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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

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

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

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

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.

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!

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!

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.

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?

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.

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.

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!

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?

Influencer marketing is one of the top growth hacks for brands. It uses the audience and pull of an influencer to get in front of more people – people who are most likely to be interested in your products or services.

Why use influencers in your social media marketing? Glad you asked: influencers are true to their name because other people trust their recommendations. From local coffee shops to global brands alike, your target audience wants to know a brand’s worth before they pull out a credit card. A social influencer marketing campaign can steer more business in your direction and help you get ahead of your competitors. It's a win/win.

To sweeten the deal, brands have tons of options when leaning on social media influencers to share their brand. Our favorite places for influencer marketing are Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube.

Here’s how you can use each one to supercharge your influencer marketing.

Influencer Marketing on Social Media Platforms: In a Nutshell

Before we dive into the nuts and bolts of influencer marketing, let’s set the stage.

Influencer marketing is older than social media, but the term didn’t actually appear until the digital marketing era arrived. Think back to all those celebrity-endorsed cereal marketing campaigns you might have seen as a kid – that’s influencer marketing at work.

At its heart, an influencer marketing strategy is a lot like word-of-mouth marketing. Influencers recommend a product or service to their circle of followers. They use social media because it’s quick, cost-effective, and helps them reach tons of people with little effort. If the influencer has enough credibility, their followers will listen to their recommendations.

Reading Tips: Are you wondering how much influencer marketing costs? Learn more about influencer pricing and download our influencer rate card.

Sometimes, this process happens organically. An influencer discovers a great new hairspray or a bomb cocktail, for example, and tells their followers all about it.

And sometimes, this process happens based on a paid partnership with a brand. Just like digital ads, commercials, and direct mail, brands pay big-name influencers to market their products. Influencers can make a tidy sum just by giving their endorsement. In fact, professional influencers charge anywhere from hundreds of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars per post.

But don’t let their high salaries discourage you from embracing influencer marketing. Even small brands with small budgets can find affordable influencers in their niche (usually micro-influencers fit the bill). We’re going to show you how right now.

More and more brands are turning to Instagram marketing as a way of reaching their target audience. Instagram has become a hot spot for micro-influencers, with more than 1 billion active users and tons of ways to create original content. And despite Instagram doing away with likes to “depressurize the user’s experience,” Instagram influencer marketing is still as potent as ever.

Recent research found that 83% of Instagram users discover new products and services on the platform. More than 8 in 10 also use the platform with the intent to research products and services, while 80% make buying decisions based on Instagram content.

Here’s how you can use Instagram influencer marketing in your strategy:

Finding the right Instagram ambassador will help you maximize your efforts. Take a look at their niche as well as their audience size. In what types of content do they specialize? Do they work with brands of your size and stature? Do they have a highly engaged audience?

One way to narrow your focus is to use an Instagram influencer app, like Influence.co or Meltwater's influencer marketing capabilities. Some influencer apps are free to use and let you filter results based on location and follower count.

Likewise, you can also do an Instagram search for branded or relevant hashtags. See who is sharing content with your chosen hashtags, then check to see if they have a large audience with a strong engagement rate into which you could tap.

Once you choose your Instagram ambassadors, work together on developing a dedicated Instagram influencer marketing campaign that has specific, measurable goals. Your influencer needs to know what you want to get from the partnership so they can present your campaign in the right light.

For example, do you want the influencer to demo your new mascara? Should they tell a story about their first time wearing your brand’s sneakers? Do you want them to organize a giveaway for your product?

If you are looking for direct sales, try turning your influencer into a brand ambassador. Set them up with a unique referral link so they can earn a commission each time someone purchases using their link. This is a great way to see just how much influence they give your brand.

Last but not least, you need a way to measure how much impact your influencer makes. This is why we recommend using goal-focused campaigns and not just “brand awareness.” Comparing analytics such as website visits and sales during influencer campaigns can help you see whether you’re moving the needle.

LinkedIn seems like an unlikely place for influencer marketing, given its emphasis on professional networking. For an eCommerce brand, this might be true. But as with any type of marketing, it’s all about finding your target audience.

LinkedIn works well for B2B influencer marketing. You might use LinkedIn influencers to generate interest in a conference or webinar, drive sales for digital products and B2B services, or gain podcast followers, for example.

LinkedIn is a different breed than other social media platforms. Here, influencers are more focused on growing their reputation than they are on paid posts. They want to expand their audiences, improve their brand image, and build their credibility. These things lead to high-paid endorsement deals from bigger brands and companies, which is what many influencers are really after.

In all honesty, partnering with LinkedIn influencers is just as beneficial to them as it is to you. With this in mind, let’s look at some ways you can run an influencer marketing campaign as a part of your LinkedIn marketing strategy:

Influencers can help you increase sign-ups and participation for your webinars or live Q&As. You end up sharing each other’s audiences, which can help you both grow your presence.

If you have a podcast, ask an expert to join and share valuable insights with your following. They can use your podcast in their own marketing, which can drive more traffic to your website and make you look credible by extension.

Blog articles can also give your influencers free ways to market themselves by highlighting their expertise. Not only does this give them something to share with their own audience, but it creates a high-value article for other authors to backlink to.

If you have a digital tool or service that you charge for, offer to give an influencer free access to it. Let them try it out and start using it in their own business. Sweeten the deal by giving them discounts or incentive codes to share with others.

One of the most popular platforms for influencer marketing is Facebook. Facebook influencers are easy to find in just about every niche. The platform has the world’s largest user base (roughly 2.89 billion), giving you tons of potential audiences to reach.

Facebook offers many features to support influencer marketing, from groups linked to business pages to branded content tags and even Facebook Live. The approach is largely the same on Facebook compared to other platforms. Influencers can recommend products to their audience, use paid ads, and create original, engaging content for the brand.

Tip: Take a look at our list of the top Facebook influencers

Video content is king on Facebook, accounting for more than 100 million hours spent on the network every day. Influencers can create unboxing videos of your products, demonstrate a product, do a video product review, or share a behind-the-scenes look at a product “in the making,” for example.

Facebook Live brings users into the moment and offers a raw look at your brand. Invite an influencer to attend a company event and have them broadcast their experiences to their fans.

Sponsored posts are paid ads, plain and simple. They include a designation letting others know it’s an ad. But don’t let that fool you – sponsored posts can be highly effective in driving immediate sales, especially if you give your influencer an exclusive discount to share with their fans.

Let your influencers put your products into the hands of real users. A contest via influencer marketing can be a great way to grow your following, drive users to your website, and gain user-generated content. Plus, your influencer will have the benefit of picking a winner and giving them a prize, all thanks to your brand.

One of the original influencer channels, YouTube influencer marketing is still going strong. Online video accounts for more than 80% of consumer web traffic. People love videos because they’re so versatile. You can watch a video to simplify a complex topic, learn the exact steps to do something, or discover new brands. Videos add visual interest to a topic and can appeal to a broad audience. The popularity of video is reason enough to create a YouTube marketing strategy. 

What does influencer marketing look like in the world of YouTubers? Here are some ideas to spark a new influencer partnership:

One of the most common YouTube influencer formats is to hire influencers to do video product reviews. The visual-heavy aspect of videos allows users to see all facets of a product, almost as though they were trying the product in-store.In some cases, influencers might trade a post in exchange for free products, helping you keep your costs low.

The influencer can talk about your product’s features and benefits, how it works, what they like and don’t like, and put your product in a positive light.

And with YouTube’s many integrated features, the video can also include a link to your store so viewers can purchase the product on the spot.

If you’d prefer to take a non-salesy approach to YouTube influencer marketing, try creating educational content. Educational videos can focus on your audience’s biggest questions and pain points. The influencer helps others solve their problems while making your brand (and their own) look good in the process.

Brand mentions within a larger context can give you a subtle nod without coming across too commercially. For example, you can work with an influencer to talk about a bigger topic and have them mention your brand organically in the conversation.

Using Meltwater as an example, we might ask an influencer to talk about the basic building blocks of social media monitoring. They could mention our Media Monitoring platform when they start talking about ways to monitor mentions at scale.

Though the content and the approach will vary, a few things remain the same no matter where you choose to use influencer marketing. Start by knowing who you want to influence. Decide what you want to happen next. Then find the right influencers whose audiences and skills fit the bill. From there, work on nurturing the relationship and enjoy a fruitful collaboration that benefits both sides.

For help finding, contacting, and partnering with influencers in your industry, get in touch to learn how our end-to-end Meltwater social influencer marketing platform can help you streamline the process of working with influencers. 

Influencer Marketing on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook & YouTube

Social media engagement has changed. It used to be that just by posting great content, followers would engage. No longer.

Today, if you want your posts to be seen, you have to put some budget behind them. While this may be bad news for some, on the plus side, paid social media allows you to be extremely targeted, reaching the audience of your choosing.

“Attention is a key element many brands and organizations are going after on social, and in order to reach these audiences, you have to pay up,” says Karen Freberg, Associate Professor in Strategic Communication, University of Louisville. “With that being said, you have the ability to target, engage, and really pinpoint the exact members you want to reach, which will make your campaigns more effective and efficient.”

Even so, your paid social media ad strategy needs to be tied to your organic strategy, says Christina Garnett, Strategist, ICUC.

“Many see paid social as a short cut for followers, engagement, and link clicks,” says Garnett. “The fact is, putting money behind weak content won’t work. Your paid and organic strategy need to work hand in hand, understanding who you want to target and the content they need to see. Knowing who to target is crucial, but you also need to know what to provide within the ad. You never want your audience to wonder why they are seeing your ad.”

To make most of your paid social media promotion, here’s a brief overview of a few of the most popular platforms.

Facebook allows you to be extremely targeted when placing ads. “You can target audiences on Facebook with a dozen different ad formats and thousands of possible ad targeting parameters,” says Larry Kim.

Ads can be targeted based on location, demographic information, gender, languages, and interests. Facebook’s location-based targeting options include country, state, county, city, postal code, and an adjustable radius from a specific address.

Other options to target ads on Facebook under demographics include education, home, life events, whether they are parents, their political affiliation, and whether they are in a relationship. 

As for the most successful formatting strategy, conducting A/B testing of ads is recommended by many experts, including CMI.

“When crafting your ads, you need to consider who needs or wants this product or service,” says Garnett. “Remember their customer journey and determine how you want to connect with them at each point. How can you personalize your ads for specific personas? When thinking about who you want to target, you need to think about their online behaviors. Knowing they’re on Facebook isn’t enough. How do they behave once they’re there?” 

Because Facebook owns Instagram, you can use the Facebook Business Manager to manage your ads on Instagram, as well.

Instagram allows you to target ads based on location, age, gender, demographics, interests, behaviors, languages and connections.

Images are the priority when it comes to Instagram ads. “Technically, you can use up to 2,200 characters for most Instagram ads, but only two rows of text will display without being cut off,” says Hootsuite.

LinkedIn, the top B2B social media network, allows you to target ads based on company, demographics, education, job experience, and interests.

One strategy to leverage with LinkedIn ads is to see what content is working on other platforms and how you might tweak it for LinkedIn. As always, you can conduct tests to see which ad content and formats work best.

On Twitter, you can target your audience by gender, age, location, language, and technology.

Because it’s Twitter, the copy should be concise. Be sure to include a call to action. Another strategy is to keep an eye for major events you might play off of. One example is how Wendy’s used March Madness in 2019 to create a successful month-long campaign.

As with all social media advertising, test and analyze to see what works best.

Bottom Line with Social Media Advertising? Be Strategic.

“It’s better to be strategic in the investment of paid media rather than just put money behind it,” Freberg says. “Understanding the current practices, expectations, and tips on how to reach your audiences through paid media more effectively will become more important than ever.”

Targeting your social advertising is critical in growing reach and engagement—with the right audience. The next step is to measure results and map them to your business goals. Read our playbook on planning and measuring social media campaigns. Then, make sure you're presenting your results in the most convincing way.

How to Target Your Social Media Promotion

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?

Meltwater’s Audience Insight reports allow you to understand the communities that drive conversations on your social media channels. Our tool allows you to discover your audience’s consumption habits, analyse shifts in their demographic, and identify key influencers within these groups. You can then use these insights to create content that is tailored for your audience.

Apart from the use of cheeky language, these brands were able to capitalise on the right influencers. Be it showcasing top local artists on billboards around the city or engaging directly with an artist on Twitter, both moves ensured that the artists’ followers would be watching.

While these brands used high-profile influencers, brands can emulate these results even when engaging micro or nano-influencers.

With Meltwater’s Influencer Discovery tool, searching for influencers with high reach numbers and high follower engagement is easy. Find influencers based on your audience’s demographic as well as your target market, industry, or topic. This allows you to engage influencers that know your product and would genuinely like to promote it. By extension, their followers will be familiar with brands in your industry, ensuring that the content you produce is always relatable.

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