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

Have you ever wondered what a social media manager actually does? Maybe you’re considering how to become one, or maybe you just need to prove to your grandparents that “no, I don’t sit around on Facebook all day!” (Which would explain why you didn’t reply to their last 20 comments on your pictures from graduation).

In any case, the job description of a social media manager is one that is constantly changing to keep up with the times. You're an integral part of the marketing team, managing the brand's online community, and balancing a multitude of channels each with its own dialects.

So while it’s difficult to pin down, there are some very clear skills and responsibilities that social media marketing managers possess. 

What Skills Does a Social Media Manager Need?

Keys for Success as a Social Media Marketing Manager

Infographic: A Day in the Life of a Social Media Marketing Manager

A social media manager is in many ways the same as a community manager. They are the leader who oversees your social media strategy from scheduling posts to reporting on performance. They are often responsible for managing a team and they check the quality of all posts, ensuring they adhere to the business's social media policies. 

They possess a special blend of “big picture, little picture” -- managing your online community, encouraging engagement & clicks, and running the social side of marketing campaigns. 

The role of a social media marketing manager is integral to a company’s reputation, growth, and brand image. Not only are they keeping their eyes and ears attuned to consumer conversations within your online community, but they are also creating and optimizing content that reinforces the consumer/brand relationship. 

A social media manager is responsible for ensuring the right information is shared with your company's online community at the right time.

It should be noted that social media marketing managers usually focus on organic social, while paid social is often handled by another person or department.

The day-to-day life of a social media manager entails checking the day’s scheduled posts, making any changes needed, editing copy, and meeting with fellow marketing team peers on upcoming campaigns, product launches, or other promotional opportunities — like a CEO interview or a new partnership that you'd like to announce publicly. These must all then be incorporated into your social media planning roadmap.

Your day will also include community management responsibilities such as liking, commenting, and sharing posts from your followers, partners as well as peers. 

Note: the role of social media is slightly different if you work B2B vs B2C. B2B social media marketing will require you to offer business-based solutions and speak as an industry expert. B2C social media management involves speaking directly with your consumer community, so your interaction with your followers will probably be more conversational.

As we mentioned, social media marketing managers need to be able to balance big picture social strategy with small picture details, communicating regularly with the wider marketing team. The below skills are essential to success as a social media and community manager.

Analyzing metrics is no small part of your job as a social media manager. 

This is how you determine your progress against your goals and assess the direction your channels should go from a high-level strategy perspective. (Feeling stuck? See our 10 step checklist for a social media audit). 

Successful social media is nothing if not creative! You need to think outside the box if you want to move the needle and stand out in your community. Consider the creativity that went into these brands’ April Fools posts for example. (I mean...who else was crestfallen that Find My Brick wasn’t real?!)

This probably goes without saying, but social media is just that: social. (Contrary to what your parents probably think). Social managers have to want to engage with all sorts of different folks in their community on a consistent basis. Being a people person is a huge asset for a social media manager.

You have a lot to keep track of when you’re a social media and community manager. From scheduling posts across multiple platforms to managing collaborations, community engagement, and campaigns, there’s very little room for error. 

You also need to pull regular metrics. Keeping them in a ship-shape spreadsheet will be essential for communicating your progress to the wider marketing team.

Cultivating a community is one of the key aspects when it comes to social media. As a community manager on social media, you need to be energetic but also strategic. 

Follow conversations closely and moderate community content, finding ways your brand can interact within various online communities, is a huge part of the job. 

Be ready to be quick thinking, light on your feet, and flexible with changes — sometimes up to the minute! Social media isn’t stagnant and the community is always shifting. 

Sometimes a crisis arises and you need to be ready to address it in a timely manner. And don’t underestimate the way social listening can influence HR.

To be successful in the job of a social media manager and community builder, and to drive a social media strategy forward, you should have a working knowledge of the social media space — in particular, the major channels like Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook but also more niche communities like Twitch and TikTok.

You should feel comfortable communicating in a variety of ways, with sharp copy skills. Having a working knowledge of various marketing styles and advertising tactics won't hurt either.

Aside from the skills listed above, you'll shine bright in the job market with the below included on your resume or demonstrated in your portfolio:

To pull ahead in the field of social media management, you should have a thorough understanding of various social media software tools. These tools may involve the basics such as scheduling ahead, or they may be a bit more involved, with social listening capabilities and sophisticated data analytics.

A social media manager needs to be able to keep up with current and cutting edge trends across social media platforms. This not only helps you have a competitive advantage — it means you can communicate and respond on social media like a peer. 

Unless you’re in on the joke, you don’t want to run the risk of appearing out of touch and responding with a meme that is just so yesterday.

Social media is about communicating conversationally yet professionally — sometimes in a limited amount of characters! (Looking at you Twitter). 

People in the online community are all too eager to jump on mistakes, which is just the kind of interruption you don’t need in your day. So good writing is essential. Have your apostrophes, semi-colons, and spelling ducks in a row!

While your colleagues may think you have it easy, more often than not, as a social media manager, your day is far from a day at the beach and more closely resembles the film "Groundhog Day".

With businesses now investing seriously in a social business model, as opposed to approaching social as an afterthought, the job of a social media manager is more important than ever. 

The scope of their work touches all aspects of what comprises a modern organization. This infographic details how much work social media marketing managers contribute to the work of a company in their drive to fulfill business goals.

To learn more about what it takes to drive social business, read our latest e-book, Social to Scale: How to Build a Serious Social Media Program.

The way people communicate now has changed. Mobile phones are part of the consumer fabric. Digital social interaction has become synonymous to how we live, work and communicate every day especially with the burgeoning options of communication and social apps available. 

In light of this, consumers have taken to social media to voice their concerns, give constructive feedback, foster group dynamics and gather public opinion on brands and organisations. These public social channels such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn become the main purveyors of social media insight.

However, there is a growing segment which is usually left undetected by communicators and marketing professionals - the hidden realm of Dark Social. This segment is important to brands because if it is left unchecked, there is a public groundswell of opinion which may have an effect on your communication strategies.

This phenomenon of Dark Social is the “hidden” interaction between netizens within social media. These interactions can be described as the “invisible” shares that happen through channels like messengers, but also email and text messages. A common trait shared by these interactions across different platforms is that the data is usually encrypted and protected.

However, it is best to highlight this secretive pool of opinion as many consumers - especially the younger demographics who live on mobile interaction - are sharing information and opinion on Dark Social channels. 

A Global Web Index study showed that the majority of netizens now (84%) share information online while consumers are flocking to private messaging apps (PMA) such as Facebook Messenger, WeChat, WhatsApp and Telegram. Collectively, just these four private messaging apps have approximately 5 billion users.

Therefore it is imperative that organisations and their brands effectively manage their profile and image. This is critical because access to Dark Social is limited. Only a positively robust narrative of your brand will be able to counter this obstacle so as to transmit cognisant messaging within Dark Social.

Sharing of information on PMAs have become intrinsic in consumers’ daily lives and it can only rise as mobile penetration reaches new markets around the world. Every byte of information from describing the decor of a hipster cafe to the latest discussion of a government policy. 

The study also revealed that apart from personal photos and memes, netizens actively shared URLs and website links to their PMA networks. Other relevant anecdotes that consumers shared were social media posts, pictures of products, news reports and blog posts. Using Meltwater’s Explore, communicators can use measurement such as Social Echo to identify content which consumers are most interested in and sharing with their networks.

These interactions are pivotal in the narratives being shared on brands and organisations. These private conversations may coalesce to become socially accepted discourses on a brand. This is critical because a brand does not want to be immediately associated with any negative connotations that might affect their profiles.

For example, the UK lifestyle brand Fred Perry had to publicly denounce any association with far-right militia Proud Boys during the recent US presidential election. The radical hate group had adopted the brand’s iconic black polo tees as their uniform and there were more than 24,000 mentions of the brand in the last quarter of 2020. 

One can assume the conversations within the realm of PMA that the Proud Boys had to unilaterally select Fred Perry as their choice of attire. And this is why a good social media monitoring system is needed to counter the narratives emanating out of Dark Social which might affect brand image.

Undeniably, the use of PMAs have become our bread and butter. For the majority of us, Dark Social and PMAs are what we use for our careers and social lives. We wake up and catch up with our friends, video conferences with our colleagues and interact with customers through social media messaging. 

Furthermore, the recent COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated this routine of life. The Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma succinctly describes our current predicament with social media and its affiliates - the platforms that rely on to connect with each other have made us rely on it so much and made that connection become virtual.

Recently Facebook announced that on 8 February 2021, the social media giant would be integrating WhatsApp’s data into its operations. This move would give Facebook uninhibited access to the PMA’s user data. The conversations would indefinitely boost the companies’ monetisation efforts through advertising their products while at the same time streamlining their business strategies. 

The notification listed details about the messaging app’s key updates including how it processes user data and its partnership with Facebook to offer integrations across the Facebook Company Product and how businesses can use Facebook-hosted services to store and manage their WhatsApp chats.

Through Dark Social, WhatsApp will update its operations to integrate data with Facebook. This integration gives a peek into the social media company’s plans to utilise WhatsApp user data to optimise its products’ marketing strategies. Brands can also leverage on Facebook’s move to tune up their strategies in tapping the Dark Social market. 

This also coincides with a finding by the University of Canberra that showed more people are turning to Facebook for their source of news. With more people within the Facebook ecosystem, the better coverage of their brands and tweaking their marketing strategies to widen their consumer base.

Every channel of communication is pivotal. Communicators are constantly finding new ways to reach out to their audiences. When consumer preferences change, it is essential that communicators find the causative sources that affect these changes. With Dark Social, there are several trends that become more pronounced in the ways people converse and exchange information. 

With the almost-instantaneous nature of social media, consumers generally expect to “chat" with brands. If not, their attention flickers to the next option.

There are so many platforms for people to engage in Dark Social. The speed of which content goes viral has accelerated so much, communicators need to prepare for every possibility.

This organic nature of conversations and the trust built between people play an influential role. Through Dark Social, this channel of information is expedited through close-knit social circles and micro-spheres of influence.

Anonymity is a motivator of spreading half-truths. Some channels of Dark Social work in the confines of anonymity and different stakeholders use this to enhance their messaging to audiences.

Understandably, people are more comfortable in airing their views in private as compared to typing grievances in public domains such as Facebook. This is where Dark Social becomes a social arena catering to opinions and narratives on brands.

Many brands and organisations have already taken the step of bolstering their social media presence to the next level. Customer service, e-commerce and marketing campaigns are now part of the social media arsenal that communicators deploy to connect with their audiences. 

So what can communicators do next with Dark Social? Firstly, they need to start a conversation with their stakeholders on the intrinsic link between media coverage and social media. Stakeholders need to know how crucial this link is to fully maximise the brand’s reach to its audiences. 

Communicators also need to track public social channels to extrapolate exclusive insights about their audiences and what they feel about the brand. Tools such as Meltwater’s Analyze are handy for communication professionals in extracting this intelligence from their social channels. 

Dark Social is fast becoming the communication mode of choice for many and communicators need to embrace newer methods and channels to not miss out on this opportunity. With that in mind, have communicators developed their capabilities to capture marketing opportunities and fresh audiences in Dark Social?

Dark Social: The Next Marketing Opportunity

When you think of social media, I’m sure you immediately think of addicting TikTok’s, or catching up with your friend’s Instagram stories, and maybe even if you ‘should tweet’ (then wondering if that’s even still a thing to do). Despite all of this, I bet social media governance is never at the top of your list – but if you’re managing social media channels, it should be. 

Optimizing Risk Management with Social Media Governance

Social media for business has tremendous benefits. Through an online presence you can:

Generate targeted awareness of your brand

Allow your brand to have a voice – for (relatively) free!

Today, as larger more risk-averse organizations start to proactively develop social media strategies to garner audience interest, the benefits of the channel are undeniable — but there are also some risks.

Social media governance is well-beyond having a Social Media Policy. It’s day-to-day practices that marketing & communications teams should embed in their social media strategy to help optimize risk management and mitigate the inherent risks that come with having an online presence. 

While the risks involved in leveraging social media for business are vast, I’ve summarized the top three companies should be aware of when these 24/7 online communication channels:

Reputational Risk: A rogue tweet, a comment or post that is "off-brand", little to no response to customer complaints, or poorly vetted influencer collaborations. 

Breach in Confidentiality: Posting commercially sensitive details, account log-in breaches, or revealing private internal information.

Regulatory Infractions: This includes GDPR, copyright, fraud.

Such risks might leave you with a sinking feeling, wondering if it is even worth using social media for your business, but all isn’t lost. To mitigate these risks, we have social media governance. 

4 Pillars to a Strong Social Media Governance Model

If you haven’t kicked off your social media governance model just yet, don’t sweat — it's not too late. Use the 4 pillars below to guide you and protect your brand when using social networks. 

Consideration of Brand Guidelines in an Online Space

Brand and employee social media guidelines play a critical role in mitigating reputational risk as they can help you identify logo infringements, respond to customer complaints and address imposter social media accounts in an online space. Some common ways to ensure these risks are being identified include:

Daily social media monitoring practices by your social media team using a social listening tool

Having an online community management process in place to ensure social media risks are identified early on and addressed immediately. A murmur can quickly become a full-blown crisis, so the earlier you catch wind of risky conversations, the better.

Being vigilant with due diligence on a continuous basis. For example, catching infringement allows your teams to ensure no false messaging is put out in the market without your consent. 

Integrating Compliance and Legal Regulations

Some businesses wouldn’t think of putting compliance and social media teams together, and honestly, it can be a very awkward conversation at the beginning. Compliance will tell you “here are the terms & conditions to put on your advertising” and your marketing team will likely look at them and say, “these will not fit in our 280-character limit”. Then there will likely be an awkward silence… 

Regardless, once the awkward phase is over — having compliance be a part of your social media team will lead to tremendous security for your organization. 

Compliance and legal help safeguard your social media team in lots of instances, for example, preventing them from running false advertising messages or protecting your brand from threats made against the institution and employees. Furthermore, their strategies for capturing all online critical comments and review processes can assure your teams that they are adhering to industry regulations — even in an online space where rules are far from few. 

Getting Comfortable with Social Listening

Social media monitoring also plays a critical role in proactively mitigating many corporate risks that can arise in a day-to-day news cycle. It’s important to monitor your brand, monitor competitors, senior executives and any critical accounts daily. 

Monitoring is also critical to have in place before, during and after a crisis situation. When a crisis arisies, there should always be a designated person monitoring constantly and reporting every 2-3 hours. Having a social media monitoring tool to track key conversations, pull reports that can be sent to key stakeholders, and document any critical engagement is the foundation of all social media teams.  

Getting Familiar with Your Business Continuity Plan

I'm confident that your company definitely has a Business Continuity Plan, but I bet not everyone knows about the documented procedures.

From winter storms to tornados, I’ve been through them all, and I can assure you that as the social media manager of KPMG, I’m always the first call they make. In critical situations, your online channels often become the first-line of communications when getting key messaging out to staff and customers. It’s priceless in these times to know exactly who to call for your messaging and posting.

Speaking of storms, the preparation before the (crisis) storm is always the best time to ensure that in the storm – your teams can weather through. I strongly encourage you to connect with your communications teams and your continuity plan owners to ensure they know your social teams are here to support. Having regular conversations around critical incidents and messaging can make things a lot easier for you later.

Overall, I’d say social media governance isn’t the most ‘exciting’ topic when it comes to social media (because you know we’d all rather do a TikTok dance), but it’s by far the most integral part of your social media strategy that will consistently ensure your company recognizes the value (and impact) of social media channels. If you would like to learn more about the 4 pillars to a strong social media governance model in more depth, listen to the on-demand webinar I did with Meltwater here.

You’ve heard of organic posts and boosted posts, but have you heard of a “dark post” on social media? 

Dark posts are unique, targeted ads. The only difference is that compared to boosted posts and organic posts, dark posts don’t appear on a user’s timeline organically. They only show up as sponsored content in the feeds of the users you are targeting directly.

Dark posts can be an effective way to test specific messages and calls-to-action with audience segments or different social platforms. Boosted posts, on the other hand, allow you to extend the reach of a post you’ve already published to your various social media accounts. Finally, your best organic posts can later be used as boosted posts to increase engagement.

So what’s the best social media strategy? We’re breaking down each major social media network and what type of content works best.

Instagram: Organic Posts + Boosted Posts + Dark Posts

Did you know that 76% of American consumers purchased a product after seeing a brand’s social post? Or that 69% of all adults in the US are using Facebook? 

Facebook is the perfect platform to perfect your paid social media strategy using boosted posts and dark posts. The reason being is that only a small percentage of your organic posts will actually be seen by your followers in the feed.

Boosted posts and dark posts on Facebook are the best option to get your content in front of more people.

When it comes to boosted posts on Facebook, the best strategy is to boost your top-performing organic content. Let your audience decide what they like best. Hair Works strategically boosts top content as a way to keep their Facebooks ads fresh:

One important reason that brands utilize dark posts is to complete A/B split testing and refine and optimize ads, testing different elements and audiences.

Users don’t need to be following your account to see your content. For example, I don’t follow Squarespace, but I was targeted with a well-placed dark post on Facebook: 

With dark posts, you have more control over what your audience sees, and an easy way to experiment with expanding your audience to new segments, and see how they react.

Instagram is one of the largest and fastest-growing platforms on the planet. Users of all kinds flood the platform every day to follow their favorite brands, celebrities, influencers, friends, and family. 

That is why we recommend using all types of content on Instagram. 

No matter what type of content you are creating for Instagram, it should all work together to tell one cohesive story. Your organic content should fit the narrative of your boosted content, which should also reinforce your advertising (dark posts) content.

Athletic Brewing, for example, takes advantage of dynamic content and ads across the Instagram feed and Instagram Stories. This allows them to meet and engage with their audience (and potential customers) on various surfaces:

The best part about Instagram advertising is that brands have the option to post photo ads, video ads, carousel ads, or Stories ads. These different types of interactive content can help increase engagement and conversion. 

Fact: 130 million Instagram users tap on shopping posts every month.

Today, more content is produced on Twitter and other social media platforms than ever before in history. It's content overload and many social media users are feeling it.

But with content overload comes an increasing demand for high-quality content on Twitter. That is your brand's opportunity to stand out in the feed using only organic content.

There are a few key strategies for ensuring that your organic content performs well on Twitter. Those include:

Establishing your brand voice. Your brand voice should be natural, engaging, and written as if it were a real human talking

Actively engaging with your community. Twitter is not only a great place to post original content, but it’s also a platform to connect with audience members. Use comments, direct messages, and Retweets to create a thriving community.

Experiment with rich media content. Your Twitter content should include a variety of media types such as videos, photos, GIFs, memes, text-only, links, and more. Use an array of content at your disposal to switch it up and keep things fresh.

CROSSNET creates on-brand video content to help showcase their product on Twitter, drive traffic to their website, and increases purchases:

Notice how natural the language in the Tweet sounds, and they threw in an emoji for a little extra personality.

YouTube is the second-largest search engine globally, right behind Google. That’s not bad for a social media platform. Billions of hours of video are watched on YouTube every month by audiences around the world.

One of the great things about YouTube is that it’s the perfect platform for both educational and entertaining content. Meaning, that if your brand is much more functional (educational) than it is glamorous (entertaining), there are sure to be people on YouTube that want to learn from you.

REI, for example, recently created an entire YouTube series call “How-to from Home”, which features everyday people sharing some at-home tips and tricks for outdoor lovers and adventurers alike: 

Remember, YouTube is more than just a social media platform, it’s a search engine. The same SEO rules that you would apply to your website are relevant to YouTube. A consumer and audience intelligence platform can come in handy to research how certain keywords and trends are evolving and even help you zero in on ideas for your next video. Also, check out our YouTube SEO guide!

Each major social media platform is like its own secret society. There are unspoken nuances, rules of engagement, trends, influencers, and types of content that work best. The insights from this article are just a start to what’s possible with organic posts, boosted posts, and dark posts. 

When building a social media strategy, it’s important for your brand to experiment early and often with different types of content. What works on Facebook won’t hold true for YouTube, and vice-versa.  

Dark Post and Organic Posts Explained: What Works Best

It’s difficult to say exactly when social media began, but you could argue that it really started with blogs in 1999 when LiveJournal was launched. So that means social is now 21 years old, the traditional coming of age milestone, which is oddly appropriate because this is the year it really had to grow up.

The year started dramatically, with some of the worst bushfires in history raging across Australia and apocalyptic images being shared with the world. The issue amplified discussions around man-made climate change, and social mentions of this topic peaked at nearly 1.3 million on January 5th.

On the other side of the world, the UK finally left the European Union on January 31st. This topic has dominated the country’s media agenda for the past four years, with social media serving as the battleground for the often bitter Brexit debate. When the day of departure finally arrived, social media mentions of Brexit peaked at 1.2 million.

Social Media Management

Infographic: A Day in the Life of a Social Media Marketing Manager

Dark Social: The Next Marketing Opportunity

4 Pillars to a Strong Social Media Governance Model

Dark Post and Organic Posts Explained: What Works Best

2020: The Year Social Media Came of Age

How to Write the Perfect Professional Instagram Bio

The Daily Life of a Social Media Manager

Research Reveals Secrets of Social Sharing

6 Companies That Are Killing It on Instagram

How to Improve Engagement on Facebook

Instagram Stories: 5 Creative Ways to Use Them in Your Marketing

How Penshoppe Can Leverage Social Media Based on Data

Social Media Management

Infographic: A Day in the Life of a Social Media Marketing Manager

Dark Social: The Next Marketing Opportunity

4 Pillars to a Strong Social Media Governance Model

Dark Post and Organic Posts Explained: What Works Best

2020: The Year Social Media Came of Age

How to Write the Perfect Professional Instagram Bio

The Daily Life of a Social Media Manager

Research Reveals Secrets of Social Sharing

6 Companies That Are Killing It on Instagram

How to Improve Engagement on Facebook

Instagram Stories: 5 Creative Ways to Use Them in Your Marketing

How Penshoppe Can Leverage Social Media Based on Data

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