United States

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

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

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

Instagram continues to be a powerhouse in the social media scene, especially when it comes to influencer marketing. This isn’t news for brands that have been using Instagram for years. But with so many other platforms on the scene, it’s always a good idea to re-evaluate where you’re putting your time and budget.

Despite the growing popularity of TikTok, Instagram continues to hold its own, adding new features and functions so you can keep engaging your audiences in new and exciting ways.

In another blog, we have basic social media statistics covered already — let’s look at the top Instagram statistics and fun facts for 2026 so you can start planning your Instagram marketing strategy! 

Instagram boasts global popularity, so it’s no surprise the platform continues to enthrall marketers and users alike. Let’s start with some top level Instagram statistics you’ll want to know:

Instagram has 3 billion monthly active users (MAU). (Global Digital Report)

Instagram has been downloaded 3.8 billion times. (Neal Schaffer)

Users share more than 95 million photos and videos on Instagram each day. (Neal Schaffer)

Instagram is the 2nd favorite platform for 16.4% of active social media users, behind Whatsapp. (Global Digital Report)

Instagram is the 3rd most popular app by active users overall. (Global Digital Report)

50% of Instagram users engage with brands on a regular basis. (SproutSocial)

Instagram has enjoyed steady growth since it emerged in 2010. With more than three billion users and more than 3.8 billion total downloads, it continues to be a useful and powerful channel for influencers and brands.

Here’s a peek at some key Instagram growth statistics:

Instagram advertising reach increased by 13.1% between 2024 and 2025 (Global Digital Report)

Influencer marketing can be partly to thank for Instagram’s continued growth with over half of marketers still preferring Instagram to TikTok for their influencer programs. (Hootsuite)

Instagram has an estimated advertising reach of 1.91 billion — up 1.7% between July 2025 and October 2025. (Global Digital Report)

Instagram once represented a stomping ground for Millennials, most of us sharing way too many overly filtered photos. 🫣

For better or worse, those simple days are long gone. The platform now caters to a variety of different age groups, companies, and content creators around the world.

These Instagram user statistics underscore just how diverse the platform's users have become:

Users in the 16-34 age group make up Instagram’s core user base, led narrowly by women. (Global Digital Report)

Women between the ages of 16-24 are the most active users (69.4%) who say they log-on to Instagram at least once a day (Global Digital Report)

Southern Asia has the highest advertising reach for Instagram at 27.3%, followed by South America at 13.1% (Global Digital Report)

Users in Turkey have the highest ad read potential. (Global Digital Report)

Teens say that Instagram is their fourth most preferred social network, behind YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat. (Pew Research Center) 

There are over 200 million Instagram business profiles worldwide. (Omnicore Agency)

Here are some Instagram usage statistics to give more context to its popularity:

About 28% of Instagram total users log on multiple times a day (SocialPilot)

21% of users log in on a weekly basis. (SocialPilot)

On average Instagram users worldwide spends about 1 hour and 13 minutes a day on the platform. (Global Digital Report)

Carousel posts have the highest average engagement (for businesses) at 3.55% engagements vs post reach (Global Digital Report)

Trying to leverage Instagram for your business? These resources will help you: Ultimate Guide to Social Media Video Sizes in 2024, 5 Quick Tips for Social Video Content, The Complete Guide to Instagram Stories, What is Instagram Reels? The Complete Guide

To succeed on Instagram, you need followers to view, share, and engage with your content.

These Instagram follower stats show just how important it is to build a good following:

Instagram accounts that post at least 3 times per week have the best engagement. (Shopify)

The average engagement rate on photos posted by business accounts is 3% (engagements vs followers). (Global Digital Report)

Business accounts with fewer than 10,000 followers have an average engagement rate of .65%. (Global Digital Report)

44% of social users wish brands would use Instagram more frequently (Sprout Social)

Accounts in the education sector have the highest engagement rate compared to other industries (SocialPilot)

The most followed account on Instagram is @Instagram which has over than 694.4 million followers. The second most followed account is Cristiano Ronaldo with 663.6 million followers. (Global Digital Report)

Tip: Learn about the best times to post on social media and read our guides about how to get more Instagram followers and how to post on Instagram.

The second most followed brand account (besides Instagram) is Nike with 299.5 million followers. (Global Digital Report)

62.8% of Instagram users say they actively follow at least one brand on Instagram. (SocialPilot)

Instagram Live allows users to livestream for their audience. Users can access Instagram Live next to Stories in the app, just above their regular feed.

How popular is this feature? These Instagram Live statistics reveal more.

More than 100 million social media users tune into Instagram live videos each day. (Headphones Addict)

The most popular Instagram livestream, with over 3 million views is from Turkish creator Acun Ilicali (Headphones Addict)

80% of Instagram users would rather watch a Live video than read a blog post. (EarthWeb)

26% of Gen Z and millennial users watch Instagram Live. (EarthWeb)

During the pandemic there was a 70% increase in Instagram Live usage. (EarthWeb)

Instagram Reels are short-form videos that brands can use to create ads, take part in trends, and relay information in a bite-size format. You can add text, effects, and music to the videos to draw in more viewers and increase your brand’s presence. 

Here’s a closer look at Instagram Reels stats:

200 billion Reels are played each day across Facebook and Instagram (SocialInsider)

Accounts with over 50K followers post one Reel roughly every two days on average (Teleprompter)

Nearly half (45%) of total Instagram engagement is on Reels content (Teleprompter)

Business accounts see a .45% engagement rate on Reels (Global Digital Report)

The best time to post Reels for maximum engagement is Saturdays, between 10 PM – 7 AM (Teleprompter)

Only Reels that are less than 3 minutes long will be recommended to non-followers (Hootsuite)

In December 2024, Instagram added a "Trial Reel" feature to help creators optimize performance (Instagram)

Tip: Read our full guide about what Instagram Reels is all about and learn how to schedule Instagram Reels.

Instagram Stories allow marketers to connect with followers beyond the feed. These Instagram Stories stats underscore just how essential this feature has become:

The average reach of Instagram Stories is .91 users (SocialPilot)

71.9% of brand content appears on Stories (Hootsuite) 

Brands publish an average of 10 Instagram Stories per month. (StartupBonsai)

The more Story frames, the lower the retention rate. (Rival IQ)

Posting between 1-7 Stories per day is recommended by Instagram for maintaining a good completion rate and presence on Instagram. (Buffer)

Of the influencers using Instagram, 55.4% use Stories for sponsored posts (EarthWeb)

The top 25% of brands see an average tap-back rate of about 6.5%. (Rival IQ)

Tip: Read our complete guide to Instagram Stories.

Instagram is a very popular platform for influencer marketing and continues to help brands broaden their reach.

These Instagram influencer statistics show why you should consider working with Instagram influencers:

72% of marketers are using Instagram for influencer marketing. (Neal Schaffer)

Research shows that marketers spend a collective $8 billion a year on Instagram influencers alone. (Neal Schaffer)

Well over half of influencers (78%) prefer to use Instagram for their branded partnerships. (Neal Schaffer)

It is estimated that 37% of Instagram users interact with influencers. (Neal Schaffer)

There are more than half a million active Influencers on Instagram. (EarthWeb)

Micro influencers are currently seeing a -3% drop in engagement (Social Pilot)

Instagram continues to be a key platform for brand discovery, product research, and ad revenue growth, with diverse ad formats and notable conversion potential. See key Instagram stats for 2026 to help form your strategy.

65 Instagram Statistics for 2026

Your brand is your organization’s most important asset. And as such, a strong brand reputation and strong brand management are key, and brand tracking is the answer to ensuring your brand continues to resonate with customers. 

Picture this: You’re sitting in a cafe with a friend, both of you sipping on your favorite lattes. You rave about its creamy flavor and the great customer service you received when you purchased it. But your friend is complaining about its lackluster quality, lack of flavor, and long wait time. Despite being in the same place and receiving the same product, two very different experiences emerge.

That’s why brand perception is everything when it comes to managing your brand's reputation.

If you want to survive in today’s crowded and often cutthroat business landscape, understanding how customers perceive your brand day in and day out is absolutely essential. With brand tracking, you can measure and evaluate consumer opinions about your brand on an ongoing basis.

Let’s dig deeper into what brand health tracking is, why you need it, and how to go about tracking your brand for important insights.

We define brand tracking as the continuous process of monitoring and analyzing different pieces of your brand puzzle. You might also hear this referred to as brand health tracking.

Customer sentiments via sentiment analysis

Monitoring your brand on an ongoing basis shows you how well your brand is performing in relation to competitors and how your customers perceive you. In doing so, you can identify areas of opportunity to improve or maintain your reputation and stay in your customers’ good graces.

Tip: Learn more about brand reputation measurement.

There’s some overlap between brand monitoring and brand tracking, but they have their distinctions, too:

<table class="table-primary">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Brand Monitoring</th>
<th>Brand Tracking</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Focuses on real-time moments</td>
<td style="text-align:left;">Focuses on trends over time</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Monitors for keywords and mentions</td>
<td style="text-align:left;">Looks for patterns</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Short-term insights</td>
<td style="text-align:left;">Long-term insights</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Brand monitoring focuses on real-time online conversations and “tunes in” when brands detect mentions or patterns. For example, if someone mentions your brand name or a related keyword in a blog, article, on an LLM, or in a social media post, your brand tracking tools (aka social media monitoring software) will pick up on that mention and report it back to you. This is helpful for brands to surface where conversations are happening, who is leading them, and how people are talking about you.

Brand tracking is the proactive process of using insights revealed from your brand tracking software to follow your brand’s performance over time. This usually involves conducting surveys and collecting data related to various brand metrics, such as awareness and sentiment. Combined, these insights can help brands understand how consumers perceive the brand over time. Businesses can track changes in brand image and monitor the effectiveness of their marketing efforts.

Brand tracking helps companies understand the impact of their marketing and branding efforts and identify strengths and weaknesses in their branding strategies. Customer perceptions can change on a dime — and according to research, 32% of customers would stop using a brand after just one bad experience.

Customers have so many options these days that they don’t feel the need to stick around if a brand can’t deliver on their expectations.

Tracking your brand can help you spot when customers are starting to gravitate away in favor of other options. The sooner you recognize a problem, the faster you can respond to fix it.

On a positive note, brand tracking can also show where and how you’re getting it right. If improving your brand image, presence, and reputation are goals, you can track your progress along the customer journey and demonstrate how you’re making an impact.

Like the other many moving parts of your marketing, brand tracking isn’t a passive activity. It requires ongoing effort and attention, but the benefits can certainly justify the investment:

Brand tracking helps you assess how your brand is performing in terms of market share, share of voice, customer sentiment, earned media, sales, and customer loyalty. These are tangible metrics you can apply to your brand’s success.

Tracking data gives you insights into how customers experience your brand. You can learn more about brand awareness, how they associate your brand with other products, services, or companies, and their overall sentiments.

All of these can help you understand if your branding efforts are resonating with your target audience and whether your branding has staying power.

Competitor analysis is an inherent part of brand tracking. It lets you see how you stack up against competitors, including where your strengths lie and where you might need to improve.

If customers start favoring a competitor over you, you can dig deeper into their strategies to see how you might adjust your own. 

Brand equity may ebb and flow as new competitors emerge and others become insignificant.

Tracking your brand over time can identify declines or improvements in brand equity, allowing marketers to associate these changes with specific campaigns, trends, or moments.

Many social listening tools incorporate AI to help pinpoint and contextualize trends for even greater insights. 

Mira Studio from Meltwater offers a prompt-based conversational interface that helps teams efficiently gather insights that they can then be better prepared to act on — cutting through the complexity and focusing on what truly moves the brand forward.

Introducing Mira - The Power of Meltwater AI, Unleashed

What is the news this week for [Insert Brand]?

What was the media reaction to [Insert Business Change] at [Insert Brand]?

What are the key consumer sentiments regarding the [Insert Topic/Product/Brand]?

Tracking your brand helps to put your marketing efforts into perspective.

If positive brand perceptions suddenly spike, for example, marketers can look back at recent campaigns to see what’s driving the change. Having this extra layer of attribution adds clarity to marketing ROI, making your efforts more valuable and well-rounded.

For companies with investors and other third-party stakeholders, tracking brand health can earn their trust and confidence. Everyone likes knowing they’re invested in a winner.

Customer perceptions are everything when it comes to brand health. By tracking your brand, you can rest assured you’re doing everything you can to keep customers happy and coming back.

Tracking brand health requires companies to use metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) to assess overall strength and ongoing performance.

A few key brand metrics that can reveal more about your brand’s reputation include: Net Promoter Score, retention rate, share of voice, and customer satisfaction. 

Measuring brand performance requires you to pull data from multiple sources for deeper review. The right brand tracking tools and methods can simplify this process so you can cut to the chase and start making improvements. 

Here are some methods that can contribute to your brand tracking strategy.

Customer feedback surveys, NPS surveys, and CSAT surveys provide quick insights into how your customers think and feel about specific experiences.

For example, you might send a survey a few days after a purchase to get feedback about the online shopping experience. Doing so allows you to tap into customer perceptions while they’re fresh.

Google Alerts is a free tool brands can use to monitor for specific keywords or phrases. For example, when your brand is published in the media, Google will email you an alert showing where your name was mentioned. It’s not a comprehensive tool (more like a one-trick pony), but it’s a great helper if you’re just getting started with brand tracking.

Online review management software and services keep tabs on your brand on your behalf. These services focus on online reviews, surveys, and other sources of feedback and compile findings on your behalf. You can keep tabs on customer communications and know where you’re doing well or falling short of their expectations.

Platforms like the Meltwater Media Intelligence platform offer the most comprehensive brand tracking features and functions.

Media intelligence platforms track social media mentions, online conversations, and millions of websites, blogs, podcasts, LLMs, and traditional media to surface insights about your brand. These all-encompassing platforms leave no detail unnoticed and do most of the heavy lifting for you.

Brand tracking is an essential element of every marketing strategy. It offers clear insights about whether your messages are reaching the right people and whether they have staying power and conviction. Tracking your brand also helps you demonstrate the value of your marketing and media efforts, allowing you to attribute your actions with real ROI.

Meltwater monitors billions of data points in real-time and uses a combination of AI, data science, and human discernment to turn these insights into action steps. Brands can gauge their health at a glance, dive deeper into areas of opportunity, and always know where they stand with their customers.

Learn more when you request a demo! Simply fill out the form below.

Frequently asked questions about brand tracking.

How reliable is sentiment as a brand metric?

Sentiment is a useful directional indicator, and with the assistance of AI it's accuracy has greatly improved in recent years. But it should not be used in isolation. Its reliability depends on data quality, context, and how well the analysis accounts for sarcasm, nuance, regional idiosyncrasies, and volume, making it most effective when combined with other brand metrics.

What’s the difference between survey-based and media-based brand tracking?

Learn more about brand tracking strategies in our free eBook:

Get the Ultimate Guide to Social Listening

What Is Brand Tracking? Brand Health Tracking Guide for 2026

From the rise of “AI slop” to the plague of the “6 7” meme, 2025 was full of digital communication evolutions worth watching. Arguably, though, no other cultural signifier demonstrates how digital language is changing quite like our beloved emojis. As 2025 comes to a close (🎉), let’s take a look at which of these expressive icons got the digital world typing, clicking, and sharing most. 

Social Listening

65 Instagram Statistics for 2026

What Is Brand Tracking? Brand Health Tracking Guide for 2026

Top Emojis of 2025: Platform, Country, and Generation Trends

The Complete Guide to Social Media Analytics

How Does AI in Social Listening and Media Monitoring Work?

How Spotify Wrapped 2025 Went Viral: Listening Age Insights and Global Trends

Viral Food & Beverage Merch: Lessons from Trader Joe’s & Starbucks

What the Rise of AI Slop Means for Marketers

How To Use a Social Wall With Examples

What's Trending? The Top TikTok Trends for 2026

Brand Sentiment Tracking: Monitor the Perception of Your Brand

The “Buy Local” Movement in 2025: Tariffs, Consumer Shifts, and Marketing Insights

Social Listening

65 Instagram Statistics for 2026

What Is Brand Tracking? Brand Health Tracking Guide for 2026

Top Emojis of 2025: Platform, Country, and Generation Trends

The Complete Guide to Social Media Analytics

How Does AI in Social Listening and Media Monitoring Work?

How Spotify Wrapped 2025 Went Viral: Listening Age Insights and Global Trends

Viral Food & Beverage Merch: Lessons from Trader Joe’s & Starbucks

What the Rise of AI Slop Means for Marketers

How To Use a Social Wall With Examples

What's Trending? The Top TikTok Trends for 2026

Brand Sentiment Tracking: Monitor the Perception of Your Brand

The “Buy Local” Movement in 2025: Tariffs, Consumer Shifts, and Marketing Insights

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