singapore and even Thunberg’s home, Stockholm. The majority of the mentions were aimed to generate awareness of climate change and calling people – from students to postal workers – to go on strike on Fridays to pressure decision makers. While on the other side of the spectrum, topics ranged from conspiracy theories of the climate action movement and debunking facts put forth by the activists. 

We don’t know if Thunberg’s furious plea had the impact that was intended with participants at the Summit. What we do know is that her words struck a chord with the international public like we haven’t seen before. Inspiring us to pay attention and put pressure on our leaders. Only time will tell if this enthusiasm and fervour is here to stay.

Social Media Reactions: Greta Thunberg, UN Climate Action Summit 2019

If you stop and think about it for a minute, you can trace almost every aspect of human society to news and social media, in one way or another. The media is a vessel for storytelling, and storytelling, is a mechanism for how we formulate opinions, make buying decisions, educate one another and express our identities as part of greater communities and beliefs. 

The news media is topical, locational and categorised, and consumers as a whole have varying levels of access to it, in accordance with their place in society. As that access grows, and the world wide web becomes a staple ingredient in the recipe for integrated communication, so it forms more of a crucial cornerstone to modern life as we know it. It is a place where brands must exist within their consumers’ lives as they do, physically.

Defining Media Monitoring in a Brand Context

Media Monitoring in the UK is Crucial to Reputation Management and Business Growth

Do Better Business in the UK by Using Media Monitoring

Companies Doing Media Monitoring right, globally

Get Started Using Media Monitoring Tools in the UK

Learn More about Media Monitoring in the UK

So, when we talk about “media monitoring” or “social listening” we are referring to ways in which we can take our offline activities online, and begin to listen to our consumers, where they are most likely to “speak” about our brands. 

At first, it might seem a little creepy. The act of listening is essentially passive and “monitoring” has a kind of big brother connotation to it that doesn’t quite apply in this context. But no, it has nothing to do with how uncle Zucc is listening to our innermost thoughts and fears and how Facebook somehow knew you wanted a new watch without you ever saying so out loud. 

Media monitoring, in this instance, refers to how we gain insight into the hearts and minds of our consumers, perceptions about our brand, topics and conversations related to the work we do or the services we provide and how our brand exists and performs in relation to the competition. 

It’s the complex-made-simple act of regularly consuming and sorting the information we find in the media, within specific parameters that we set – based on strategy. 

So, what’s the point and why do we care?

“A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.” – Jeff Bezos

If we accept the idea that the media plays a crucial role in how we identify, agree, rally, communicate and evolve as a society – media monitoring becomes an absolutely key activity for brands that want a place in the digital landscape. More specifically and simply put, media monitoring helps you: 

Strengthen your brand. The strength of your brand can be defined beyond current sales and long-term projections. Awareness, sentiment, perception and risk mitigation are all factors in determining brand resilience (including actions such as social media branding). By understanding and planning actions and reactions to external factors, you can build stronger foundations and increase opportunity for your brand beyond its immediate environment.

Media monitoring is a crucial factor in determining how (potential) consumers feel about your brand and how they perceive it, as it makes information available to you that isn’t necessarily obvious. Also, media monitoring tools, such as a social media tracker, are able to analyse large data sets in order to give you a broader idea of how your brand is considered beyond your understanding.

Pro tip: Use media monitoring to identify and correct misconceptions and build greater awareness. You can do this by gauging sentiment and monitoring the media to get an idea of how your customers feel, through sentiment analysis. In doing so, you can measure the true strength of your brand.

“The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said”. – Peter Drucker

One of the most crucial elements of managing a crisis is responding to commentary immediately. The problem is that a media crisis can go viral in a short space of time. So, how do you identify and respond to vast amounts of commentary if it’s all over the place? With a media monitoring tool, you can quickly collate mentions, and address them individually.

Better yet, you can detect negative mentions early, which gives you the upper hand in containing an impending crisis. 

Set alerts for brand mentions, catch a crisis early, create personalised replies, then learn from the situation and adapt accordingly. 

“To be effective in crisis management in the digital age means being able to use social media strategically. There is no crisis management today without a full understanding of how to use new media to listen to conversations around your brand in real-time, and understand what you do and don’t need to respond to.” – Chris Syme

Identify and create sales leads. Bridging the gap between needs and desires and a sale is a discipline within itself. But with an effective media monitoring strategy you can identify consumers who are, or could be, interested in your products.

Specifically, your searches can show you users who ask specific questions, engage with product and service information that’s similar to what you offer and you can identify problems that your offering solves and speak directly to those who communicate with them on social or in news media.

Pro tip: Use media tools to identify existing leads while generating new ones, and track how many instances of reaching out lead to a conversion.
“Going viral is not an outcome; it’s a happening. Sometimes it happens; sometimes it doesn’t. Just remember, fans are vanity and sales are sanity.” – Lori Taylor


Improve customer services. In a connected world, consumers have changing expectations. They demand much more from the brands that they interact with. According to Smart Insights, “Over a third (37%) of consumers who use social media to complain or question brands expect to get a response in under 30 minutes”. With this kind of demand for engagement from brands, you  can’t afford to miss a mention, and this extents beyond mentions you’re tagged in.

If we reference the old-but-good KANO model (1980), it’s important to delight your customers, and not simply address problems or concerns.
Pro tip: Identify mentions where your brand hasn’t been tagged and address issues or reward user behaviour, preemptively.“Today, complainers – haters are the canaries in the coal mine. They are the early warning detection system for your business” – Jay Baer

Get inspiration to inform a better content strategy. Media monitoring and content marketing go hand in hand. The humdrum day-to-day posts and articles are a good foundation but they need spice to keep readers interested and they need to be topical to maintain relevance. If you’ve been owning brand content for a long time, it’s tough to stay inspired but the UK media landscape can offer you a plethora of interesting challenges, topics and memes to play into.

Pro tip: Use your media monitoring tool to identify lasting trends and topics that are heavily featured over the course of a few days. Create content daily to play into these themes over and above your monthly content plan. 
“Quality, relevant content can’t be spotted by an algorithm. You can’t subscribe to it. You need people – actual human beings – to create or curate it.”  ― Kristina Halvorson

One of the greatest challenges we face as marketers is generating inspiring content that engages our consumers. In some instances, consumer-generated content is more powerful than brand-owned media, as it offers a sense of endorsement and relevance. It also doesn’t require a company-owned resource to create.

If this media exists, there’s an opportunity to capitalise on it and directly benefit from it, without having to spend time or money on its existence. Find existing posts about your brand as a starting point, then connect with the owner to discuss how you can use their content.

“The next wave of the Web is going to be user-generated content” – John Doer

“Eventually the consumer will come to appreciate the editorial point of view of every different brand. User-generated content without editorial oversight will simply be background noise”. – Michael Eisner

If you’re on top of the UK media landscape, it will quickly become clear who has the most influence in your immediate network. But, this can be a particularly difficult exercise if you’re looking to enlist influence for a niche product or service. Typically, influencers with highly specific interests and followings are a valuable connection for reaching said audiences and are adored by their fans. They tend to have greater impact on buying decisions than those who appeal to a mass of only semi-interested viewers. 

Part of your media monitoring strategy can include using tools to identify UK influencers from specific databases, that allow you to look within categories and learn more about who you could potentially build a relationship with. 

Standard metrics like reach and engagement can give you an idea of what you’re working with but you also need to consider their audience demographics. 

Pro tip: Use media monitoring services to identify key influencers in conjunction with an influencer database. This can give you quick access to summary information that will help you narrow down a pool of potential influencers you’d like to work with. 

“There are exceptional people out there who are capable of starting epidemics. All you have to do is find them”. ―  Malcolm Goldwell

Staying relevant is a challenge that even the edgiest of brands face. No matter how “cool” or current you are today, you can’t rely on that to be the case tomorrow. Cutting through the noise means standing out and captivating audiences who are constantly bombarded with information. A great way to do this is to align with current news that’s relevant to your brand, using commentary, humour or related media. 

In order to understand the current UK media landscape and know what your most relevant trending topics are, you’ll need to monitor what people are talking about most passionately and often. 

This is also true for brands which are not afraid to align themselves with social and political causes that are close to their proverbial hearts, but more accurately their values. 

Pro tip: Choose your causes and allegiances carefully. Ensure they align with your values and that they resonate significantly with your target audiences. You can establish this through monitoring the media and identifying connections in topics, the number of mentions from a specific audience and their sentiment towards it. 

“Bring relevance to the people before teaching them to be believers” ― Sunday Adelaja

Tip: Learn more about UK social media statistics to feed into your strategy.

Social listening is particularly effective in helping you improve your ecommerce experiences for consumers.  For example,“Facebook influenced 52 per cent of consumers’ online and offline purchases, up from 36 per cent in 2014”. (Source: The Drum, 2015). So, we know that social media plays a key role in helping consumers make buying decisions and in their overall customer experience.

This information helps us make a strong case for targeting and retargeting but it’s also directly related to how we speak to consumers. By responding to brand mentions, related queries and posts, you can start to build a relationship with potential buyers and guide them towards engaging with your products and services.

Use media monitoring to find questions about your industry, and respond with helpful answers, incentives and information.

“Conversation with customers will increase sales, even if the product or service is never mentioned.” George Farris

The concept of using big data for futureproofing isn’t buzzworthy for nothing. It also isn’t new but few companies use this tactic as effectively as they should. Collecting information on who your users are and what appeals to them can help you identify trends and prepare for future campaigns.

It can help you prioritise behaviours and consumer desires you want to speak to and formulate product and service strategies for the future. Conversely, it will also give you the insight you need to mitigate risks, and prepare for future hazards – giving you the competitive edge now, for later.  This is particularly useful in the digital space, where being unprepared for change makes your brand vulnerable.

Use media monitoring to identify trends, learn about developments in your industry and to inform a change management plan.

“Being aware of the digital horizon – even if it’s way off in the distance – is one of the best things a business can do for its future.” Dan Monaghan

In today’s world, brands are often too focused on their own efforts, internally motivated and tunnel-visioned. It takes one excellent campaign to put your competition ahead, which can mean everything from a small loss of business to catastrophic irrelevance in  a matter of days.

Your competition matters, and wherever you can get a competitive edge you should – even if that means aligning with other brands to create something better or playing in the same space, amicably.

You won’t be able to formulate an effective strategy without an intricate understanding of their work, where they differ from you in terms of objectives and how the public perceives them. So, how do you stay on top of what competing businesses are doing and manage your own campaigns at the same time?

Take the time to understand your competitors as well as you understand your own business. Use media monitoring to identify which audiences you share, how their content is performing, where you want to compete, and with whom – based on  the data.“The healthiest competition occurs when average people win by putting in above-average effort” – Colin Powell

We all know that measuring your work is important but few people get specific about why, beyond the basic narratives of good or bad performance. Specifically, measuring your campaigns can give you more insight than “good job marketing team” “bad job marketing team” and the devil is truly in the details here.
At the end of the day, a brand’s purpose has some relation to ROI. And while that may not be a primary concern in the beginning, it will become increasingly important. A business can’t survive or thrive without positive changes to the bottom line, and we can’t assess those changes or encourage them without the data. Identify what’s working and what isn’t, basing your insights and decisions on the data instead of assumptions.
“That which cannot be measured cannot be proven.” ― Anthony W. Richardson“It isn’t just a pat on the back. Measurement is about marking, but evaluation is about improving.” – From PR Week, Panel Discussion.

Identifying new markets is an important part of business growth and creating a safety net. Business growth can be achieved by extending your marketing efforts and reaching more relevant audiences. Media monitoring allows you to do this by helping you strategically identify emerging markets and potential new audiences through related topics, identifying growing needs and giving you the data you need to think outside the box.
The key to identifying potential markets lies in the specificity of your search terms. Use a combination of everything from keywords around your brand to buzzwords, related products and services, competition names and slogans.
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” – R. Buckminster Fuller

VANS is and has always been an iconic brand, since its inception in 1996. One of the ways in which it remains relevant is by adapting to change. Media monitoring is a crucial part of VANS’ operations. Especially considering its close alignment with the youth market and it’s affinity for creative self-expression. 

According to Warren Talbot, VANS Media marketing Manager, the brand needed to “define metrics… automate time-consuming activities and collate social media data across different campaigns”. 

Using Meltwater media software, VANS was able to use real-time media monitoring and analyse media trends, which helped them remain competitive in a noise-heavy youth retail industry. 

Vans continues to use online media monitoring as a mechanism for executing events, connecting with influencers, generating reports and measuring ROI. 

The London Pride event is a key part of the LGBTQXYZ calendar but managing the marketing and media around it is a complex task. Given the social nature of the organisation, there are multi-tiered conversations at play and a lot of controversy in terms of sentiment and social media reactions. 

For this organisation, research is key and can only be conducted with media monitoring software. Online visibility is an important part of the pride initiative and in order to gain this visibility, there needs to be regular and consistent community growth. 

What Pride in London excels at is the ability to manage it’s communities, view and respond to mentions, build and create awareness without diluting the brand message along the way. 

“Social listening helps us better understand whether key messages are resonating or becoming lost in the noise. The best way to increase engagement with our audience is to focus our communications around topics that our audience deem important. In 2013-2014 Pride grew by 135%, from 2014-2015 growth peaked to 215% and indications suggest 2016’s community growth will follow the same trend.” – Steven Ward, Deputy Chair

Starting anything new can seem daunting at first but media monitoring, with the right interface, is sometimes easier than using default social dashboards. With media monitoring software, you have a plethora of options available to you – built into a user-friendly interface. 

Media Intelligence allows you to analyse the impact of media from the largest global source base. It’s the most comprehensive solution for PR and marketing professionals as it combines editorial and social listening into one easy-to-use interface. Our media intelligence also comes with an Android or iOS app that allows you to get relevant insight and coverage wherever you are.

Meltwater Media Monitoring Analysis Reports give you customised, real-time analysis, which helps you measure impact and ROI and improve and simplify the reporting process. Customise the metrics and KPIs you’d  like to measure and share instantly.

Meltwater Mobile allows you to receive a notification every time a piece of content matches your keywords and other search parameters. It also allows you to easily collaborate by sharing content via apps like Slack or via text, email, etc. and to tag media. Mobile dashboards gives you the opportunity to digest whole conversations around a topic with thousands of articles, social media posts and broadcast coverage centralised into one dashboard for easy consumption and analysis.

Meltwater Premium Social can give you better insight into what’s happening on Twitter and Facebook with it’s social echo functionality – as well as real-time insight for social share counts on editorial content. Plus, advanced analytics give you a more detailed view of social performance and allow you to drill down into key metrics.

Meltwater Broadcast Monitoring offers easy access to radio and television content, with cross-channel media analytics. It’s a powerful yet easy-to-use way to access your clips from a global capture network and and too share and edit when necessary.

In order to be fully diligent when it comes to media mentions, it's important to keep an eye on all relevant channels. The demand for print clippings is significantly decreasing for smaller brands, but if you're a global well-known brand, chances are you're still frequently mentioned in printed publications. Meltwater offers printed media clippings and analytics through our trusted global, and local print monitoring partners. 

What can you do with these media intelligence tools?

Set a specific time period and location. You can use social listening software to set a custom date range to monitor data over the time of an incident. For example, go back into past data-sets to see a correlation between an event and negative sentiment. You can also look for keywords specific to London, United Kingdom – for example.

Media Monitoring in the United Kingdom: Everything You Need to Know

How is the Australian media landscape faring as the influence of content from anchors and ‘Mad Men’ slowly fade to the background? Meltwater sets out to uncover interesting insights overarching our media landscape and how these insights may influence the opinions of communications professionals, marketers through to academics who actively operate in this landscape.

What media are we consuming these days? From the ever-burgeoning size of your list on Netflix to subscribing to your weeklys on current affairs, the audience is in the driver’s seat. With the advent of social media and hyperspeed internet connections, traditional media powerhouses are fighting off the increasing challenges of social journalism and content disruptors. Tables have been turned as the audience is now in control of the remote as they democratically choose their desired media outlets. 

The insights in the infographic above are only a glean of the endless myriad of information waiting to be discovered within both mainstream and social media. Imagine the various permutations that researchers can learn and analyse different habits of the audience. Marketers and communicators can harness these insights to better understand consumers and deliver more focused campaigns for their target audiences. Policymakers and public officials can work more qualitative ways of reaching out to the people they serve.

Tip: TikTok is on the rise. Consider working together with Australian TikTokers to stay ahead of your competition!

Mobile technology has taken over so many aspects of our lives. From making a purchase, keeping up-to-date with news checking our accounts and connecting with social networks, our eyes and fingers are constantly tethered to our iPhones and Pixels. Scrolling through news-feeds and clearing notifications become second nature to our mobile experience. People are consuming more content at a greater speed and with less attention due to the limitless amount of information available at their fingertips. This reiterates the importance of headlines and key snippets of info to capture Australians’ attention.

Readership patterns in Australia have changed and in the past couple of years, the trend is speeding up within the media and journalism industries. This trend translates to the increasing migration of readers moving towards online publications. Media conglomerates continue to record high turnover of media professionals such as journalists and copy editors amid the declining sales of the print versions of broadsheets. Despite the modest take-up rate of online subscriptions, Australians are paying less to read their news. Many also turn to free syndicated versions of the news or rely on the alternative form of journalism in the social spaces of Facebook and Twitter. 

This brings us to the changes to the regulations on the media industry in 2017. With the evolving trend of readers moving to alternative news sites and search engine powerhouses like Google and Facebook, the government freed up the media space by lifting the “two out of three” policy – where a media company can only be a dual service provider made up of print, broadcast or radio. This move was introduced to protect the Australian media industry and essentially allowed the merger of two media companies – Fairfax Media and Nine – which currently goes to head-to-head with the juggernaut NewsCorp. Ironically, the abolishment of the legislation to a certain extent sees the massive media companies consolidate power in the industry and effectively weakens, or even kills off, the smaller players.

A recent development is Nine’s takeover bid of Macquarie Media. The takeover was unanimously agreed by the Macquarie board despite a lower-than-expected bid and shareholders were quick to voice their discontent. This consolidation may prove to be a good business strategy for Nine and Macquarie Media as it provides a stable platform for the smaller company to operate but critics would suggest a change in the strategic direction of its content in the future.

Governments play a huge role in how the media landscape remains sustainable, true to its journalistic roots and competitive in the modern media landscape. In view of the double-edged initiative, governments and state-owned media companies should take the forefront in championing the truth while innovating new ways to counter the challenges from the disruptive industry. With technology and funding, researchers and activists can empirically discover the various narratives and discourses that can be found within the reports from media outlets and companies. 

Inferences of how politically aligned a media outlet is to an agenda can be quantitatively and qualitatively tagged and define the shape of the Australian media landscape. For example, despite the ABC being state-funded, it was analytical and debated any party candidate during the recent federal elections. This shows that despite its links to the government, the media outlet stood its ground in the name of good journalism and reportage.

Another medium that the Australian media landscape should be focusing on is user-generated content. This is where the conversations are taken out of the hands of the media companies and led by the social activism of the public. Social activism in reporting of issues and current affairs, local and international, become part and parcel of everyday life these days. The various platforms that can be found at the tip of an Australian’s fingers can determine the train of thought of a group of people. 

Take for instance the popular forum Reddit and the amount of user-generated content that can be found from the platform. The trends found within the forum generally reflect the common topics and issues that Australians grapple with. In this current highly contextualised world where the dynamism of the media landscape does not drive the narrative of social conversations, power and influence become almost democratically organic in the mobile grasps of the citizens.

In the past, the media had always been in the driving seat where they are curating the social narratives that get people talking. With the narratives being technologically disrupted by netizen-powered spaces, that power to create those conversations now lie at the fidgety thumbs of Aussies.

Australian Media Landscape: Players, Influence, and Power

On 7 July 2019, the rumble of 60,000 excited fans echoed through the stands of the Parc Olympique Lyonnais stadium in Lyon, France. They were eagerly anticipating the final showdown to the electrifying campaign that was the Women’s World Cup 2019. Just in the USA alone, another 14.3 million viewers tuned in to the game through their screens. The USA Women’s Football team clinched their fourth Women’s World Cup championship title after a convincing 2-0 victory over the Netherlands that evening – with goals from a penalty taken by Megan Rapinoe and an absolute screamer of a left-footed shot by Rose Lavelle. The team have now returned to their fans back home to celebrate their victory, but their mission to grow the sport is far from over. 

For years, Women’s football has always lived in the shadow of their male counterparts. With a disproportionate amount of tournament prize money going to the male sport and lack of investment to the sport, female footballers are facing huge challenges. But the toughest and longest battle is the one for equal pay. In 2016, the first significant step was made to correct this wrong when five senior US national football players filed a wage-discrimination action to demand equal pay. Since then, the movement has only gained momentum and the Women’s World Cup this year was the turning point. 

There was something different in the air this World Cup compared to the last. No longer were the US team regarded as the Goliath of the football scene trampling on the other teams that came their way. While they remained the strongest contender, they were faced with formidable opposition, advancing the competition by narrowly defeating their challengers with slim single goal margins on multiple occasions. The quality of football improved drastically across the board and this resulted in more thrilling clashes. People – both fans and journalists – shared their excitement online. This World Cup saw a staggering increase of 16K news mentions from the 2015 World Cup and a total of 46.65 million social media mentions across social platforms like Twitter, forums, blogs, Tumblr and Facebook. From controversial calls by referees to heated discussions over the behaviour of the footballers, the digital world was abuzz with chatter this season – a sign of the growing popularity that Women’s Football is garnering.

Now let’s take a look at some of the most talked-about moments of this campaign: 

The opening two weeks of the campaign saw a total of 930K mentions on social media, but online conversations only started gaining traction after the match between the USA and Thailand. The US National team were met with huge criticism online for their lack of sportsmanship when they defeated the Thais with a 13-0 thrashing. Critics were unhappy with the team’s unrelenting pursuit for goals despite an already huge margin, and how vehemently they celebrated after they scored each one. The US team defended back saying that going easy against their opponent is a greater sign of disrespect. This event also sparked a wider discussion of double standards imposed on male and female football and the lack of investments channelled towards female football teams in regions outside the US.

Many have said that this World Cup was more than just a matter of football. It was a stage to advocate for relevant social issues like institutionalised gender inequality and gay rights. Blazing the trail was the US National Team’s co-captain Megan Rapinoe. 

Throughout the campaign, Rapinoe was unapologetically candid in her interviews. Her big personality caused quite a controversy when she boldly claimed that she would never visit the White House. She was never shy to express her disdain towards President Trump for his divisive and non-inclusive policies and statements. This triggered an entire series of tweets by the President himself about how Rapinoe has been disrespectful to the country. People on the Internet began taking sides, as with all issues linked to American politics, and out of the 860K social mentions about the World Cup that week, 250K of them were in relation to Rapinoe’s comment.

Donald J. Trump on Twitter: "Women’s soccer player, @mPinoe, just stated that she is “not going to the F...ing White House if we win.” Other than the NBA, which now refuses to call owners, owners (please explain that I just got Criminal Justice Reform passed, Black unemployment is at the lowest level..."

Rapinoe has also been extremely vocal about the inequality women face in sports. She has been leading the conversation for equal pay and prize money and has become the face of the movement. When FIFA scheduled two other finals involving US teams at the same time as the World Cup finals between USA and Netherlands, Rapinoe unabashedly called the officials out for their bad management – a reflection of their lack of regard for the sport.  

The final week of the World Cup campaign garnered a grand total of 720K social mentions. While the finals between the US and the Netherlands was the biggest game of the season, the semi-finals match between the US and England generated the most chatter online. The match was highly anticipated with many believing that if the US were to be toppled, the Lionesses were to be their undoing. But topple them they did not, and the US emerged victorious with a narrow 2-1 win. However, what sparked the most online conversation was Alex Morgan’s cheeky goal celebration – she pretended to sip tea in front of the English supporters. This moment alone drew over 210K mentions on social media. 

Viewers who took offence at this gesture began to air their criticisms online. English personality Piers Morgan condemned her celebration as “bordering on a declaration of war” between the two nations. 

Piers Morgan on Twitter: "It’s bordering on a declaration of war.… "

Again, the conversation was directed back to the issue of double standards between men and women in sports. Alex Morgan responded to her critics with examples of male footballers celebrating their goal with a bit of jest like grabbing their sacks or flashing the “L” hand sign (implying the word “loser”). Yet viewers often give them a pass or sometimes even embrace them. It seems that people are harsher and more critical of the actions made by female footballers than their male counterparts. 

Lyndsey D'Arcangelo on Twitter: "Do we ask this when guys score touchdowns and do fun little dances? When guys slam the ball through the net and hang on the rim? Or when guys sink a three and run back down the court with their arms spread wide?

Let female athletes BE athletes. Let them celebrate. Tired of this.… https://t.co/RsazSTFISA"

Women’s Football – More than just a game

The defining moments of the Women’s World Cup campaign simply shone a light on the injustice endured by the football community and the wider society at large. Though participating nations have gone home and the hype has died down, the important conversations sparked during its course continue to burn brightly. Leading the charge are the female footballers themselves, who have been tirelessly fighting for greater recognition for years. The difference after this World Cup? People are finally listening.

To learn more about how you can uncover insights about your campaign from external data, click here!

Women’s World Cup 2019: Social Media Analysis

Star players, big sponsorship deals, massive live events and a huge – and growing – fan base. Surely the time has come for esports to be regarded as part of the marketing mainstream in Britain?

It seems remarkable that there’s a form of entertainment which is already viewed as bigger than the UK video and music markets. Yet, marketers and advertisers remain largely unaware of it, or simply see it as a niche-market netherworld inhabited by stay-at-home teenagers and geeks.

Some experts even believe that esports, or competitive video gaming, could become more valuable than the movie industry as younger consumers, around the world, embrace a radical new era of digital entertainment.

According to the latest Esports Report published by Newzoo, which specialises in games and esports analytics, by the end of 2019 there will be 454 million esports participants worldwide and revenues of US$1.1-billion. This is up 26% on the previous year.

By 2020, it is estimated that the number of participants will rise to 645 million and revenue will be approximately US$3.2 billion. The number of people who play video games (not necessarily competitively and therefore not classified as true ‘video gamers’) is even higher, at an estimated 2.2-billion people.

“This is not just a few geeky kids playing in their attics. This is a generation that is redefining what is considered sport and what is entertainment,” says John Clarke, Global Brand and Marketing Communications Officer at Gfinity, the UK-based esports company.

Social Listening

Infographic: Should I Trendjack on Social Media?

Media Monitoring in Scotland – A Brand Gateway in a Promising Market

Social Media Reactions: Greta Thunberg, UN Climate Action Summit 2019

Media Monitoring in the United Kingdom: Everything You Need to Know

Australian Media Landscape: Players, Influence, and Power

Women’s World Cup 2019: Social Media Analysis

Is the UK About to Catch the Global eSports Wave?

If we were Jollibee, what would we be listening to?

Are You Aware of the Social Media Trends Shaping Greater China?

Media Monitoring Boolean Query Guide

Infographic: Mo Salah Scores on Social

Media Monitoring Companies in India: How to Put Public Data to Work

Social Listening

Infographic: Should I Trendjack on Social Media?

Media Monitoring in Scotland – A Brand Gateway in a Promising Market

Social Media Reactions: Greta Thunberg, UN Climate Action Summit 2019

Media Monitoring in the United Kingdom: Everything You Need to Know

Australian Media Landscape: Players, Influence, and Power

Women’s World Cup 2019: Social Media Analysis

Is the UK About to Catch the Global eSports Wave?

If we were Jollibee, what would we be listening to?

Are You Aware of the Social Media Trends Shaping Greater China?

Media Monitoring Boolean Query Guide

Infographic: Mo Salah Scores on Social

Media Monitoring Companies in India: How to Put Public Data to Work

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