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Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Guide

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

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

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Blog Collection | Meltwater

Media monitoring helps organizations stay informed about what’s being said across online news, print, broadcast, podcasts, and other media channels. Whether you're tracking brand mentions, measuring PR performance, monitoring competitors, or identifying emerging trends, our expert guides, best practices, and industry insights will help you build a smarter media monitoring strategy and make more informed communications decisions.

Discover expert media monitoring guides, best practices, and industry insights to track brand mentions, monitor competitors, and stay ahead of the news.

Media Monitoring: Guides, Best Practices & Industry Insights

Every day billions of conversations take place on social media: tweets, posts, comments, blogs, reviews, podcasts, and much more.

Learn how to use social listening to make sense of all of that data.

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

Social Listening Blogs | Category

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

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

Reputation Management Blogs | Category

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

The key to success is branding & brand management!

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

Brand Management Blogs | Category

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

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

Competitive Intelligence Blogs | Category

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

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

Customer Journey Blogs | Category

How do customers interact with my newly launched product?

How do I increase the productivity of my employees?

How do I know if my marketing efforts are working?

We have just two words for you...Data analytics!

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

AI & Data Analytics Blogs | Category

Public relations and media relations can add impact to any marketing strategy. It’s an opportunity for brands to grow their reach beyond traditional sales messages. PR helps to shape the image you want people to have of your brand.

So, what is PR and how do you use it? This guide shows you everything you need to know to build a strong public relations foundation.

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

Public Relations (PR) Blogs | Category

We all know exactly what the roles of sales or accounting are in a company, right? We might even have a slight idea of what the IT guys are doing.

But there is another business discipline, that plays a crucial role in organizations, even more so during the pandemic – internal communications!

But what exactly do we mean by that, what purpose does it serve and what steps can you take to ensure you and your employees will communicate effectively?

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

Internal Communications Blogs | Category

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

Here's a closer look at what content marketing is and why it matters more than ever in our digital-first economy.

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

Content Marketing Blogs | Category

The rise of the influencer marketing space – today a $10 billion industry, growing 50% per year – is one of the clearest examples of how social media is transforming traditional marketing. These days having a business website, presence on social, PR coverage, and your own content isn’t enough to compete.

We'll dive into the intricacies of influencer marketing to help ensure that you're equipped with the insights needed to be successful in this space.

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

Influencer Marketing Blogs | Category

Have you just launched a new product or service that you want to get the word out about? Maybe you want to share with consumers why it is awesome and how it is so much better than the one your competitors offer.

Well, then, there is one thing you can't do without...Marketing!

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

Marketing Blogs | Category

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

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

Social Media Marketing Blogs | Category

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

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

Digital Marketing & PR Tools Blogs | Category

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

I’ve done a lot of volunteer nonprofit work in my private life, and I’ve worked with several 501(c)(3)’s in my professional life too.  In the past couple years, there have been a lot of articles on the way that big nonprofits have made a big impact on social media, and rightly so: the HRC’s amazing equality avatar campaign and the ALS’s famous Ice Bucket Challenge have been two charity initiatives that demonstrated the awesome power that social media, as a channel, has to exponentially increase awareness for a cause.

Those campaigns were hugely successful, to be sure… but both of these organizations have resources far beyond the usual 501(c)(3).  However, that doesn’t mean that the lessons from their campaigns can’t be utilized for the little guys.  And so, without further ado:

4 Big Tips for the Little Guys: Nonprofit Social Marketing Made Easier

A picture is worth 1,000 words… and a lot more clicks and engagement on social channels than text.  Both the HRC and the ALS counted on image-driven status updates to drive awareness of their campaigns, and it paid off big-time for both organizations.  One channel that’s sorely underused by nonprofits is Pinterest: if you don’t have a Pinterest profile and you’re an NPO, you’re missing out on your target donation and volunteer demographic: women.  Pinterest actually has data that tells us which topics resonate on which days (scroll to the last piece of this social media infographic to see them). So this is definitely a channel worth exploring.

If you’re having trouble coming up with enough visual assets for your nonprofit social marketing efforts, perhaps #2 can help…

2) Use Your Armchair Activists as Content Marketers

One of the little-known facts about nonprofit work is this: it’s not necessarily that we lack volunteer power, but rather that we aren’t sure how to best utilize the folks volunteering.  In the age of social media marketing, though, even the most agoraphobic volunteer can be of use when it comes to your nonprofit social marketing, most especially your efforts on Facebook and Twitter.  Facebook, for example, rewards a brand’s engagement: its algorithm now looks to a Page’s most active followers to let them know whether or not a post is worth bumping up to the top (which is called “story bumping” – for more on this, check out our e-book on Facebook Reach).  If your usual suspects don’t engage with a post, your Reach is severely limited.

Remember, social networks themselves are after engagement: this is what helps them sell ad space.  Coordinating our efforts so that folks are all sharing at once lets the algorithms behind Facebook and Twitter understand that something is popular, and that will help it rise to the top of an activity stream.

That being the case, one great way to utilize volunteers is to coordinate them when something we post is meant to be shared to a larger audience.  By coming up with a simple content marketing plan for them – something as simple as an email list that gives them the link to the content we want shared, the messaging behind it, and when we want them to do it can work – you’ll stand a better chance of maximizing your exposure.

Another way to use volunteers is in the sourcing and creation of imagery, video and blog posts.  Creative projects can be fun for the folks that have an interest there, and we can also run contests to produce the best avatar, video or campaign slogan. One trick that always works in animal rescue, for example, is “cute dog” calendar contests.  These sorts of programs can garner us a lot of marketing material at no cost, while simultaneously keeping volunteers (and possibly their social networks, as in the “cute dog” contests) engaged.

Social media is a powerful channel for one reason: the social network.  The personal networks of our supporters give us the chance to make an impression on an audience that we may not otherwise engage, and the social share is what gets us there, (for more on this, check out this article on brand advocacy and earned social media).  When I logged into Facebook during the Prop 8/DOMA trials and noticed that a bunch of my friends had changed their profile pics to a red and pink equal sign, I was confused… and it got my attention.  Once I realized what the HRC had done, I too changed my profile pic… and watched as a bunch of my own friends changed theirs, too.

The Ice Bucket Challenge was another great and more active example of chain letter mentality: people were asked to challenge 3 friends to join them.  Making that sort of “pass it on” an active and easily-executed request is a fantastic way to take advantage of the inherent power of your supporters’ social networks.  Give them a good reason to spread the word: people feel good about themselves when they take an action for charity, even when it’s something as simple as an avatar change or a share on your friend’s wall.

4) Find and Engage Like-Minded Peers, Supporters & Partners

One of the awesome things about cause marketing, when you’re trying to expand your community, is that people typically are supporting a cause first and an organization second – and so you’re already part of a larger community.  That being the case, we nonprofit social marketers can find really valuable partners, influencers and supporters on Twitter and Facebook.  Facebook Graph Search is a fantastic way to find people: a search like “People who like HRC and live in Omaha” can give us a list of folks who we might, at the local level, want to meaningfully engage at a 1:1 level.  We can also use Facebook Interest Lists to get new followers, find engaging topics, and engage Fans (for more on this, check out this article on how to use Facebook interest lists).  Lastly, we can check out who’s following other orgs who tackle your cause on Twitter by checking out follower and interest lists.

4 Tips for Nonprofit Social Marketing: Small Budgets, Big Impact

Earned media is getting more attention these days, as trust in paid ads continues to decline. While a brand talking about itself in an ad may not win the trust of buyers, an editorial piece that appears in a reputable publication can add major credibility.

However, when brands do score that media hit, it’s no longer enough that the story appeared. PR pros face a new challenge. Now, they must work to ensure that it’s seen by the right audiences.

So, what can PR pros do to extend the reach of that earned media win, making sure to maximize the benefits it brings to the brand?

In the past, those in public relations tried to distance themselves from advertising. Now, they’re beginning to see it differently. Some are turning to paid social media to help earned media have more of an impact.

“It’s about making sure the press coverage you’ve already earned works harder for you,” says Steve Rubel, chief content strategist at Edelman.

Why is paid social an effective way to boost earned media?

Even before buying a product, consumers often follow a brand on social networks. This gives brands a chance to reach those consumers using paid social media ads. And while following isn’t everything, 62 percent of those surveyed by Sprout Social said they’re either “likely or somewhat likely” to buy from a brand they follow online. It stands to reason that using ads to reach these audiences can only help persuade them to buy.

Paid social media boosts trusted third-party content to those that benefit from the information,” says Abel Communications. “For example, a great hit in the Wall Street Journal for a B2B brand should be repurposed on LinkedIn’s Publishing Platform and amplified through a sponsored update.”

And how much can paid social media ads benefit your earned media hit? “By supplementing our highest priority content with paid dollars, we see organic and earned reach increase by 10 – 20x,” says Melissa Wisehart, managing director of digital strategy at Moore Communications Group.

Want to try incorporating paid social into your earned media strategy?

1) Be selective: As with promotion of blog posts and other content, be selective when choosing which earned media to promote with a paid social ad. Chad Pollitt, co-founder of Relevance, believes social media isn’t a good channel to promote all your content. Instead, he recommends promoting only those pieces that have already attracted higher levels of engagement.

 2) Be sure to tie the paid social effort to a goal: For example, if you want to increase sales, you can target specific groups or industries with your ads. Then, you can see if that results in new business leads.

Larry Kim of WordStream regularly uses this approach to earn widespread news media coverage for his content. On his blog, Kim cites an example of using paid Twitter ads targeted to a tailored audience which led to him to an opportunity to appear on Fox News. That then led to coverage in high-profile publications. Kim says Twitter’s tailored audiences and Facebook’s custom audiences open up new doors for brands to reach untapped customers or influencers.

 3) Choose the right network: When selecting which social media platform to use, consider your demographics. Facebook ranks at the top of the list for all age groups, from millennials to Baby Boomers, with Snapchat and Instagram coming in second and third.

 4) Don’t expect it to break the bank: Advertising on social media needn’t be expensive. According to Pier Communications, “Facebook’s Boosted Posts (which you can also set to run on Instagram) and LinkedIn’s Sponsored Content are the fastest and most affordable ways to drive traffic back to your website or a recent article.“For Facebook or Twitter, start with a small test of $100-250 to promote a great hit,” suggests Abel Communications. “With an average cost per click of $0.27 on Facebook, that’s almost 1,000 more views on your story.”

Amplifying an earned media hit with a paid social media ad can spell success for brands. Experiment by starting with a small budget to see what makes the biggest impact on your audience and works for your clients. If you’re ready to get started download our ebook to learn how to grow your social media program into a full-fledged business.

How to Use Paid Social Media Ads to Boost Earned Media

Expanding your marketing efforts to new national markets is an exciting and critical moment for your brand. Do it properly and your company’s revenue can sky-rocket by tapping into massive audiences previously off-limits – but do it on the hoof and your international brand will most likely be strangled in its infancy.

Navigating the minefield process of localizing your campaigns to each market without any prior experience can be daunting, especially so with limited funds, but there are a few simple procedural changes marketers can make to their strategies to ensure that creative social supports international expansion. First up…

People in different countries use different social platforms. If you’re in charge of localizing your company’s social media output to new markets, your first port of call should be to work out which platforms are popular in each market – even if they’re unfamiliar to you – and which also are the best fit for your brand.

For example, you can forget about using Twitter, Facebook or Youtube to break into the Chinese market as all three have been banned by authorities. But there are always alternatives to the channels you’re used to – Qzone or Renren are massive in China.

Once you’ve worked out which social platforms will work in each country you're localising to, the next step is to spend some time truly understanding exactly what people are using these sites for; is it microblogging? Sharing videos? Private messaging? The myriad distinctions in function between each social media platform can be dizzying but the best way to get to the bottom of what a channel is all about is to ask the question: what makes this channel successful and popular in this market? Once you have the answer to that, you’re en route to comprehending the essence of a platform.

If you want your messaging to translate effectively across cultures, your content must be relevant and look native to each specific culture. Stay on top of the social and political climates in each market and you’ll avoid churning accidentally insensitive remarks into the public sphere. Remember Kenneth Cole – the best way to introduce yourself to a new market is certainly not to insult that market.

Do your research, respect societal norms and draw up a culture/style guide for each market. Anything less and your social efforts will be wasted.

Related to culture but still distinct enough to deserve separate consideration. This is more about researching the general attitude and personality of a market. When marketing to your own country this is an instinctive process, honed through years of growing up and gaining a sense of nationhood. Unless you’ve spent serious time in the country you’re creating social content for, you will not be afforded this luxury when marketing to new markets and will have to learn it from scratch.

A combination of field and desk research is vital to achieving this. Add it into your cultural style guide and consider the importance of “transcreating” – rather than simply translating your campaigns.

The scourge of every global marketer is having to work with creative that hasn’t been designed with localization in mind. Creating assets like videos, memes and infographics can be expensive enough – being lumped with a tranche of non-localisable creative that has to be made all over again for a new market is insanity; wasting time, money and resources.

If you’re rolling out a campaign across multiple markets, instruct your creative team to plan all assets with localization in mind and to do their utmost to streamline processes at every opportunity. This can be as simple as sending .psd asset templates for infographics to each localization team (rather than .jpgs which have to be edited all over again, inevitably creating unwanted variations between markets). All that planning will be worth it and make the localization process as stress-free as possible.

Don’t use Google translate (find yourself some locals)

Number one sin of localization: Google Translating your copy. I struggle to believe anybody still does but if you do, stop it, stop it right now. This article will help you understand why.

It's wise to create local teams in each country who can be in charge of adapting content to their markets. Cultural savvy is essential here — in-market linguists are best positioned to decide if a particular piece of social content is relevant to the target country, not only in terms of content but also tone. Avoiding committing cultural taboos and understanding what encourages social engagement are not two of Google Translate’s strong points – so get yourself a local.

A good alternative is using Unbabel, who offer an online translation service that combines Artificial Intelligence with Crowd Post-Editing, to provide seamless translation. These guys are actually trying to get the brands’ tone right for their translations.

Also consider applying strict version control and don’t let translators or designers copy/paste content. Subtitling apps can support translators with local market knowledge and help your brand create high quality, geographically relevant content.

When it comes to multiple market translation, social media platforms are prone to messing around with their rules. YouTube, for example, are scared of skewed view counts and have strict rules in place that marketers must adhere to – just having different subtitles doesn’t quite cut it. In China meanwhile, there is a long list of words that you are simply not allowed to use (you’ll be banned from all networking if you do).

Again, the key is to do your research, as well as continually staying on top of any developments in social media platforms’ policies.

While it’s important to tailor your content to multiple markets via segmentation, it is equally important to unify all of these markets through one global brand account – the ‘daddy’ account.

We hope these steps can help you localize social media campaigns. Let us know what you think. How are you crafting your social media strategy around the globe?

This article was written by Joao Romao from Business2Community and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.

How To Localize Social Media Campaigns

In the UK, the beginning of Christmas is no longer signified by the first real frost or the premature festive chocolate aisle in supermarkets. It isn’t marked by the first advent calendar, or by putting up decorations. Instead, for many, it’s the first airing of Christmas TV adverts that truly signifies the start of the festive season. 

It’s quite miraculous that Christmas campaigns have become central to our routines and traditions. However, the origins of the Christmas ad extend back to Coca-Cola posters in the 1920s, featuring a very stern-looking Santa Claus who looked anything but jolly. Adverts were first shown on British TV in 1955 but focused on seasonal toy promotions.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t until 1995 that Coca-Cola’s “Holidays are Coming” TV campaign, featuring their iconic red truck, first aired. For many, this is still the most memorable Christmas ad of all time – but it was, instead, the John Lewis Christmas advert which burgeoned the entire genre of festively themed messaging that consumers have come to know and love. Today, we are over a decade into the Christmas battle of the brands – a firm institution of the festive period.

Just this month, there have been 6,500 online news articles on 2019’s Christmas ads, demonstrating the scale of the discussion, which takes place every festive season. Meanwhile, 46,000 people in the UK have taken to Twitter to discuss the release of the big brands’ campaigns. In fact, this year people began searching for the hugely anticipated John Lewis advert in September – two months before its official release. 

It’s beginning to feel a lot like a competition

The festive hype wasn’t created overnight but over a decade of successful John Lewis campaigns, including iconic ads such as “The Journey”, “The Bear and the Hare” and “Monty the Penguin.” John Lewis’ continuing focus on message, emotion and the magic of Christmas established a gold standard of advertising in this space, winning over shoppers with sentimental tales and firmly positioning itself as the guardian of Christmas.

The accompanying acoustic cover songs include five Top 10 hits and two Christmas Number 1s, often promoting new and young talent. Pioneers in producing accompanying toys and merchandise to their campaign, they were praised for their tasteful approach, to an audience who were more than happy to be wooed by Christmas again.

Other brands followed suit, with Sainsbury’s Mog campaign and M&S’ Paddington ad becoming memorable classics of the genre, and soon the Christmas ‘ad-race’ was unavoidable. Over a thousand news articles this month mention Christmas ads in conjunction with the competition surrounding them, and the ongoing fight for consumer’s attention has certainly complicated the process of standing out. 

In recent years, we have watched as John Lewis has caught up with itself. Years of growing expectations took its toll on the retail giant with their controversial “Moz the Monster” campaign resulting in a plagiarism row, after viewers took to social media to point out its similarities to Chris Riddell’s much-loved children’s story.

Although, the controversy around the campaign caused YouTube views to soar. In fact, John Lewis continue to face similar problems this year, as multiple authors have aired their concerns over similarities between their work and this year’s “Excitable Edgar.”

The brand’s 2018 offering featured a collaboration with Elton John for his upcoming Rocketman film release, which left many unsatisfied by the cost of the campaign (a whopping £7million), while others thoroughly enjoyed the tribute to a national treasure. The sentimental mould, fashioned by John Lewis’ earlier ads, has marked their latter offerings as failing to make viewers cry or ‘feel Christmassy’. 

Instead this year, Asda and Sainsbury’s have adopted John Lewis’ original blueprint for an emotive message and have seen huge success – proving that John Lewis isn’t the only retailer who can capture the ‘spirit of Christmas’. 

Over the last couple of years, Christmas ads have undergone some drastic changes in order to reflect the huge disruptions we have seen in the retail sector. With many high street closures and multiple high-profile chains going bust in 2019, viewers have found that big expensive ads miss the mark, at a time when thousands have lost their jobs across the country. The struggling high street is even the theme of Visa’s Christmas offering, as they promote local shopping, while various shopkeepers give their best rendition of Queen’s Somebody to Love. 

Cutting costs of big ad-spends has also become more of a focus – Debenhams has been widely praised for producing their festive ad in-house, saving a huge amount of money for the business. This highlights an important factor for businesses at Christmas: the FOMO effect for brands in the ‘golden quarter’. Consumers reportedly spend £30billion in Q4, and so brands have come to fight for airtime in an over-saturated market. Debenhams proves the importance in joining the race for consumer attention in order to remain relevant – but, this can also be a wonderful opportunity to showcase the talent of their creative teams, rather than outsourcing with a pricey budget. 

Vying for the limelight. Retailers have mutually changed their strategy in the ‘airtime race’ by staggering their campaign releases to allow each to have its own impact. Arguably one of the biggest changes in recent years is the content of Christmas adverts. While John Lewis have stuck to their on-brand sentimental message, and many including Asda and Sainsbury’s have continued to follow suit, another camp has emerged. Ikea produced their first UK Christmas ad this year, featuring grime artist D Double E as the voice of rapping kitsch ornaments, but focused on Ikea’s business concept and advertised specific products.

Product-focused adverts. Similarly, Argos’ drumming daddy-daughter duo focuses on the Argos catalogue, and the products you can find inside. In 2019, we’re seeing the beginning of a return to product-focused adverts, where brands advertise their featured promotions and have greater control of their ‘must-haves’ list. If you cast your minds back, this was where the John Lewis advert actually began, with campaigns such as “Shadows”, “The Feeling” and “A Tribute to Givers”. 

Whether adverts continue to follow the patterns of Camp A or Camp B, one thing is for certain. The greatest change we have seen to these campaigns is their medium. It’s now unimaginable to think of a Christmas ad without its accompanying social campaign, but considering Twitter was only launched in 2006, and Instagram in 2010, the importance of social media in the success of a campaign is now more relevant than ever.

While the marketing, advertising and communications departments of organisations globally have had to adapt and update in the switch to social, certain brands have done better than others with their seasonal campaigns.

It will come as no surprise that the pioneers of the Christmas ad as we know it, John Lewis, have led the way in achieving a cross-media campaign. This year, the “Excitable Edgar” ad was teased using a short pre-release video, creating a buzz on social media, while paid advertising has kept it at the top of users’ channels.

A creative social approach has also enabled the campaign to be ahead of the curve, with Edgar Snapchat filters and even a special Edgar emoji on Twitter available in the run up to Christmas. However, simpler approaches have had similarly huge effects in the past. Lidl’s satirical jibe at John Lewis’s Elton advert last year received 26K retweets, as it advertised: “Just because you don’t have £872 to spend on a piano, doesn’t mean you can’t be the next Elton. #EltonJohnLewis ”, alongside a picture of a keyboard and the pun, “It’s a Lidl bit funny”. This certainly goes to show that social can continue to unlock new audiences and will continue to be a growing focus for many winters to come.

Critics are always ready for the discussion on Christmas ads, with an increasing number of people questioning both their purpose and their effectiveness. While yes, a huge sum of money is spent every year on seasonal campaigns, recent releases have proven that this is not actually necessary. By combining the John Lewis and Waitrose offering this year, even the biggest spender is taking cost-cutting measures.

The purpose of these ads is still as evident as ever – to get people talking and securing your brand the airtime it needs in a highly competitive season. Brand loyalty is promoted too, as businesses have an opportunity to creatively express the messages and attributes they want to be known for, and customers affected by these ads have this at the forefront of their brains when they spend. 

Ads continue to be a good driver for footfall, as consumers flock to buy the campaign’s accompanying toy – as we saw with the hugely in-demand “Kevin the Carrot” plush delivered by Aldi last year. Viewers were thrilled with his return this season, as we see the first recurring star of the genre. The ultimate measurement of success in seasonal campaigns is their Social impact, and the ROI of festive campaigns can be hugely impressive.

In fact, John Lewis’ Elton John ad is said to deliver twenty times the return on the company’s original spend in social hits, as it attracted over fifty million views on. This trend continues, as this year’s “Edgar” ad gained 17.3 million views on social media within the first 24 hours of its release, according to John Lewis’ long-time ad partners Adam & Eve/DDB.

Examining the social data can help us to see the success in even simpler terms. Meltwater’s analysis of tweets during the releases revealed that the most commonly used emoji when talking about the ads was by far the love heart, with over ten thousand uses compared to just three thousand sad faces. And, guess who still dominates the market? Of course, the most commonly used hashtag is #excitableedgar. It will be very interesting to see where Christmas campaigns go next – but until then, here is Meltwater’s roundup of the 5 most creative ads of 2019:

Nicholas the Sweep | Sainsbury’s | Christmas 2019

Edgar the excitable dragon stars in John Lewis 2019 Christmas advert

Argos Christmas Advert 2019 – The Book of Dreams (60 Second Edit)

IKEA – Silence The Critics - TV Advert 90 #WonderfulEveryday

ASDA Christmas TV Advert 2019 | Radford Music

Bonus throwback – Curry’s #SpareTheAct Christmas campaign

No post about Christmas ads would be complete without a quick trip down memory lane. After all, nostalgia is the name of the season’s game and part of what makes it the most wonderful time of year. Who could forget Jeff Golblum’s performance in the Curry #SparetheAct ads that showed Golblum walking into present-opening scenarios and teaching the recipients of unwanted gifts to act happy about it, despite the fact they didn’t get what they really hoped for. The ads end with the tagline “spare the act this Christmas” – combining the skillful art of storytelling with humour and a key tie-in to Curry’s PC World.

Currys Christmas: Jeff Goldblum - Jigsaw

Want to up your festive advertising game? Contact Meltwater for media intelligence that can help you tell the stories your consumers will love these holidays.

The History of Christmas Ad Campaigns in the UK (and 2019’s top 5)

Social media campaigns are fast becoming the main facet of any brand’s marketing efforts. After all, these campaigns provide access to the 2.5 billion Facebook users, 1 billion Instagram users, and 330 million Twitter users that prowl these apps every month. Getting your content out there is as simple as creating an account and publishing your post… right?

Given the sheer volume of posts that are being created every day, brands must do a little extra to stand out. As we look towards 2020, here’s our roundup of campaigns that have grabbed audiences by the collar.

This humble stock image of an egg broke the world record for the number of likes on a single Instagram post following its appearance in January this year. To date, it remains the most-liked post on Instagram, having garnered over 53.9 million likes thus far. 

Over the course of a few weeks, the egg gradually began to crack, leading up to the grand reveal (during a SuperBowl commercial, no less) of Talking Egg, a global mental health resources page. 

While the account’s Instagram feed remained sparsely populated, the account’s creators instilled a sense of camaraderie in its main target audience — youths — through Instagram Stories. Fuelled by the common goal of breaking a world record, people who had come across the account were able to influence fans and laymen alike to ‘like’ the egg.  

By further using the post’s virality to promote mental health, the account’s creators ensured that the egg would become more than a passing fad. Today, the account continues to post original animations that promote mental wellbeing. 

GoJek, the Indonesian ride-hailing app, made waves on Twitter due to its exchange with rapper Rich Brian. After the rapper tweeted about missing Indonesian food, the company offered to have food delivered to him despite him being in New York at the time. 

This gesture was made in the spirit of pasti ada jalan, or “there’s always a way,” the tagline for its cerdikiawan campaign, which encourages users to showcase smart solutions to everyday problems. The tagline is also the central message reiterated by its recent rebranding efforts.

Proof of GoJek’s eventual food delivery received almost 19K retweets and over 25K likes. While the exchange was entirely organic, Rich Brian eventually collaborated with GoJek on its cerdikiawan campaign a month later. 

Why exactly did this Twitter exchange go viral?

GoJek simply capitalised on the right influencer — Indonesia-born Rich Brian, whose global following would allow GoJek to reach users beyond its home base. By following through on its commitment, GoJek ensured that its main customer base — Indonesian users — would have a better impression of its variety of offerings. On a global scale, followers of Rich Brian would also gain greater awareness of the brand even if they did not use the app in their home countries.

Facebook: Lazada Malaysia’s Facebook Live Show

On top of regular Facebook and Instagram ads, e-commerce giant Lazada went big this year with its interactive Facebook Live event. 

To celebrate its 7th birthday, Lazada Malaysia launched LUCKY 7th, a game show that allowed shoppers to catch a glimpse of the prices of items on sale. To drive greater awareness towards the campaign, carousel ads that targeted users based on previous shopping activity were created. Photo ads announcing discounts were also published after the show.

The game show itself drew over 11K views, with Lazada Malaysia reportedly earning 38 times more than its historical highest revenue from a campaign. The campaign was also able to reach 30% more users and garner 46% more interactions than previous campaigns. 

Lazada made use of an underutilised Facebook advertising function — the livestream, which allowed it to showcase product information and interact with fans in real-time. Lazada is no stranger to live streaming, having also done so for its birthday Super Party concert this year. What then makes livestreaming on Facebook different?

Facebook’s 2018 algorithm favours “meaningful interactions” — namely comments, shares, replies, and reactions. Live videos especially are prioritised over traditional ads and posts through the possibility of encouraging discussions among viewers. 

This means that live videos are likely to get more airtime on an individual’s news feed. In addition, the ability to notify followers of a brand’s page when the brand goes live contributes to an increase in potential reach and engagement. 

According to Facebook, live videos also produce 6 times more interactions than traditional videos, with users being more likely to comment or engage directly with a brand than on a regular post. 

Since its inception, TikTok has risen to become a leading player among short-form video social apps. Popular among users within the millennial demographic or younger, the app’s downloads this year surpassed Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat. 

Not one to miss out on marketing to youths within its markets, Uniqlo UT partnered with TikTok to launch an in-app challenge, #UTPlayYourWorld, in Japan, Taiwan, and France. The challenge encouraged users to share their experiences while wearing a Uniqlo UT outfit. Selected participants then won the chance to appear on screen in Uniqlo stores and social media pages worldwide.

The two-week campaign saw over 185K submissions, with over 95K TikTok participants and over 330 million views on submissions. 

According to Rei Matsunuma, director of UT and collaboration business at Uniqlo, UT’s main challenge was generating interest in Uniqlo from younger audiences who had never shopped there. As such, paid media would not generate long-term interest in the brand’s main offering — ‘LifeWear’, or clothing designed to make life better. 

User-generated content (UGC), which would be crucial in this campaign, is right up TikTok’s alley. By partnering with a platform that is built on UGC, Uniqlo was able to leverage on a huge base of young creators. These creators would act as micro-influencers, spreading awareness of the brand through their participation in the contest. Furthermore, the campaign’s aim of showcasing interesting snippets of daily life tied in well with the philosophy of LifeWear.

Spotify’s Wrapped campaign has become something of a year-end tradition. Users look forward to receiving a simple, personalised recap of their year in music, be it to rediscover songs they used to love or revisit embarrassing favourites. 

This year’s Spotify Wrapped, however, included something special — a Decade Wrapped, which provided unique listening stats and compared users’ favourites from 2010 to 2019. 

In Australia, for example, Spotify showcased statistics on prominent local artists such as Tones and I, while Aussie phenomenon Egg Boy also received a cheeky nod. The streaming platform even gave away speciality slushies in Melbourne and Sydney that feature the likenesses of four Aussie artists.

Even though it’s only been a week since the campaign’s release, it has generated a huge amount of buzz among Spotify users.

For one, the integration of sharing functionalities for both Free and Premium users have increased the campaign’s reach. What was once a private, personalised recap can now be shared with a user’s followers. Artists can also share their audience listening stats with their fans, promoting greater interaction between both parties.

Spotify Wrapped also makes the user its focus. While the brand employs a distinct look, the campaign’s copy makes scant reference to the company. The repetition of “you”, the user, reiterates the viewer’s role as the hero of the campaign. The clever use of audience insights also ensures that every user relates to the content that they receive.

Furthermore, the commitment to holistic advertising efforts both on and offline cements the campaign’s status as a year-end checkpoint for users.

Key learning points from these top campaigns

In the case of GoJek and Spotify, relatability accounted for a huge part of user engagement.

Both brands understood that they were writing for their audience. GoJek and Spotify did not highlight their own platforms and instead allowed their content to drive organic engagement.

Creating relatable content isn’t just dependent on your copywriting prowess. An important aspect of this involves a keen understanding of your top audience demographic. Which brands do they pay attention to? What age group do they belong to and what trends are they interested in?

Social Media Marketing

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How to Use Paid Social Media Ads to Boost Earned Media

How To Localize Social Media Campaigns

The History of Christmas Ad Campaigns in the UK (and 2019’s top 5)

Key Lessons from Asia's Best Social Media Campaigns of 2019

B2B Brands That Are Nailing It On Instagram

5 Reasons Executives Should Increase Social Media Presence

Avengers: Endgame – Deep Dive into the Social Media Realm

Top Social Media Campaigns in Indonesia

The Gamification of Social Media

Social Entrepreneurs: 5 Consumer Brands that Started on Social

Psychology of Social Media: The Science Behind Why People Share Online

Social Media Marketing

4 Tips for Nonprofit Social Marketing: Small Budgets, Big Impact

How to Use Paid Social Media Ads to Boost Earned Media

How To Localize Social Media Campaigns

The History of Christmas Ad Campaigns in the UK (and 2019’s top 5)

Key Lessons from Asia's Best Social Media Campaigns of 2019

B2B Brands That Are Nailing It On Instagram

5 Reasons Executives Should Increase Social Media Presence

Avengers: Endgame – Deep Dive into the Social Media Realm

Top Social Media Campaigns in Indonesia

The Gamification of Social Media

Social Entrepreneurs: 5 Consumer Brands that Started on Social

Psychology of Social Media: The Science Behind Why People Share Online

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