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

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

Today, PR teams aren’t just tracking media coverage and share of voice. They’re also measuring how their brand shows up in AI-generated answers, search summaries, and large language models (LLMs). This new LLM visibility layer is quickly becoming a critical part of PR performance.

15 Must-Have PR KPIs and How to Track Them

See how one platform can power every decision across PR, communications, and marketing.

The Meltwater Blog

Blog Topics: Generative Engine Optimization, Media Intelligence, Media Relations, Social Listening, Consumer Intelligence, Influencer Marketing

Find out how you can leverage Facebook to boost your brand's online presence and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

Facebook Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage Instagram to boost your brand's visual appeal and gain a competitive edge. Explore our category page today!

Instagram Blog | Meltwater

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

LinkedIn Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage TikTok to elevate your brand with creative content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

TikTok Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage X / Twitter to engage your audience effectively and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

X / Twitter Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage YouTube to create engaging video content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

YouTube Blog | Meltwater

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

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

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Blog Collection | Meltwater

Every day billions of conversations take place on social media: tweets, posts, comments, blogs, reviews, podcasts, and much more.
Learn how to use social listening to make sense of all of that data.

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

Social Listening Blogs | Category

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

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

Reputation Management Blogs | Category

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

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

Brand Management Blogs | Category

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

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

Competitive Intelligence Blogs | Category

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

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

Customer Journey Blogs | Category

What Is Data Analytics? [Beginner’s Guide 2023]
How can I grow my business? 
How do customers interact with my newly launched product?
How do I increase the productivity of my employees?
How do I know if my marketing efforts are working?
We have just two words for you...Data analytics!

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

AI & Data Analytics Blogs | Category

Public relations and media relations can add impact to any marketing strategy. It’s an opportunity for brands to grow their reach beyond traditional sales messages. PR helps to shape the image you want people to have of your brand.
So, what is PR and how do you use it? This guide shows you everything you need to know to build a strong public relations foundation.

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

Public Relations (PR) Blogs | Category

We all know exactly what the roles of sales or accounting are in a company, right? We might even have a slight idea of what the IT guys are doing.
But there is another business discipline, that plays a crucial role in organizations, even more so during the pandemic – internal communications!
But what exactly do we mean by that, what purpose does it serve and what steps can you take to ensure you and your employees will communicate effectively?

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

Internal Communications Blogs | Category

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

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

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

Content Marketing Blogs | Category

The rise of the influencer marketing space – today a $10 billion industry, growing 50% per year – is one of the clearest examples of how social media is transforming traditional marketing. These days having a business website, presence on social, PR coverage, and your own content isn’t enough to compete.
We'll dive into the intricacies of influencer marketing to help ensure that you're equipped with the insights needed to be successful in this space.

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

Influencer Marketing Blogs | Category

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

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

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

Marketing Blogs | Category

In this guide, we want to give you a peek into the definition of social media management, the daily schedule of a social media manager, social media platforms to promote your business, and the do’s & don’ts of social media management.
Are you ready to begin the journey of becoming a social media superstar?

On our social media management category page, you find blogs about social media management topics. Build and manage your online community.

Social Media Management Blogs | Category

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

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

Social Media Marketing Blogs | Category

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

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

Digital Marketing & PR Tools Blogs | Category

As innovation in the financial services industry moves online and onto our smartphones, so does the associated fintech PR and marketing communications. Since fintech companies consist of both established and startup companies their approach to social media is breaking ground as well. So, what can we learn from how top fintech companies are using X, formerly known as Twitter? Wade in for examples.

The financial technology industry (fintech) is one of the most innovative and revolutionary business spaces. In the past few years, a small group of small startups have disrupted the massive, traditional, and highly profitable banking industry.

From eliminating account maintenance fees to allowing fast and efficient online payments, fintech is making waves in the financial sector.

With so many changes, PR pros can learn from the way fintech companies use X, formerly known as Twitter. That’s why we’ve analyzed the Twitter accounts of 10 top fintech companies. Here’s what we’ve found.

People love the convenience of modern fintech tools. Unfortunately, with so many recent security breaches, companies need to reassure users that their personal data is safe. At the end of the day, we’re talking about people’s financial health and with $16.8 billion worth of identity data stolen last year, this isn’t a problem to overlook.

Fintech companies thus spend a great deal of their time working to improve their user’s security, X/Twitter being a powerful way to communicate these changes.

Ever since May 25th, GDPR’s implementation deadline, companies haven’t stopped messaging their users about the way they comply with the new rules. Stripe is no exception, as you can see in the following tweet where they not only share how they conform to the new regulations but also share a lengthy guide to understand more about the subject.

Fintech companies are solving a long list of modern challenges. This includes: making banking more accessible while streamlining processes, increasing investments without hefty fees, facilitating payments between consumers, guaranteeing loans without additional bureaucracy, and other financial services, all while working within a well-regulated system.

With a shifting landscape of services and regulations that govern their industry, X (formerly known as Twitter), plays a crucial role in the way companies inform the press, consumers, and investors about changes they’re implementing on their platforms.

PayPal highlights their ongoing dedication to make the payment process frictionless so that consumers can finish their purchases while on the go. Thus, increasing returns for businesses by limiting the abandoned shopping cart problem.

N26 is a European bank that’s attempting to change how the whole banking industry works. In this tweet, they share when they hit an important milestone: the 1 millionth user. 

Robinhood, the commission-free trading app that’s revolutionizing the way people trade stocks and other financial instruments, shares press mentions on Bloomberg. 

Cryptocurrencies have taken the financial space by storm. Everyone talks about them, yet fewer are buying and using them. Since they’re not regulated, traditional investors are hesitant to jump into the fray.

Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange, is the first to be regulated by the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission). In this tweet, they share the news since it will likely increase the number of investors to their platform. 

There’s no better way to promote your financial platform than by giving money away. Skrill, the online payment processor, shares a promotion that hopes to increase their user base.

Fintech companies aim to improve consumers’ lives with faster, better, and cheaper tools. Yet not everything is about money. Since companies, even start-ups, cannot live outside the communities where they live and work, fintech uses X to showcase their support of social and community causes.

SoFi shares how their’s employees have taken the time to volunteer for HandsOn Bay Area.

Here, Lending Club shares how their employees prepare for San Francisco Pride. 

Fintech, much like other tech industries that hope to streamline experiences for consumers in traditionally bureaucratic industries, will continue to break ground. As the fintech space becomes more crowded and platforms differentiate themselves by offering features to enhance the consumer experience, they’ll need to quickly communicate with consumers and investors while keeping an eye on their competition. One way to do this is to succeed at X, formerly known as Twitter.

X/Twitter is an ideal channel for keeping up with (and leading) the conversation around industry developments, it is essential to a robust communications strategy.

So, when you’re ready to amplify your brand messages while listening to the competitive landscape, we can help.

How Fintech Companies Succeed at Twitter

B2B healthcare companies are increasingly using Twitter for a very public social media footprint that on its surface doesn't mesh with the industry's previously secretive communications strategy. But not only is there now an expectation that all companies use social media, but those that do it well are also netting surprisingly positive results. Here are some examples of innovative content.

The B2B healthcare industry is going through a transformation in the way healthcare providers, insurers, and life science companies carry on their online communications. 

Social media has brought a direct way for companies to communicate with their clients, potential partners, and their community, using social channels to strengthen relationships. Here are three ways healthcare companies use Twitter, the best practices they follow, and new ways they are finding to engage with their community.

Healthcare companies work with a fundamental aspect of human’s lives: their longevity, their quality of life, and most importantly, their hope. The ethical implications of selling life-saving drugs make healthcare companies, even b2b healthcare companies, prefer a human-focused communication style. That’s why all these companies sponsor social initiatives related to the diseases for which they develop drugs.

Genentech, a company that uses human genetic information to develop biotherapeutics, announces its collaborative pop-up store with the Living Beyond Breast Cancer Foundation and Third Bra. By partnering with these companies Genentech is reaffirming their dedication to the fight against breast cancer.

Genentech on Twitter: "#DYK there are many different types of #breastcancer? Today we launched a pop-up experience with @LivingBeyondBC and @ThirdLove to educate that #breastcancer is #NotOneType. https://t.co/mZaDebvx6H… https://t.co/nmAsfbTEUR"

On the other hand, Abbvie (a biopharmaceuticals company) broadcasts their concern about Chagas, a tropical disease from South America.

AbbVie on Twitter: "We care about #Chagas, which is why we support @mapintl & its important mission. Read more: https://t.co/iCm6wDMf1B #WorldChagasDay… https://t.co/7jrq4Y4sQw"

Gilead Sciences, a biopharmaceutical company, tweets about COMPASS, a social initiative to support organizations working to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Southern United States. 

Gilead Sciences on Twitter: "#HIV/AIDS continues to be a public health crisis in the U.S., particularly among gay and bisexual men. This situation is most acute in the Southern U.S. which is why we launched the #GileadCOMPASS Initiative™. Learn more: https://t.co/pP3ipMZYN2. (Image via @AIDSVu)… https://t.co/3NCop3PTpi"

When people think about high tech, they think Google, Facebook, and Amazon. But healthcare and biotech companies represent a large piece of the industry. To understand their market share, in 2016 the biotech industry in its entirety received over $7 billion in venture capital funding, that’s 10% of the total $69 billion invested in the United States for the same period.

Healthcare companies have to compete in a crowded space where talent is scarce. For that reason, they use Twitter to deliver content that supports their corporate culture, such as team building activities that support their community.

AthenaHealth, a healthcare software company, shares the volunteer work their employees do in Watertown, MA.

athenahealth on Twitter: ""Volunteering is a critical component to our success.  Our employee volunteers work alongside our partners to address the social determinants of health in our communities," - @jemercs, Senior Manager of #athenaGives. #nationalvolunteerweek… https://t.co/usYSPhsOUw"

Greenway Health, a privately owned vendor of health information technology, did something similar when their employees volunteered at the American Cancer Society. 

Greenway Health on Twitter: "Some of our @greenway team members in the Alachua, Florida office recently volunteered their time to take part in a @AmericanCancer @RelayForLife event in their community.… https://t.co/Ks1zPw1agt"

In a similar vein, DrChrono, a medical platform for physicians and patients, retweet their VP of Sales and Customer Success, who’s proud of working for over 4 years for their company, something that shows how well the company cares about their employees. 

Craig Silverman on Twitter: "@drchrono company meeting today! My #4 year anniversary 🎂 still excited about our mission to improve #healthcare #growth #Hiring #siliconvalley… https://t.co/ZJhx270q3D"

3. Distributing Content for Lead Generation

All B2B companies need to generate a large number of leads to expand their sales pipeline and hit their quarterly goals. Since B2B healthcare companies have product offerings that are very complex and costly, they need to plan their sales lifecycle so as to continuously generate more business opportunities.

That’s why they rely on content marketing to generate leads. From blog posts to whitepapers to podcasts to webinars, B2B healthcare companies use content to grow.

Kareo, a cloud-based software company for independent medical practices, hosts Twitter chats to connect with their audience in real-time. 

Kareo on Twitter: "Looking forward to tomorrow's #KareoChat hosted by Tony Guerra @Tony_PharmD. Join us at 12pm EST/9am PST!… "

McKesson uses Twitter to broadcast their latest blog post. 

McKesson Corporation on Twitter: "One of the biggest challenges for independent pharmacies is understanding how PBMs evaluate them. Our VP of Pharmacy Performance shares 5 ways your pharmacy can earn top scores in these evaluations. https://t.co/JuFeGrtZUS… https://t.co/qjSDU67hDJ"

Cerner, a supplier of health information technology solutions, highlights the value of their podcast. 

Cerner on Twitter: "With more and more focus on a consumer-centric health care environment, hospitals and health care systems are increasingly facing organizational and strategic changes. Listen to The Cerner Podcast: https://t.co/LOpZMMPhPj… https://t.co/jN9FdERoHk"

Finally, Cardinal Health, a pharmaceuticals and medical products distribution company, shares their webinars, which in this case, is focused on attracting laboratorians—their core target audience. 

Cardinal Health on Twitter: "Lab pros can improve patient care while proving their value in expanded consultant  roles. Learn about the growth of clinical laboratories in next week's webinar. Register today: https://t.co/LVCgyuCYuf… https://t.co/0iCj4SkZ4p"

Twitter continues to be a key channel for B2B healthcare. While these organizations vary in their offers and audience, they all have one thing in common: they use Twitter to connect and generate awareness about diseases, attract talent, and create business opportunities. In essence, the B2B health industry doesn’t use social media very differently than the b2c industry. They do follow the best practice strategy of considering their audience and crafting content that their followers are receptive to and engage with.

If you want to take B2B social media to the next level, consider downloading our ebook on building a social media program on any budget.

3 Innovative Ways Healthcare B2B Companies Use Twitter/X

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.

User-generated content can be as valuable as paid media

In the case of Uniqlo, paid media would not have been as effective as UGC in demonstrating their brand’s principle. Brands that wish to reach untapped markets can likewise consider using UGC as an arm to showcase their products. Marketers benefit from killing two birds with one stone — you get content, and your customers feel greater affinity with your product.

The main reason why UGC is so valuable is the fact that consumers often find this type of content the most authentic. Within the millennial demographic, UGC is trusted 50% more than traditional media and contributes 20% more to purchase decisions than other media types.

Social media platforms, particularly video platforms, are big proponents of UGC. Think TikTok and Snapchat’s short videos, IGTV or Instagram Stories, and even YouTube. After all, video content benefits brands by showing, not telling.

Types of UGC that can be useful for both B2B and B2C brands include client stories, product use cases, employee-generated content, product tutorials and contest submissions.

Seasonal posts don’t have to follow a pattern

The best brands make a key event or holiday campaign their specialty. Just as Spotify Wrapped has become a hit seasonal offering, Lazada’s annual birthday campaign has also become something that shoppers anticipate.

Campaigns centred around festivities and events (think the Lunar New Year, or Black Friday sales) are valuable even though they are predictable. Instead of just offering festive greetings or sweeping discounts every year, utilise your social media platform of choice to produce interactive content that engages your audience.

This could include creating simple games on Instagram Stories, hosting a Facebook or YouTube live video, or posting a TikTok video challenge.

While preparing for a big campaign is important, it is also vital that you leave wiggle room for other posts. Meltwater’s Social Media Management tool allows you to plan and publish your content on different social channels, identify gaps in your publishing schedule, and easily reorganise your posts all on a single platform. With this consolidated workflow, you can anticipate upcoming events and start planning for them ahead of time.

Shares and likes aren’t all that social media platforms today have to offer. Lazada’s Facebook live event is proof that a good campaign doesn’t have to rely on ads alone, while the Instagram Egg post was made popular through another key Instagram feature — Instagram Stories.

Just as marketers strive to find new ways to engage their audiences, social media platforms are also finding new ways to make content creation better. In fact, these platforms and their innovations can help to make marketers’ jobs much easier.

Instagram, for example, has released a ‘create’ function on Instagram Stories, allowing users to easily create polls, questions, gifs or even simple drawing games from the app. Instagram’s integration with Spark AR Studio also means that brands can create unique Instagram filters for their audiences.

Facebook 360, powered by Oculus, allows brands to create immersive 360-degree photo or video experiences that can be liked and shared just like any other post.

Effective online campaigns are supplemented by offline initiatives

The success of Spotify Wrapped demonstrates the power of a comprehensive on and offline campaign. When implemented in tandem, both strategies serve to support each other and reinforce your campaign’s ideals. This can be especially important for B2B brands, where strong offline connections can demonstrate your sincerity and the value of your product.

Offline initiatives aren’t limited to print advertisements. Networking events, speaking opportunities, demos or consultations, trade shows, and online-to-offline experiences (in-store events, click-and-collect options) are all ways that brands can take their social media campaigns into the real world.

The mix of online and offline efforts, however, vary with each company. To find out the combination that works best for your brand, monitor key trends and happenings online to figure out your audience’s needs. For example, frequent requests for samples or product inquiries may indicate the need for a pop-up store.

To better keep track of online chatter, consider using Meltwater’s Media Intelligence tool. We provide you with a comprehensive view of conversations that impact your brand, products, and industry. With unlimited searches and full historical data from up to 15 months, you can access reviews, online news, articles from blogs and forums, and data from social media channels such as Instagram, Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook. In addition, you can perform searches on-the-go with our mobile app. These insights will help you to better understand your brand health, market insights, competitor strategy, and audience needs.

There’s no doubt that social media marketing will continue to be a mainstay for marketers in 2020. With our rundown of what makes a great campaign stick, you too are ready to leverage the power of social media.

Meltwater’s Social tools are here to take your campaign from A to B. Manage your social interactions across multiple channels, plan and publish your content, and obtain one-click reports to easily track how you’re doing. Social media marketing has never been easier.

Are you looking to dig deeper into social media strategy examples? Check out these 3 Recipe Sites’ Social Strategies.

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

Want to get a better understanding of how to grow your influence on Twitter? (Yes, you.)

What is Influence – and Can it Be Measured?

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, influence is defined as being “the power to change or affect someone or something, the power to cause changes without directly forcing them to happen.” This idea of influence on social media has hooked marketing and public relations professionals, because the ability to reach a wide audience through a handful of influential individuals is extremely compelling – so much so that people have started devising ways to “measure” influence on Twitter.

The only problem with trying to measure influence is that, by its nature, influence isn’t something that can be measured. And creating our own variables by which we measure it might actually be doing more harm than good. Of course, a large number of followers, retweets and mentions will do much to create influence, but that is not the question we should be asking. Instead, we should be asking what influence means.

Recently, a reporter approached our firm with a series of questions regarding what we thought about influence on Twitter: who has it, how does one obtain it, how do you measure it, etc. One question he asked stood out among the rest: he was curious to see who held the most influence between companies selling a product, celebrities, politicians, or professionals who advocate a cause. It was an interesting angle to analyze, but I questioned the value of lumping together all of these potentially influential accounts.

Sure, it’s obvious that celebrities like Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga with millions of followers receive an enormous level of engagement. And, yes, when Lady Gaga makes a comment on a pressing national issue, her tremendous influence is shown as media will showcase her tweets. But how well does this translate in measuring influence on Twitter? A high percentage of Lady Gaga’s followers do not follow her to hear her speak out on world affairs. They follow her because they are fans of her music. Other than knowing the number of retweets a tweet like this received, we have no way of knowing which of her users took away a legitimate concern and/or understanding of this – actual influence.  Similarly, Justin Bieber could tweet his endorsement of a political candidate (which would apparently crash every Twitter influence algorithm) – but how many of Justin’s 50 million followers are even old enough to vote? How many have a vested interest in politics? How many even take Justin’s comments seriously on politics? (Never mind that Justin is Canadian and can’t vote himself.)

So how does all this translate to the rest of us non-celebrities looking to gain followers and gain our own influence?

How to Gain Influence on Twitter (if you’re not Justin Bieber):

Ultimately, influence on Twitter is something that takes time and effort when you have not been lucky enough to land in the national spotlight offline (unless you were one of the lucky accounts first on the platform and the first to be included in Twitter’s suggested lists). Those who don’t have celebrity status need to put in the time – and it’s a lot of time – into establishing a valuable point of view on the topics and areas most important to it, engage with other users, create discussion and tweet relevant and unique content.

Establish a strong online presence and you will gain followers: play into trending topics and craft messages around timely subjects. Tweets have a relatively short life to be seen, so make each one count. Also, don’t forget the most important element when it comes to influence: don’t try to influence everyone. Tailor your content to a specific audience or industry. Those who shoot far and wide will often not connect with anyone. Growing your own influence will allow you to connect with these more influential Twitter users (make sure these people are the correct fit for your message and audience).

When it comes to your following, these people matter the most. A high number of followers will definitely increase influence and clout for your message, but that number isn’t everything. Certain Twitter accounts may have 200,000 or more followers, but how many of these people are actually engaging, responding, or retweeting? An easy way to test influence on an account is to ask a question and see how many followers respond. This will tell you how engaged followers are with the content you are putting out. Engaged followers are the most desired followers, because these are the people that will actively promote your product, champion your cause, or support you in the polls. A large following will mean your message is seen by a large audience, but how influential are you truly if you have 100,000 followers but nobody comments or engages with you?

Similar to the offline world, gaining influence on Twitter is hard earned and takes a tremendous amount of time and patience. Choosing a target audience and getting that audience to engage with you is crucial to increasing social media clout and influence in an online world. Create compelling content, engage with people, make connections and watch your influence grow.

Landen Zumwalt is a PR professional at Raffetto Herman Strategic Communications. 

Dissecting Influence on Twitter: Understand It to Obtain It

Wondering how to stand out from the crowd with your Twitter press release? Well, dyeing yourself pink only works for rabbits: read on.

My PR cohort, Marc Cowlin, has recently written a couple articles on press releases.  His first asks the simple question, “To release or not to release?”  His second studies the anatomy of a press release through PR’s glorious history of train wrecks, celebrity rehab and various corporate announcements.

As he and I were talking about his next article (Press release SEO, which is obliquely mentioned in the first article), we started talking about how much Twitter has come along as a PR channel since we first started using it for marketing in 2008.  And we decided that it would be a good idea to come up with a quick guide to the Twitter press release; after all, getting your target message to the right person in 140 characters isn’t always easy.

I’ll go ahead and assume that anyone reading this article has a good grasp of what makes a press release worth doing.  (But if you want some tips on that, or want to figure out a polite way to explain to your coworkers the reasons you’re not going to write a release on [insert random non-newsworthy topic], please see the article on press release evaluation.)  Determining whether your energies are best spent doing something is a consideration you should address with any business initiative, but most especially with one that’s asking an influencer – in this case, most often a journalist – to take some action on your behalf.

Twitter Press Release Distribution Strategy Tips

Ideally, you’ve been using Twitter to build up a list of journalists and influencers in your industry (and by this we mean a Twitter list, and/or an actual list that you keep locally).  If you haven’t been doing this, start now: reporters are on Twitter, and they’re using it as both an information distribution and acquisition channel.  Good PR is dependent upon good relationships, and following key journalists and influencers and engaging with them with RT’s and @ mentions are good ways to make yourself known to the folks that matter.

X/Twitter Blog

How Fintech Companies Succeed at Twitter

3 Innovative Ways Healthcare B2B Companies Use Twitter/X

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

Dissecting Influence on Twitter: Understand It to Obtain It

4 + 4 Tips to Get Noticed in 140: The Twitter Press Release

Get X/Twitter Right with High-Tech SaaS

Facebook vs. Twitter: Social Media Strategy Differences

X/Twitter Blog

How Fintech Companies Succeed at Twitter

3 Innovative Ways Healthcare B2B Companies Use Twitter/X

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

Dissecting Influence on Twitter: Understand It to Obtain It

4 + 4 Tips to Get Noticed in 140: The Twitter Press Release

Get X/Twitter Right with High-Tech SaaS

Facebook vs. Twitter: Social Media Strategy Differences

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