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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

Public relations measurement is changing faster than at any point in the last two decades. Media coverage still matters, but it no longer tells the full story of how your brand is perceived, discovered, or trusted. Today, large language models (LLMs) and generative search engines increasingly decide what people see first when they ask questions about your company, your category, or your competitors. If you want to understand PR performance in this new reality, you need to measure how AI systems describe you, not just how journalists do.

This article looks beyond the need for PR measurement to evolve, to the metrics that define success in AI-driven environments, and the practical tools and methods teams can use today. It covers benchmarks, optimization strategies, executive reporting guidance, and future trends, before closing with how Meltwater helps automate and scale this work.

The New Metrics for Measuring PR Success in LLMs

Tools and Methods to Measure PR Success in LLM Channels

How to Improve PR Performance Across LLMs

Examples: Good vs. Poor LLM PR Visibility

Reporting PR Success in an LLM-Driven World

How Meltwater Can Help You Automate Your PR LLM Measurement

PR Measurement Has a New Gatekeeper: AI systems now summarize, recommend, and define brands before journalists or customers ever visit a website. Measuring PR performance means measuring how AI understands you.

Generative engines now behave like media outlets, but without bylines, deadlines, or editorial desks. When someone asks an AI assistant who leads a market, what tools to trust, or which company fits a specific need, the answer feels authoritative even when no source is visible. 

That answer often shapes perception more strongly than a single article or press release ever could.

Traditional PR metrics struggle in this environment because they measure exposure, not interpretation. An LLM does not care how many outlets mentioned you last quarter, it cares whether it has enough clear, consistent, and authoritative signals to confidently describe your brand. If those signals are weak or fragmented, the AI often fills gaps with assumptions, outdated information, or competitor narratives.

AI is also becoming the consumer’s first contact point with brands. Instead of searching, scanning results, and reading multiple pages, users increasingly ask a single question and accept the summary. That summary shapes reputation, trust, and intent in seconds. When LLMs summarize your company inaccurately or exclude you entirely, your PR performance suffers even if your media coverage looks strong on paper.

The shift isn’t theoretical, as Meltwater’s Digital 2026 Global Overview Report shows that more than one billion people now use generative AI tools each month, accelerating the move toward AI-mediated discovery and zero-click answers.

This is why PR measurement must evolve. You are no longer just tracking what was published,  you are tracking what AI understands, remembers, and repeats about your brand.

The 8 metrics that define PR success in LLMs: Visibility - Accuracy - Narrative Share - Win Rate - Sentiment - Source Credibility - Entity Clarity - Earned Media Influence

LLM brand visibility measures how often your brand appears across major AI models when users ask category-relevant questions. This metric shows whether your PR efforts have translated into AI-level awareness. If your brand rarely appears, it signals that your authority signals are too weak, too inconsistent, or too narrow to register.

Visibility alone does not equal success, but without it, nothing else matters. If AI systems do not surface your brand, they cannot recommend you, describe you, or compare you accurately.

AI summary accuracy evaluates whether LLMs describe your company correctly, including your core offering, positioning, geographic scope, and differentiators. Inaccurate summaries often come from outdated coverage, inconsistent naming, or missing entity data.

From a PR perspective, accuracy is a reputation issue because an AI that misstates what you do or confuses you with another brand erodes trust before a human ever engages with you directly.

Narrative share of voice looks at which themes and attributes AI systems associate with your brand compared to competitors. This is about meaning, not volume. If AI repeatedly frames your competitor as innovative and you as generic, that narrative will influence buying decisions even if you receive similar media coverage.

This metric helps you see whether your messaging strategy is landing at a semantic level, not just a distribution level.

Win rate measures how often an LLM selects your brand as the recommended option when users ask for solutions, tools, or providers. This is one of the clearest indicators of PR influence in AI environments because it reflects perceived authority and relevance.

A low win rate suggests that competitors have stronger earned media signals, clearer positioning, or more consistent coverage in sources AI trusts.

Sentiment analysis inside AI outputs shows whether your brand is framed positively, neutrally, or critically, but unlike social sentiment, this reflects synthesized judgment rather than raw opinion. A neutral or cautious tone may still signal risk if competitors are framed more confidently.

Tracking sentiment over time helps you understand whether PR initiatives are strengthening trust or leaving unresolved perception gaps.

6. Source traceability and credibility signals

This metric evaluates whether AI systems cite or clearly rely on authoritative sources when mentioning your brand. Strong PR performance increases the likelihood that AI draws from reputable media, analyst coverage, and high-quality owned content.

When AI answers lack traceable sources or rely on weak references, it often correlates with inconsistent or low-authority PR signals.

Knowledge graph presence measures whether AI systems recognize your brand as a distinct, well-defined entity with accurate attributes. Poor entity recognition leads to confusion, omission, or incorrect associations.

This metric sits at the intersection of PR, SEO, and data hygiene. Strong earned media helps reinforce entity clarity, but only when naming, descriptions, and facts stay consistent.

Brands with strong media coverage still disappear from AI answers due to inconsistent naming, vague positioning, or outdated source data.

This measures how often AI-generated overviews reflect or summarize stories that originated in earned media. It connects traditional PR outcomes to AI visibility and shows whether coverage is influencing generative answers.

If earned media never surfaces in AI outputs, your coverage may lack the authority or structure that AI systems prioritize.

A practical LLM PR measurement workflow: 1) Define real-world prompts. 2) Capture AI outputs across models. 3) Score visibility, accuracy, and framing. 4) Benchmark against competitors. 5) Track change over time.

Measuring PR success across LLMs requires a combination of automated monitoring, structured human review, and disciplined documentation. No single method is sufficient on its own. You should treat AI visibility as a repeatable measurement workflow, not an occasional experiment. 

The goal is to observe how AI systems respond to real-world questions over time, understand why those responses appear, and connect changes back to PR activity.

Meltwater's GenAI Lens gives PR pros insight into how LLMs see your brand, so you can improve your AI visibility. 

LLM scraping tools capture brand mentions directly from AI-generated responses at scale. In practice, teams begin by defining a stable set of prompts that reflect how customers, journalists, analysts, or buyers would realistically ask questions about their category. These prompts should include brand discovery questions, comparison questions, recommendation requests, and category-defining queries.

Once prompts are defined, scraping tools automatically run them across multiple LLMs on a recurring cadence, typically weekly or monthly. The outputs are stored as structured data, allowing teams to track whether the brand appears, how frequently it appears, and in what context. Over time, this creates a visibility baseline that shows whether PR efforts are increasing or decreasing AI-level awareness. 

When visibility drops or competitors begin appearing more often, teams can trace those shifts back to changes in earned media volume, authority, or messaging clarity.

AI visibility dashboards turn raw LLM outputs into usable PR metrics. These dashboards aggregate data from multiple models and prompts into a single view, showing trends in brand presence, sentiment, and competitive positioning. 

In day-to-day use, teams review dashboards alongside traditional media reports to understand whether coverage is translating into AI recognition.

To use dashboards effectively, teams align dashboard metrics to PR goals rather than treating them as vanity data. For example, a campaign designed to establish category leadership should result in increased inclusion in “best solution” or “top provider” prompts. Dashboards make it possible to see whether that shift is actually happening, and whether it holds across different AI systems rather than appearing in just one.

Automation alone isn’t enough. Dashboards show what AI says. Human review explains why it says it, and what to fix.

Manual prompt testing provides qualitative depth that automation alone cannot deliver, by using a controlled testing framework where prompts are written, logged, and rerun at consistent intervals. 

Each response is reviewed for accuracy, tone, framing, and omissions. Reviewers document not just whether the brand appears, but how it is described and what assumptions the AI makes.

In practice, this work is scheduled as a recurring review, often monthly, and assigned to specific owners to avoid ad hoc testing. Responses are compared against prior snapshots to identify narrative drift, emerging misconceptions, or sudden competitive displacement. 

Manual testing is especially useful for executive reporting, crisis preparedness, and validating whether AI summaries align with brand strategy.

GEO audit tools evaluate whether a brand’s content and earned media are structured in ways that generative engines can reliably interpret. These audits look at clarity, consistency, and factual density across press releases, thought leadership, corporate pages, and high-authority coverage.

Teams typically run GEO audits quarterly or around major announcements. The output highlights gaps where AI systems may struggle to extract clear meaning, such as vague positioning statements, inconsistent terminology, or missing contextual details. PR teams then use these findings to adjust messaging, improve future releases, and collaborate with SEO or content teams to strengthen AI readability without changing editorial intent.

Entity validation ensures that AI systems recognize the brand as a distinct, accurate entity rather than a loose collection of mentions. In practice, teams maintain a checklist of core entity attributes such as official brand name, product names, executive names, headquarters location, and category descriptors.

Teams periodically test whether these attributes appear correctly in AI responses. When errors surface, they trace the issue back to inconsistent usage in press materials, outdated coverage, or conflicting references across sources. Maintaining entity hygiene becomes an ongoing PR responsibility, similar to brand guidelines, but focused on how machines interpret identity rather than how humans perceive design.

AI answer citation monitoring tracks which sources LLMs rely on when generating responses about the brand. Teams review whether AI outputs reference authoritative outlets, analyst reports, or trusted publications, or whether they rely on low-quality or unclear sources.

In practice, citation monitoring is used to evaluate earned media quality rather than quantity. When high-quality coverage begins to appear in AI answers, it signals strong authority transfer. When citations disappear or shift toward weaker sources, it often indicates that PR coverage is not reinforcing credibility in ways AI systems prioritize. Teams use these insights to refine media targeting, emphasizing outlets that influence AI narratives as well as human audiences.

Strong performance in AI environments shows up as consistent brand inclusion across relevant prompts, high accuracy in summaries, and stable positive sentiment. Benchmarking against competitors matters more than hitting an abstract target because AI visibility is relative.

A brand that appears in most category prompts but loses recommendation slots to a competitor still has a positioning problem. Similarly, high citation volume from low-quality sources signals weaker authority than fewer citations from trusted outlets.

Benchmarks should reflect your category maturity, competitive density, and strategic goals, not generic industry averages.

Strengthen entity clarity in press releases

Clear, consistent entity descriptions help LLMs accurately identify who you are, what you do, and how you should be categorized. Each press release should explicitly restate core facts such as your company name, primary offering, industry, and role in the market, rather than assuming the AI model has prior context. Repetition of these fundamentals across releases reinforces entity understanding and reduces the risk of AI summaries that are vague, incorrect, or conflated with competitors.

AI models summarize with confidence when content is concrete, specific, and information-dense. PR content should prioritize verifiable facts, clear explanations, and explicit context over abstract vision statements or loosely framed thought leadership. When releases and articles answer who, what, why, and how in plain language, LLMs are far more likely to surface your brand accurately and prominently in generative search results.

LLMs rely on pattern recognition, so inconsistent brand names, abbreviations, or product references weaken AI confidence and fragment authority signals. PR teams should use the exact same company name, product names, and descriptors across press releases, coverage, and owned content. Consistency helps AI systems consolidate signals correctly, improving brand recognition, accuracy, and visibility in generative search answers.

Use GEO frameworks for every announcement

Generative engine optimization emphasizes clear structure, explicit context, and authoritative signals that AI systems can reliably interpret. Applying GEO principles to press releases means clearly stating what changed, why it matters, and how it fits within the broader category, using straightforward language and consistent framing. This approach improves AI comprehension and summarization without altering the editorial voice or strategic intent of the announcement.

Coverage in trusted, high-authority outlets remains one of the strongest signals AI systems use to assess brand credibility. When reputable publications consistently describe your company accurately, LLMs are more likely to reference, summarize, and recommend your brand with confidence. PR teams should prioritize quality and relevance of coverage, not just volume, to strengthen AI trust and long-term generative search visibility.

Structured data helps AI systems accurately identify entities, attributes, and relationships across your content ecosystem. When press releases, company pages, and supporting content use structured formats to reinforce key facts, LLMs can more easily connect those details across sources. This strengthens entity recognition, reduces ambiguity, and improves consistency in how generative engines summarize and represent your brand.

Distribute releases across trustworthy publishers

Distribution quality matters more than reach when it comes to AI interpretation and generative search visibility. LLMs heavily weight signals from trusted, authoritative publishers when synthesizing answers, often ignoring low-credibility or duplicate sources. Prioritizing respected outlets increases the likelihood that earned coverage is reflected accurately in AI summaries and recommendations.

Tip: Learn more about AI press release optimization

Imagine an LLM summarizing your brand incorrectly. The model might misstate your founding date, mislabel your product category, or confuse you with a competitor. This happens when your public data lacks clarity or when authoritative sources contradict one another. You fix this by reinforcing your core facts across owned and earned content, validating entities, and correcting outdated information.

How to Measure PR Performance Across LLMs and Generative Search

TikTok has captured the attention of social media users around the world, making it a place businesses and brands want to be. What exactly does TikTok have to offer marketers that other platforms don’t? After looking at some general social media statistics it's time to dive into some of the most essential TikTok stats, facts, and details that will help you craft a winning social media strategy.

Before we dive into the specific TikTok numbers and statistics, it’s important for you to know more about the platform itself. Here’s what you need to know about TikTok:

TikTok is a Chinese-based social media app that specializes in short-form videos.

In 2026, TikTok in the U.S. became U.S. owned, avoiding an outright ban. 

ByteDance purchased and merged the lip-syncing app Musical.ly with TikTok in 2018.

In China, where the original app was released in 2016, TikTok is known as Douyin.

TikTok is available in over 75 different languages and more than 155 countries.

As more and more companies use TikTok for marketing and brand awareness, it's important to always have up-to-date information on TikTok usage stats, demographics, and more.

Though some may have once deemed the app a passing fad, its sustained growth, usage, and revenue have declared it anything but temporary.

These TikTok numbers present a compelling picture:

TikTok earned over 500 million users during its first year. (Business of Apps)

TikTok is the fifth most-popular social network by active users, but takes second place by total time spent using the app. (Global Digital Report)

How many people use TikTok? The app currently boasts more than 955 million active users worldwide. (Statista)

15.5% of active social media users between the ages of 16-24 say TikTok is their favorite social platform. (Global Digital Report)

TikTok was the most downloaded app in the world in 2022, earning over 850 million downloads. (Business of Apps)

TikTok was the first non-Meta-owned app to surpass 3 billion downloads globally. (Sensor Tower)

TikTok’s rapid growth is backed by a surge of revenue that continues to grow year over year. Here’s a snapshot of TikTok revenue, its valuation, and where its revenue comes from.

TikTok earned 6 billion from in-app purchases in Q4 2024 (Sensor Tower) 

ByteDance saw revenue growth of about 30% in 2023 to reach more than $110 billion. (Bloomberg)

In December of 2025, ByteDance was valued at $500 billion. (Yahoo Finance)

TikTok is expected to generate about $58 billion in global ad revenue by 2027. (DemandSage)

TikTok demographics help brands learn more about who is using TikTok. What’s the typical TikTok user age range? Where are the most active TikTok users located? 

We've rounded up some key TikTok user statistics to help you find your TikTok target audience. See how much time they’re spending on the platform and discover effective ways to connect with them.

TikTok average age: over 88% of TikTok users and creators worldwide are between the ages of 16 and 24. (Global Digital Report)

The largest age-group of TikTok users are women aged 16 to 24 years (47%). (Global Digital Report)

The largest ad audience on TikTok is men between the ages of 25-34 (Global Digital Report)

TikTok even has users in the 65+ age range: 16.4% women and 16.3% men (Global Digital Report)

How many users will there be on TikTok by 2027? By 2027, there are expected to be more than 1.7 billion TikTok users worldwide. (Statista)

How many TikTok users are there in the US? The United States has one of the most active TikTok audience, with more than 150 million users. (TikTok)

Users in Nigeria spend the most time per month on TikTok (Global Digital Report)

The highest advertising audience (22.3%) can be found in Southeast Asia (Global Digital Report) 

63% of U.S. teens use TikTok. (Pew Research Center)

TikTok is used slightly more by men (55%) than women (44%). (Statista)

Marketers can reach an ad audience of 1.5 billion on TikTok as of February 2025. (Global Digital Report)

TikTok users are among the most engaged social media users. They’re leveraging the app to create and share videos, get news, discover new products, make purchases, and of course find a never-ending source of entertainment.

How many videos are on TikTok? It's hard to say, but what we do know is that more than 1 million TikTok videos are viewed each day.

TikTok is the second most popular platform for brand research, behind Facebook (Global Digital Report)

#Capcut is the top used hashtag, used on more than 8.7 billion posts since the app launched. (Global Digital Report)

#FYP is the second most popular hashtag on TikTok (7.7 billion posts) (Global Digital Report)

81% of TikTok users are also active Facebook users (Global Digital Report)

TikTok is the most popular app for finding "funny or entertaining content" among 80% of social media users. (Global Digital Report)

It is the least popular app for connecting with friends or family. (Global Digital Report)

TikTok marketing for businesses has only grown in popularity. With such a massive user base and a direct gateway to Gen-Z and millennial consumers, it’s no surprise that more companies and brands are focusing their video sharing and content marketing budgets here.

Between 2024 and 2025 TikTok saw a 17.6% increase in potential ad reach (Global Digital Report)

Brands can advertise themselves on TikTok using TikTok hashtags and via brand takeovers, hashtag challenges, video ads, influencer marketing, augmented reality lenses, branded filters, and more.

A brand takeover can cost anywhere from $50K to $120K per day. (Influencer Marketing Hub)

A hashtag challenge originally had a flat-fee of $150K for six days (Influencer Marketing Hub). In 2025 the starting price for an HTC was $50K (HeadsOnPillows). 

Videos on TikTok can be up to 30 minutes long, but the optimal time is between 3-10 minutes on average. (Buffer)

TikTok ads start at $10 per 1000 views with a $500 minimum per campaign. (Influencer Marketing Hub)

Despite the higher costs, engagement rate tends to be higher on TikTok. On average, brands are seeing an average engagement rate of 2.6% per follower — 4x higher than Instagram. (RivalIQ)

TikTok has become a major hot spot for mega-influencers and micro-influencers alike.

Here’s more on the platform’s influencer marketing statistics:

Khabane Lame is TikTok’s most popular influencer as of 2025 and has more than 161.5 million followers. (Global Digital Report)

TikTok created a $1 billion Creator Fund to support influencers and build stronger relationships with them. (Wallaroo Media)

Influencer Charli D'Amelio is the highest-earning influencer on TikTok, making a reported $17.5 million per year. (Influencer Marketing Hub)

Tip: Take a look at these global TikTok accounts with the most followers. If you're looking for local TikTokers to partner with, take a look at the top TikTok influencers in Malaysia and the top South African TikTokers.

There’s a lot of truth to the “TikTok made me buy it” phrase.

Here’s what the platform brings to the world of eCommerce:

78% of users have purchased a product after watching creator content about it. (TikTok)

Half of all TikTok users have made a purchase after watching a TikTok Live. (TikTok)

TikTok is 150% better at convincing users to try a product or service. (Material and TikTok)

Users are twice as likely to recommend a product or service they discovered on TikTok compared to other social media networks. (Material and TikTok)

TikTok is unlike any of the other social media networks, and that’s a good thing! The app gives brands new ways to build connections with their audiences, especially those in the Gen-Z age group, show a different side of their company, and build ongoing trust and brand loyalty.

At Meltwater, we’re helping brands keep up with consumers in real-time and discover trending topics. Identify what users are into, see what they’re engaging with, and use real data-driven insights to grow your strategy. Fill out the form below to learn more!

According to various sources, TikTok boasts roughly 1.5 billion monthly active users globally.

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