United States

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

Influencer marketing is evolving, and so is the way brands measure success. That’s why Meltwater is proud to announce a new partnership with YouTube, integrating YouTube’s Creator Partnerships API directly into our Influencer Marketing platform.

Introducing Verified YouTube Data in Meltwater Influencer Marketing

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

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

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

A good marketing strategy for a new product begins with social listening and benchmarking competitors. This statement seems matter-of-fact, but it moves beyond traditional product marketing thinking that places the usefulness of the product before its place in the market. Times are a-changin' and when you're ready to make the change to a social and data analytics-based approach, we're ready to help.

Over and again, I have found that fledgling innovators or entrepreneurs start with the product idea first and link their strategies to it. Campaigns flounder because they start from their vantage point rather than that of their clients. In the end, these individuals may end up pleasing just themselves–or not even themselves because they end up at a loss.

Here’s a far better way to innovate and launch new product development:

Start off by having no idea whatsoever. Watch social media conversations that are relevant to your industry to find pain points and a desire for solutions that don’t exist.

The social media platforms that best fit your needs include Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and blogs. Google+ is slipping, but may still give you something.

In countries outside the U.S, sites such as Bebo, Habbo, Hi5, Zorpia, or Orkut may help you.

Here’s how I used this approach to write a book proposal.

It is well-known that the most popular, bestselling category is self-help. Yet, self-help also has a reputation for not working. I specified my field of inquiry to limit it: self-help regarding self-development; not spiritualism nor money nor health nor aspects like Zen (etc.). To maximize time, I listed the 12 most popular blogs and groups on Facebook and Twitter and spent two days reading comments of the past two-three months. I came up with an unsolved pain point which had a significant following and twisted an idea around that.

Now’s the time to proceed with polls, focus groups, telephone interviews, A/B testing and other traditional research strategies. There’s a way you can do this while protecting the discovery of your pain point and your hunches.

The so-called “Mother of Invention,” Patricia Nolan-Brown, who has sold millions of products, holds multiple patents, and has her products regularly featured in national newscasts and magazines, protects her hunches by formatting her survey questions around existent product pain points rather than her idea. So, for instance, she tested her idea of an innovative car seat mirror by asking mothers what bothered them about their baby seats and their wish for a fantasy version, rather than divulging her idea and asking what they thought of it. This helped her not only confirm the validity of the need but also gave her other perspectives.

For all you know, one or more of your competitors may have already hit on your idea, or seen the gap and proposed some viable solution. Check their website and PR to make sure you’re the “king of the castle” and not colliding with someone else. It’s ok if someone else has picked up the same need; you may be offering a different solution–one that may even be more effective. The important thing is to make sure your product solution is unique.

Marketing consultant, Michael J. Hunter mentions an important point. Checking competitors pays off in other ways, too. Your competitors may have unsuccessfully tried to launch product ideas that resemble yours. Learning from competitors’ mistakes helps you not only improve your idea but gives you feedback on which marketing strategies to avoid and which to pursue.

Most marketers, entrepreneurs, or innovators flip this funnel. They come out with the product idea; then, adopt traditional marketing strategies such as polls or focus groups, to supplement their research. Unfortunately, science shows that this brings skewed results for many reasons that include the fact that you’re approaching your sample with a bias—you want to prove your ideas and are less open to disagreement. Respondents are, also, more likely to tell you what you want to hear, and they respond differently based on social contexts, the way they read the questions, their disinterest, or their mood. A far better way is to start with social listening instead.

“Marketing is what you do when your product is no good,” says Edwin Land, American scientist, and inventor. Unfortunately, most people begin new product development with an already existent idea that they then proceed to market. That doesn’t always work. A far better strategy is to catch pain points and missing solutions and develop a product idea that fills that gap better than any existing solution does. Then, you market accordingly.

Campaigns flounder because organizations haven’t put the research into crafting a good marketing strategy for new product development. To avoid this:

Listen to relevant social conversations for pain points and nonexistent solutions.

Conduct your traditional research strategies such as A/B testing, polls, focus groups, and so forth

Check your competition to make sure your idea is unique and to analyze their failures.

By starting with social listening and benchmarking competitors you’ll gain insight into how to approach new product development. To read more, download our ebook, Listen Up! Guide to Social Listening for Smarter Business.

This article was originally published on this site on October 28, 2016. It was written by Jaime Nacach from Business2Community, originally appeared in Bloominari. 

What Is a Good Marketing Strategy for New Product Development?

In this blog Kerri Rogers, content specialist at JBH, the Content Agency looks at interactive content and social media, and why they work so well together.

Interactive content requires your users to engage with it actively. Its immersive nature means that your audience will spend more time engaging with your business with their undivided attention, giving you strong engagement metrics.

If you’ve been using the internet at all over the past decade, then chances are you’ve come into contact with at least one form of interactive content. From quizzes and calculators to interactive infographics, there is a ton of interactive content out there.

The discovery of content is happening mainly through social media

Churning out piece after piece of content is not an effective way to reach your customers. Although content is king, only high-quality, engaging content converts leads and captures new audiences.

The bombardment of advertising we see wherever we go means that many people have become immune to advertising and various types of content. In turn, this has led to social media becoming a key platform for content discovery, with social media accounting for  5.6% of referral traffic on the web in 2017.

The rise of smartphones has also led to social media becoming an important platform in content discovery. Nowadays everyone is glued to their phones and the average smartphone users spend two hours on their phones every day. This number goes up for the age groups of 18-24 & 25-34 so, if that’s where your target audience is, creating social media and mobile-friendly content is even more important.

To have your content seen and engaged with nowadays it needs to be put on social media and therefore be both social media and mobile friendly. Interactive content is a great way to grab attention on social media as well because they require the user to stop scrolling and focus their attention on your piece of content.

Loads of brands are embracing interactive content and seeing amazing results. In 2013 the New York Times most popular story was an interactive quiz rather than an article.

After seeing such great results from this quiz, The NYT has made interactive content an integral part of their content strategy. They share them on social platforms like Facebook and Twitter and have seen a high level of engagement through reactions, comments, shares, likes and retweets.

Buzzfeed is another brand that has conquered interactive content on social media. 75% of all their traffic comes through social referral and a large amount of their content includes interactive elements such as interactive articles and quizzes. One of their quizzes has even been viewed more than 22 million times.

Interactive content like this is irresistible for many social media users. It takes a short amount of time to complete, it’s fun, it keeps your attention by demanding engagement and is simple to interact with and share.

Customers want answers, or they want to have fun – interactive content can do both.

Authenticity and participation are two things essential for engaging an audience – especially an audience that is under 35 – and interactive content gives you a great way to do both.

75% of content marketers say they have incorporated interactive content into their marketing strategy as a way to educate their audience.

Interactive content is what your customers want and if you give it to them they will keep coming back for more.

The results that brands are seeing from using this type of content are huge; 79% say that interactive content increases retention of brand messaging and boosts their number of returning visitors.

Did you know that some social media platforms are now integrating interactive content? Facebook for example, recently announced their ‘gamification’ features. To encourage community engagement, brands can now use polls on both live and regular video. They’ve also added ‘gamification’ for live video. Facebook is challenging brands to get creative with this new feature ‘we can’t wait to see how they innovate‘.

The way people browse the web is changing….and content marketers need to adapt

Google owns search but in future, search may not be the main way we discover content on the web. As we embrace the advancing social searches within platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Pinterest, Google may see a decline in traffic.

Over the past few years, there have been times where social media has referred more traffic than Google. Whilst recently, Facebook’s social referrals have taken a small dip, most likely because of privacy concerns, it’s likely to see a rise again soon.

Mobile overtook desktop for the volume of web browsers for the first time in 2016 and since then the gap has just been widening. Creating content that is mobile-friendly should be one of your top priorities.

Mobiles have much smaller screens and less horizontal space, but an infinite amount of vertical scrolling space – you should take this into consideration when creating content. Unlike desktop users, mobile users tend to use their device for a short amount of time. This means they expect content to load instantaneously-  so consider this when you create and publish content.

Mobile users have also come to expect interactivity. Smartphone users will be used to using apps, which are generally more engaging than web pages. Using interactive content such as interactive infographics is a great way to keep their attention and help you compete with competitor apps.

Going directly to content rather than landing on the homepage

Internet users are now landing directly on content rather than on your website’s homepage.

A New York Times study showed that once upon a time people would come to their homepage when they were browsing. Today, on the other hand, they are finding that users are visiting their content through a ‘social side door.’ This is when a user clicks on an article or another piece of content when on social media, go across to your site, consume your content and then go back to their social media feed. 

Example: Clicking a link on social media, being taken to the article, and then clicking ‘done’ takes the user back to social media. 

These users visit your site but they never see your homepage, this is a fairly new way of browsing the web and just shows how content marketers and designers have to adapt to the ever-changing online world. In future homepage design is likely to become far less important and creating higher quality content that gets users to click will be more of a priority.

Interactive Content & Social Media: A Match Made in Heaven

Immersive Experiences are the Next Frontier in PR and Brand Marketing

PR-driven immersive experiences are taking the art world by storm and it’s turning an entire industry upside down. 

You may be wondering… What could art possibly have to do with immersive experiences? And how do they relate to PR or brand marketing or even social media?

The days where reality and imagination are separate things are quickly coming to an end. Today, creativity is transforming reality in ways we never thought imaginable. Humans are looking for the next frontier in mind-blowing experiences and it has major implications for marketers, brands, and businesses across the globe.

The Top Examples of Immersive Experiences

What exactly is an immersive experience?

“Immersive experiences simulate our senses in order to create an illusion that transports us to another place and situation. Immersion should be realistic, engaging and satisfying. It can be experienced in different fields, it doesn’t occur only when you put on a VR headset.”

If you’re looking for the best examples of immersive experiences, look no further than the art industry.

Take one of the most popular (and talked-about) attractions over the last year, the Museum of Ice Cream. It’s a museum reimagined and built for Millennials – a generation that is using social media in a radically different way than other generations. 

@thepintshop OPENS IN 2 DAYS! 🍦 Non-ticketed and open to the public in NYC from JUNE 6 - August 2018, @thepintshop is an immersive grocery experience with pint INSTALLATIONS, a TASTING adventure and GROCERY aisles dedicated OUR DEBUT ICE CREAM LINE! ✨🍒 Want the INSIDE SCOOP? 💭 FOLLOW the @thepintshop to learn more 💗🌈🙌#museumoficecream #icecream #newyork #pintshare

Many would consider museums a “boring” industry or a PR nightmare, but if you peel back the layers and encourage audiences to use their imagination and creativity, you can change preconceived notions on just about anything.

That is until theatrical performances like Sleep No More began to appear. Sleep No More is an immersive (and quite realistic) play that takes place at “The McKittrick Hotel” in New York.

Immersive experiences like Museum of Ice Cream and Sleep No More point to a much larger trend in augmented reality. This trend is going to give people the power to “choose their own adventures” and brands the ability to provide them with incredible tools in rich environments and landscapes to do so.

One production company that is pushing the boundaries for immersive experiences is Meow Wolf and its CEO Vince Kadlubek. Meow Wolf is known for their art-filled venue, The House of Eternal Return, which has brought in an astonishing $6 million in one year. and is expanding to several locations throughout the southwest.

Meow Wolf’s is pushing for a whole new type of experience. Their goal isn’t just to get people to post to Instagram or other social media channels, Kadlubek explains, “We want to create something where I could put up a thousand images, I could put up video, but it doesn’t at all even capture the feeling of it.”

PR and Marketing Lessons From Immersive Experiences

Pixar is arguably one of the greatest storytellers of our generation. Their core mission is to tell a great story and it drove them to win 13 Academy Awards, 9 Golden Globes, and 11 Grammys.

Brand and marketers looking to create immersive experiences for their audiences must understand the rules of great storytelling and weave that into everything they are creating.

Take Refinery29 – an online woman’s lifestyle brand – for example. Their team has created an experience called 29Rooms where they’ve “collaborated with a broad range of artists and brands to create an inclusive, interactive, and highly visual space meant to unlock visitors’ imaginations, spark dialog, and fuel self-expression.”

As we mentioned earlier, people are looking for the next mind-blowing experience to enrich their lives.

In order to create a mind-blowing environment, excite your audience’s senses. Allow them to see something they’ve never seen or felt before. Take them out of the ordinary. Leave them talking and reflecting on the experience.

That’s exactly what Color Factory does for their customers. And you can continue to be wow-ed, no matter where you are, by following them on Instagram:

Our ball pit in San Francisco had over 200,000 yellow balls and custom illustrations by @peopleiveloved. We can’t wait to share what’s in store for NYC! #colorfactoryco

The Color Factory with their Alaska Airlines room, as well as pop ups such as the Spotted Cheetah Restaurant from Frito-Lay and 29Rooms with their co-branded—Juicy Couture, Casper, Dunkin’ Donuts, Dyson, and Cadillac rooms—highlight examples of brands partnering to co-create, or wholly produce their own immersive experience.

Alaska Airlines on Twitter: "Brighten up San Francisco. The Color Factory opens tomorrow. Come see it for yourself https://t.co/cS17dq6tem #OnlyinSF #colorfactoryco… https://t.co/ZmJM634ZbG"

I'm here at the opening of #thespottedcheetah! Which dish would you want to try?

If you hope to create a truly one-of-a-kind immersive experience for your audience, put yourself in users’ shoes. Test, learn, fail, and experiment a ton. And don’t just rely on words to build the story.

Audiences crave sensory richness and every single detail is what will bring your brand story to life. If you’re interested in knowing what will delight your community, we can help.

Dip Your Toe Into Immersive Experiences

PR can be a tough business. Whichever area you specialize in—investor relations, community relations, media relations, executive communications—the days can be long and fraught with the need to put out a fire or two.

All of this can get, shall we say, a little stressful. So, where do PR pros turn when they need to ask questions, learn something new or just need a little support?

Some have found that being a part of a community can benefit them in a myriad of ways. But which communities should you participate in?

Sometimes, communities originate on Twitter. Ragan Communications hosts its weekly #RaganChat, and many of the participants tend to turn to each other for various reasons, to ask questions or bounce ideas around. There’s a Facebook group for participants, as well as a LinkedIn group for PR Daily.

SpinSucks provides a free Slack channel for members of its community to congregate. On the welcome page, they mention that it’s for those in “modern PR” to share ideas and learn from like-minded pros.

For those going it on their own, SoloPR is a thriving community. It hosts bi-weekly Twitter chats and offers a LinkedIn group with more than 5,700 members. The community also offers options for paid members such as professional development, support for managing proposals and clients, and a directory where you can list yourself to find new opportunities.

For women in PR, the new community The Organization of American Women in PR USA recently launched. Billing itself as, “the only organization across the USA dedicated to advancing women in the field of public relations,” it seeks to provide opportunities for women to thrive in their PR careers. It has a presence on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, as well as webinars, online courses and events for paid members. Its sister group, The Organization of Canadian Women in PR, offers reciprocal membership.

There’s also the National Black Public Relations Society (NBPRS). It has a social media presence on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, as well as has chapters around the country that host live events.

Then, there’s the Hispanic Public Relations Association, a membership-based organization that hosts a Twitter chat and webinars, along with in-person events.

PR pros who do a lot of writing and content development may tend to hang out in the content marketing communities. For example, #CMWorld, sponsored by the Content Marketing Institute, hosts a popular weekly Twitter chat and an annual conference, along with frequent free webinars. They also publish helpful articles on their site.

A Meltwater contributor and marketing consultant, Erika Heald, also hosts a weekly Twitter chat (#ContentChat) to discuss anything content-related.

The Public Relations Society of America, or PRSA, offers members free webinars on a variety of topics, as well as in-person events. It also invites PR pros to join a specialty area when they sign up as members. Each of these offers an exclusive online community with specialized content and networking opportunities. There are 14 “Professional Interest” sections, including entertainment and sports, technology, public affairs and government, and travel and tourism.

Then, some pros are turning to Reddit, where there are communities such as PRpros, and PublicRelations. There is a learning curve with Reddit, so be sure to do your homework before jumping in.

Of course, LinkedIn offers many options that public relations practitioners gravitate toward. There’s the PR Professionals Group with 94,000+ members, the Public Relations and Communications with 295,000 members, and Public Relations Professionals with 64,000 members, among others. Here, community members post questions they may have and articles of interest to the group.

Beyond finding a community where your fellow communications professionals hang out, there’s value in finding communities that apply to the industries your clients are in. Specialize in fintech? Find a community where fintech pros gather. Are most of your clients in beauty or fashion? Look for a community to which industry influencers might gravitate. (Meetup is a good resource to find where local communities gather in real life.)

Keep in mind that being part of a community means more than just joining. Be sure to engage and participate in some way once you’ve committed and feel comfortable. Most communities are ready to warmly welcome new members, so don’t be shy about introducing yourself and getting involved.

This post was initially published on this site on July 23, 2017. We republish timely posts on Saturdays for readers who may have previously missed them. 

Niche Communities Where PR Pros Gather

In this extremely competitive world, how do brands get their campaigns to generate customer loyalty, product curiosity, and ultimately, more sales? Many companies believe that social media is the answer.

Social media for brands isn’t just about showing off products and announcing sales, it’s about building trust, authentic relationships, and long-term customers. But algorithm updates to social networks rolled out in the last 5 years has meant this is much more easily said than done. 

During this post, we’ll walk you through the importance of engagement in the age of algorithms, top tips for driving engagement on social media, and a handful of brand examples that you can take inspiration from.

The Role and Impact of Algorithms for Engagement on Social Media

These days all social media networks have enforced algorithms, set to improve the user experience. These algorithms prevent brands from targeting the masses and instead favour content that a particular user will find interesting. Content that receives high engagement, tends to be favoured by the algorithms and leads to a higher reach of your content. 

Read our blog about the Facebook algorithm change.

A few facts to help us understand the challenge we as marketing professionals face:

Every minute, 527k photos are shared on Snapchat, 695k giphys are sent and 350k tweets posted

The average person receives over 120 phone notifications a day

Organic reach for branded Facebook pages is 2% on average – so if you have 1000 followers, only 20 people will see your content. 

People miss up to 70% of their feeds, this is because Instagram/Facebook’s algorithm filters out a lot of content.  

Whilst people are spending more time online than ever, there’s also an overwhelming amount of content. Brands are having to compete for attention and find ways to stand out amongst the noise. This is made harder by social media sites algorithms that filter out content.  To add to this challenge, Facebook claimed they’d be making it even harder for brands to stay visible, with an algorithm change favouring content from friends and family.

Aimlessly posting masses of content in the hope it’ll reach a large number of people is no longer a wise approach. Customers expect highly targeted personalised and authentic content. We need to engage with our audience and create bonds.

Traditionally, in order to understand if they’ve been successful on social media, brands used vanity metrics such as followers. Since the importance of engagement has now massively increased, brands are now looking at social media engagement as a key metric. This is partly because engagement fuels visibility (and therefore further engagement), but also because having thousands of followers who don’t care about what you have to say brings little ROI value.

Tips to Increase Engagement on Social Media:

With the above in mind, here are our top tips for increasing engagement on social media

Across all social networks, video content tends to see higher engagement, so naturally, social media algorithms favour this content type. Don’t just take our word for it, Mr Zuckerburg himself has said going forward, video (both live and pre-recorded) is going to be a big priority for Facebook. 

Leading on from the previous tip, going live on social media is another online trend we need to hop on. Live video is currently getting the most engagement on Facebook. According to Facebook, viewers comment 10x more on Facebook Live videos than regular ones.  If you’ve been following our social media news, you’d know that Facebook has also announced two new features for live video: polls & gamification! Some brands, such as Buzzfeed and Fresno are using live video to host game shows.

We can start by showing behind the scenes of our brand, such as showing how we make our products or day in the life of our teams. We can even live stream our events or host Q&A sessions with an expert. Overall, use video to increase engagement on social media!

After a child left their beloved stuffed toy at the Ritz Carlton, staff sent pictures to the family of a stuffed toy enjoying ‘an extra night of vacation’ before sending it back to the child. Whether it’s going above and beyond to provide an amazing customer experience, or providing amusing replies to people’s tweets, these will help increase engagement on social media.

As mentioned, humour is a great way to engage an audience. Just look at companies such as Innocent, Tesco and Oreo. They use humour in their social media accounts, and people like it. Many of Tesco’s sassy responses to customers have become infamous. Just because our brands haven’t got anything to do with humour, doesn’t mean we can’t use it as part of our brand persona.

We all know the importance of a call to action in our campaigns. The same applies to social media. If we want people to tweet photos of an event we’re hosting, or have people send in photos of them using our products in a particular place, ask.  Encouraging people to share, is a great way to build communities and increase engagement. It also organically expands the reach of our brands because our audiences are sharing their posts with their networks.  

Asking questions is the easiest way to create a conversation. This is such a simple, yet often forgotten method of engaging our audiences. All of our favourite platforms now let you post polls, which is a perfect way to increase social media engagement.  

On Instagram: In Instagram stories, you can either create a ‘poll’ or use ‘ask me a question’ features.

On Twitter: You can ‘add a poll’ to your tweet. 

On Facebook: You can add polls to your page

Kinds of questions you can ask your audience: 

Trendjack social media days & news headlines e.g. emoji day

6) Look outside of your brand, industry and competitors

We should regularly benchmark ourselves against competitors, to understand how we’re performing in our industry. However, we need to go beyond this. We should look beyond our own industries to gain inspiration from other successful brands.

Just because we don’t sell smoothies, doesn’t mean we can’t take a leaf out of Innocent’s book when it comes to increasing engagement. 

Using emoji’s may seem a bit juvenile- but everyone’s using them! According to scientists, when a person sees an emoji, their brain lights up in the same way as when they see a human face. Emoji’s have the power to change the mood of the reader. Gifs are also a great way to bond with audiences and bring some humour to the conversation. Check out giphy for some inspiration! Even adding a GIF as a reply to a tweet, can transform a simple ‘thank you’ tweet, so something much more engaging!

Lot’s of algorithms don’t favour links. This is because by posting a link to video or article we’ve created, takes the user off their website. When possible embed videos into your post, rather than sending users off the website. Whilst we may want to promote our blogs, create content that can be enjoyed on the particular social media site as well. 

Videos & Infographics can easily be embedded. Canva is a great tool if you’re after a quick way to create infographics!

‘Think outside the box’ it might be a cliche, but it’s true. Try lot’s of different social media platforms and see what sticks. Whilst we tend to stick to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, you can increase engagement by considering alternative sites such as Reddit, Tumblr and Giphy.  If you have a big personality in or associated with your brand or a particular quirk in the office, consider utilising it. Our audience is more likely to relate to another human than they will a faceless brand, so start getting employees involved in social media campaigns.

Take #AskEddie for example. Southern rail let a 15-year-old work experience teen, loose on their social media pages. This led to a huge boost in engagement, viral posts, and even people forgetting about their complaints against Southern Rail.

Trend jacking is another great way of thinking differently. Jump on a viral tweet or story and put a unique spin on it. We’ve seen loads of great examples of trendjacking such as Oreo’s superbowl tweet. 

One of the most effective ways to build trust and authentic relationships with an audience (and sell products) is through the use of storytelling. Stories are one of the oldest forms of communication and they are still deeply embedded within our DNA. Get it right, and a good story can help to spark curiosity and drive action, so, what makes for a good story? 

The Meltwater Blog

What Is a Good Marketing Strategy for New Product Development?

Interactive Content & Social Media: A Match Made in Heaven

Dip Your Toe Into Immersive Experiences

Niche Communities Where PR Pros Gather

How to Increase Engagement on Social Media

Digital Marketing Versus Social Media: What’s the Difference?

5 Film Festivals Using Social Media the Right Way

Media Outreach: Why You Need to Place Links in Articles

Get X/Twitter Right with High-Tech SaaS

3 Music Festivals with Successful Social Media Strategies

6 Good Reasons to Combine Your PR and Content Marketing Strategies

Brands in Motion: How PR Can Lead the Way