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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

Nonprofit campaigns require a great deal of planning and care. Take these 5 steps into consideration to help ensure all that work pays off. Social media will undoubtedly play a key role in your campaign. For inspiration on how to engage your audience, read our ebook on creating great content for your social channels.

Launching a successful nonprofit marketing campaign is no easy task. Marketing teams within nonprofit organizations are often challenged to raise awareness, donor interest, and funds with limited time and resources.

Fortunately, there are a plethora of marketing tactics at your disposal to help your organization achieve your goals and then some. Today we’re covering the 5 steps to building a nonprofit campaign all while raising awareness and inspiring action.

Tip: Learn how Make-A-Wish America uses the Meltwater suite for their national communications strategies and PR campaigns.

1. Develop a Compelling Call to Action (CTA)

Nonprofit organizations are on a mission to change the world one initiative at a time. In order to do so, nonprofits need a clear message and compelling call to action that attracts donors, supporters, influencers, and volunteers alike.

Stop the Money Pipeline is a great example of a nonprofit that has created a compelling CTA that their target audience can’t ignore:

Think of your call to action as a way to grab people’s attention in less than 2 seconds. In other words, if you had to dwindle your entire organization’s mission down into just a few words, what would it be?

Nonprofits, similar to colleges and universities, have a variety of audiences that they might be targeting at any given time.

This makes it critical to tailor your marketing strategy to each of these audiences individually because each key group will react differently to various messages.

For example, GlobalGiving has created an “Explore Projects” section where visitors can discover causes and funds that they most care about. This allows GlobalGiving to build awareness around specific initiatives while continuing to grow their overall organization.

One easy way to easily organize your different audiences is by using Meltwater's consumer insights reports. You can do a deep dive into the audiences that are driving the biggest results for your organization and double down on those efforts.

Tip: Read our customer story with KidsAndCars.org to learn how the nonprofit organization uses Meltwater for media monitoring, data collection, and fundraising efforts.

Nonprofit marketing campaigns without compelling visuals is a combination waiting to fail. Successful campaigns include both engaging editorial copy and eye-catching visual content. One of the best ways to create something that people will remember is through visual storytelling.

Visual storytelling involves communicating a ton of information – branding, messaging, call to action, and more – within one simple photo or video for audiences to easily digest. Take The Movember Foundation, for example. They create a 1 minute 18 second video to describe to viewers what their organization is all about:

What is Movember?

Their website is chalked with beautiful imagery that only helps to strengthen their brand message.

Visuals are intrinsically linked with deep human emotions. And visual storytelling is a powerful tool in generating the right emotions in your audience that will motivate them to act immediately.

When you mix the power of social media with the world-changing missions of nonprofits, you get a combination with unlimited potential impact. Not only does social media marketing have the potential to reach millions of people, but it provides nonprofit organizations with the ability to showcase their brand personalities and engage with followers and supporters.

The World Wildlife Fund is connecting with their followers across social media by sharing ideas of how to celebrate Earth Hour 2020 from the comfort of their own homes. A perfect example of a brand that understands that unique times call for creative campaigns:

WWF on Twitter: "Check out these 20+ things you can do from the comfort of your home to make for a memorable Earth Hour 2020. 🌳🌏
https://t.co/nSMUiwUD8t"

Reading Tip: Learn How Meltwater Helped Track Earth Hour, the World’s Largest Grassroots Movement

The list of ways to use social media for your nonprofit is endless, but here are a few ideas to get you started:

Share news about your organization and cause

Share stories about successful donors and constituents

Email is one of the few marketing channels that your organization actually owns, which makes it an important tactic to connect with current supporters and activate new ones. Furthermore, email marketing can help you:

Drive more donations to your organization

Most importantly, email is one of the best tools to effectively retain donors by staying top of mind. Automate follow up emails to let your donors know how their gift has made an impact. You can take this a step further by segmenting this list based on when they gave, how they gave, and how much. This will increase the emotional tie to your organization and make your donor feel like they truly made a difference.

5 Steps to Building a Nonprofit Campaign

So, the professional conference season is upon us! Once you’ve decided to go to a conference and have your travel set, what do you do to get yourself ready?

A PR and content marketing team has specific objectives at each PR conference, but in prepping, I realize that there’s a lot of pre-planning and strategy involved. Along with lots of learning and networking, conference goals including producing quality content, and having a well thought out process will be essential for fitting everything in.

A recent report by event software company Bizzabo says 85 percent of marketers cite event production as “essential” to their marketing strategies, while 41 percent consider event marketing the most crucial channel to achieve their goals. Two-thirds surveyed say they plan to increase spending on live events in 2019.

As more organizations look to live events to boost the bottom line, they’re also looking to their PR teams to help get the word out to improve visibility and drive attendance.

Events allow face-to-face interaction with prospects, helping them establish a more personal relationship with brands. And they can get feedback in real-time – versus waiting for customers to try the product and share comments, which may never happen.

“For instance, intimate VIP events may help to win new customers, while thought leadership and networking events may help to increase brand awareness, and awards ceremonies may help to generate revenue from ticket sales and sponsors,” says Bizzabo.

Given this rise in live events, how can PR pros help brands make the most of these opportunities?

4 Ways to Use PR & Content Marketing for Events 

Use press releases to create buzz. These can be written in advance and pitched to relevant publications, posted on your website and social media, and issued on wire services.

“What doesn’t work is writing the same old press release for the event,” says Vannessa Wade, Founder, Connect The Dots PR. “Add flare. Talk about the event with excitement. Have a clear call to action.”

“Whenever possible I try to connect client events to a local community conversation or a trend,” says Olivia Adams, communications strategist, Byrum & Fisk. “This makes media advisories, press releases, pitches, and social media content all that more relevant and impactful when the event is connected to a bigger conversation.”

In addition to press releases, invite media to attend and cover the event. Post the event to local listings and event calendars.

Leverage event headliners in your PR efforts. Set up an interview with them before the event so you can create a press release or blog post. Beyond that, pitch an interview with them to local media. Then, share the articles that result on social media and the event landing page.

Beyond press releases, craft blog posts to talk about not only what your company is doing at an event but what you’re looking forward to. Are there themes you’re excited about? Are other brands participating that you may be able to include in your post?

You can also create a landing page with all the information about the event – the who, what, when, where, why, and how that answers all the questions potential attendees might want to know. Include a sneak peek of behind the scenes footage or images, a program of speakers with excerpts from their work, and so on. After the event, you can write another blog post that recaps the highlights. Include photos or videos from the event. Be sure to post this on social media, as well.

Leverage social media with scheduled posts, as well as live updates during the event. Post it on Facebook Events. Enlist partners and sponsors in your social media campaign to promote events. Be sure to tag them in your posts to increase the likelihood that they’ll share them. You can also create sample posts for your employees and third parties to share, making it easy for them to cut and paste.

“A major problem for brands in today’s digital world is that they tend to be faceless among a social feed of other brands,” said Deirdre Lopian, creative director, DLPR. “But influencers know how to create engaging content that will stand out and resonate with their audience.

What types of initiatives can influencers help brands with? Keynote speeches, panel discussions, promotions, and live-streaming are a few examples Lopian cites.

Got an Upcoming Event? Here’s How PR & Content Marketing Can Help  

If you aren’t signing up for a full pass, you might want to look into other options. This can mean general press or industry access or an exhibition hall pass. Getting the correct access is the beginning of your event journey, so make sure that you have the right credentials.

If you’ve registered as a full attendee, roll up your sleeves and enroll in workshops or breakout sessions before you get there. Wait, you might say, “How do I decide which ones to go to?” Hopefully, the blurbs on the site give you enough information to make decisions. If you want to guarantee an engaging speaker, Google videos of them, or plugin a relevant search into your media intelligence platform and check out videos and authored articles/posts.

Get Your Social Media Accounts Conference Ready

If you don’t use your social platforms for work, either clean them up or start new accounts especially for professional venues, such as conferences and to give to future colleagues. Stymied as to where to start? LinkedIn for professional networking, and Twitter and Instagram for monitoring the event and connecting with fellow attendees in real-time.

Depending on the conference, it may be possible to see an attendee list with accompanying social handles before you arrive. Also, if organizers provide event-specific Twitter and Instagram handles—you’re ahead of the game! Grab all of these and put them into Twitter lists. If you’re super organized, separating out speakers and attendees can be useful later when you’re on-site covering the conference. Since Instagram doesn’t provide the ability to make lists, just follow those handles.

If no attendee names or social handles are on the conference website, uncover attendees by looking at who is using the event hashtag and Google speakers’ names. In the case of South by Southwest, for example, I searched for the 2017 event by branded hashtag #SXSW, in addition to “South by Southwest,” and “southbysouthwest.” Plugging a boolean search into a media intelligence platform has the advantage of keeping searches running, gathering results throughout your planning process, as well as gives you the ability to spot possible trends ancillary to the event.

After you reach a certain tipping point, say 100 attendee handles on your Twitter list, a nice pre-conference engagement tweet might be to ask, “Who else is going to #SXSW? Putting together a list of attendees and don’t want to miss anyone!” Doing this serves you three-fold, it will broadcast your attendance to other Twitter list makers, second, it may then lead to introductions. And third, this callout may net you some responses; it is possible that your Twitter list will be the most comprehensive (and therefore will be utilized on the ground, during the conference).

At this point, you may have an idea of how you’d like to cover the conference. During an event, especially one that is a week-long, it is challenging to do anything other than focus on what’s happening in the present. You’ll be busy networking, attending sessions, taking notes, watching exhibitor demos, going to happy hours, and dinners. So, having an idea of what your coverage will look like and prepping for it before arrival, is the best way to create and produce content while you’re there. Block out time in your schedule to get your project together, so that it receives a maximum impact. Producing and pushing content marketing (whether this is a blog post or infographic) before (or soon after) the conference is over will allow you to leverage the hashtag in social channel promotions. It can also help cement new relationships you’ve forged at the event, and position you as an essential part of the community that the conference caters to (the first step towards industry thought leadership).

Man-on-the-street interview videos to be used in daily Twitter updates

Photo project highlighting speakers or attendees that reflect your audience’s demographic

Facebook live or Snapchat videos from the conference floor, promote these widely on social channels

Live tweet with attribution (Twitter lists comes in handy here)

General social coverage of the event on Twitter and Instagram with hashtags (helps cement new relationships)

Infographic or blog post-round-up that includes lessons learned and favorite quotes

A big part of conferences is the networking opportunities. As un-conference YxYY puts it, “At your average conference, we know the best conversations happen in the hallways. They happen over late-night drinks, and on the walk from point A to point B.”

If you’re new to this particular conference and even new to the profession, how can you guarantee opportunities to have these conversations? Again, social listening is your friend. As you research the conference branded hashtags, include “happy hour,” “attendee dinner,” “VIP dinner,” “drinks,” and “after hours” to get a sense of what’s happening and who’s going. To attend events, RSVP to as many events with open invitations as you’ll really go to. You might also surface posts from fellow attendees suggesting IRL engagement. If you’re feeling bold, answer the call of: “Does anyone at the conference hall want to grab dinner?” or throw out a social invite yourself. Either way, conferences are a way to get out there and meet like-minded colleagues discussing your industry. Using media intelligence and social channel searching you can enrich your conference experience and make it productive.

We’ve covered sessions, prepping personal social media accounts, tracking conference attendees’ social accounts, listening to hashtags at the conference in real-time, and contributing with your take on the conference, and now the after-hours events.

Using this as a guide for your coverage strategy and listening to socials throughout your conference, (before, during, and after) will guarantee a productive event! 

Read our latest eBooks for a deep dive on how you can leverage influencers and make the most of media relations to supercharge your event marketing strategy.

Make Your Presence Felt: The PR and Content Marketing Guide to Productive Events

From JPMorgan to Goldman Sachs, Lloyd’s of London and more, banks are making serious bets on technology innovation while bracing for the impact of the growing fintech sector. Now billing themselves as technology groups, rather than banks, they’re hiring more AI talent and diving deep into data offerings.

"Technology is going to fundamentally transform the banking industry over the coming years." Antony Jenkins former Barclays CEO via CNBC

Do you want to be an investment banker today? Learn to code. Want to be an analyst? Learn to code. A marketer? Sales executive? Product manager? Market researcher? Learn to code.

Having a solid degree and field experience alone are no longer enough to compete for spots at some of the world’s top institutions.

Specifically in the finance sector, firms globally are making moves to embrace the impact of AI and data-driven technologies. Today when you interact with the likes of Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, you’re no longer entrusting your cash to banks. Instead, both now bill themselves as ‘technology groups.’ According to the Financial Times, “JPMorgan spends $10.8bn a year on tech, more than any other Wall Street group, and technologists account for about a fifth of the company’s 252,000-strong workforce.”

“Coding is not for just tech people, it is for anyone who wants to run a competitive company in the 21st century,” said Mary Callahan Erdoes, head of JPMorgan Asset Management. “These are skillsets of the future . . . By better understanding coding, our business teams can speak the same language as our technology teams, which ultimately drives better tools and solutions for our clients.”

In a move to better position itself on the tech ladder, for instance, Lloyd’s announced last month a global search for technology talent to fuel their new “Lloyd’s Lab,” designed to “help the insurance giant become even more competitive by securing partnerships with innovative global tech start-ups.”

“This is all about taking us into a technology-driven future,” Inga Beale, Lloyd’s CEO, told CNBC’s Squawk Box Europe. “There is huge demand from the market saying, ‘Come on, let’s get talking about innovation.’”

For traditional banks, the threat of innovative and agile startups feels increasingly real. Last year, $58B was raised globally in the fintech space. As well, those fintech companies “don’t suffer from legacy IT systems and can provide banking services 50% cheaper than big banks.” These banks are recognizing they need to transform themselves or risk being left in the dust.

According to the Financial Times, JPMorgan is putting hundreds of new investment bankers and asset managers through mandatory coding lessons, including all 300 new recruits in its asset management division. Overall, a third of the bank’s analysts and associates have taken a coding program.

The team will begin with Python, which will enable them to effectively analyze and interpret large sets of data, with plans of incorporating data science, machine learning and cloud computing in the next year.

The importance of data analysis in the financial industry cannot be understated, as the alternative data industry continues to grow, and the ability to remain competitive lies increasingly in information and insights advantages.

Top financial institutions continue to hire for tech, data science and engineering talent to help them better mine the incredible amount of data they have available, while working to bring their current staff up to speed.

Goldman Sachs prioritizes tech innovation

Over at Goldman Sachs, ‘strats’ have been alive and well for years, working to develop technologies that make the Goldman team more productive.

According to a report on HBR.org, Goldman has repurposed the role of its Strats team (previously known as financial engineers or data scientists) to create a unified engineering front that works with bankers and clients directly, with 2 key goals in mind:

to digitize bankers’ workflows through tools that improve productivity and quality of life

to use technology that is to engage clients in a more modern, data-driven way

The team has also been leveraging external data insights to build apps for specific purposes, like those that “use machine learning algorithms to sift through SEC mutual fund filings to better understand how shareholders relate to each other. In addition, machine learning has been used to analyze the factors that make some companies more vulnerable to activist investors than others.”

Earlier this year, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein presented on the firm’s future strategy at the Credit Suisse Financial Services Conference. Technology and innovation was a major part of what he discussed.

“Engineering underpins our growth initiatives,” Blankfein said, reiterating his comments from 2016 that positioned Goldman squarely in the tech space, competing with the likes of Google and Facebook." - Lloyd Blankfien

Back in 2016, the New York Times wrote on then-CIO R. Martin Chavez, who has been spearheading many of these efforts. Their vision was that Goldman will still have the chief product of a bank, but “the ways in which customers get access to that money will rely more on software and less on the bankers who traditionally delivered Goldman’s services.”

Today, the firm’s flagship loan and savings app, Marcus, has received significant traction as a prime example of the innovative technology they are working to develop in order to remain competitive in the face of the fintech revolution.

According to a recent report by EY, advancements in new technologies are driving change that will enable banks to:

Better serve customers and increase access

Provide enhanced insights both from a risk management and customer service perspective

These innovations are coming both from internal capabilities and external partnerships, driven by the need to derive insights from the vast amount of data we have available. Today, data scientists and programmers are proving just as valuable as traditional analysts. Is a swift and successful digital transformation of the banking industry the answer to their successful navigation of the coming AI revolution?

JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and more double down on tech innovation

Today’s consumers spend an average of 2:24 hours on social media daily—an increase of five minutes over 2019. For younger demographics, the numbers are almost certainly higher. Meltwater’s Dino Delic called these numbers staggering, before adding that being a social media influencer now ranks as the number two career aspiration for youths 11-16 years of age. This suggests that understanding your audience in the digital age is only going to grow more important.

Peeling the onion on all things digital fell to three industry experts in Chicago on March 5. Davitha Ghiassi of Red Havas, Natasha Vuppuluri of Zeno Group, and Eric Sawitoski of Legacy spoke to the imperative for marketers to create strategies that address consumers’ evolving needs. What follows here is only a small sample of what they discussed.

Influencer marketing isn’t “dead,” it’s evolving

When social media posts are now marked sponsored and audiences rightly suspect that influencers are being paid, it’s easy to be skeptical about the quality of the content. And yet it’s hardly fatal. Davitha Ghiassi and Natasha Vuppuluri agreed that in the current environment it’s more important than ever to vet influencers to ensure they authentically represent the brand. Ghiassi’s employer Red Havas distinguishes between three types of influencers, including content creators or co-creators, content distributors providing access to an audience, and online narrators offering media appeal. Just as the market has evolved, so have the influencers, who are no longer so one-dimensional. She cited the founder of Momma’s Gone City as a current example of an influencer-distributor who’s become both a narrator and an authentic content creator by blogging about products that have real value in the influencer’s life.

Creating proof points around your brand’s purpose is now a much bigger deal

Ghiassi said that Red Havas conducts an annual global study where they differentiate between three types of benefits, including the functional (does a product or service do what it’s supposed to), the personal (does it enhance a person’s life), and the collective (does it enhance a person’s community). After trailing the other categories for years, the collective benefits have now achieved parity. Ghiassi says the takeaway for brands is about showcasing purpose, whether to individuals or to society at large. Influencer marketing remains a great way to do this, provided you partner with people who share your company’s values.

If you are looking to begin working with social media influencers, we created a Marketer’s Guide to Social Influencers to help you work with social influencers to reach a larger audience.

Your own content is still central to your credibility

Eric Sawitoski referenced a finding that 82% of Gen Z believe companies need to produce content relative to them personally, while half think that most content is of little value. The content you create internally remains a bedrock in establishing credibility. He cited his own company as evidence. Soon after Legacy started publishing intellectual property, there was a significant uptick in calls from the media asking Sawitoski and his partners to speak as experts. “This leads into an influencer model, where people want to hear what you have to say.”

A rigorous brand audit goes a long way toward warding off worst-case scenarios

Vuppuluri’s Zeno Group conducts workshops with communication pros of various levels and functions and asks them what they would miss most if their company were to disappear tomorrow. Follow-up questions include what they imagine their consumers would miss most. This steely look at worst-case scenarios forces companies to arrive at their true values. Among Zeno Group’s key findings is that younger consumers want to view brands as friends that share their values, but that even one serious misstep will result in the brand being canceled. What at first glance appears warm and fuzzy is anything but that.

Ghiassi said that Red Havas uses what they call 4C modeling to produce actionable intel that feeds more effective campaigns. This involves a close examination of a product’s category, competitors, consumers, and culture. Ghiassi said the insights are derived from a combination of sources, including social listening, the social platforms themselves, free research, and media communication platforms such as Meltwater. These insights are converted into different types of content, pillars, themes, amplification tactics, and influencer partnerships. The strategy and execution all flow from the initial research.

Not sure where to get started when it comes to influencer marketing? Download our Marketer’s Guide to Social Influencers for tips on how to begin building out your plan.

Best practices include making the most of your assets

Aside from being authentic and purpose-driven, what are some other prescriptive measures companies can take to connect with an audience? Ghiassi and Sawitoski talked about leveraging media assets across multiple formats. Even if you feel you must be on TV because that’s what your older clients understand and demand, make sure it’s not at the expense of your younger prospects and customers. Everyone agreed that too many brands create for one channel and don’t tailor the story they're telling to other channels. Given your resource limitations, you need to create an asset that can live on different channels in a variety of formats. Sawitoski suggested using event-based advertising—he referenced a 2020 Super Bowl commercial—as a way to initiate a conversation that you then take to your other channels. Finally, be aware that if and when people watch TV, they're often also engaged on their smartphones. The trick then is to tell a visual story knowing your audience may not be giving you their full attention.

Along with understanding your audience, it's about understanding the platform

A so-called elephant in the room was younger people’s current fascination with the social media platform TikTok. 41% of the platform’s audience is comprised of 16-24 year-olds. Ghiassi observed that much of the fascination lies with young people’s desire to be creators. “So give them a challenge that aligns with that story you’re also telling on TV. If you can think that way, you can nail any channel.”

Natasha Vuppuluri observed that her company’s name derives from the Greek philosopher Zeno of Citium. Zeno is reputed to have said that everyone has two ears and one mouth so that we might listen twice as much as we talk. Zeno Group’s motto to “be fearless, not reckless” means listening carefully to clients and data before acting. Building on Vuppuluri’s advice was Davitha Ghiassi, who recommended never forgetting that social is a two-way street. “Your audience is literally telling you what they want. They're giving you that intel.” Measuring that in the many ways outlined above, including through social platforms as well as through media platforms such as Meltwater, is a good path to success.

We're all problem solvers, Eric Sawitoski said. When you look for an agency partner, you're looking to either change someone's behavior or amplify the amount of change. Cold, hard numbers are a source of inspiration for him. “If you can’t measure it, don’t do it.” He cautioned against “faux success,” where people spin results to fit a desired narrative. Nowadays, there’s so much information that marketing and PR teams can use to prove the ROI of their efforts, there’s almost no excuse for not tracking the results of a campaign.

How to Connect With Your Audience in the Digital Age

Marketing statistics have an instant—and powerful—impact. They allow you to tell an expansive story in the smallest of spaces through easily consumable data. That's why they're an essential tool in the modern marketing and PR pros toolbox. Crafting data-centric brand stories are within your reach, start with using this handy infographic as a guide.

How do you captivate and appeal to an audience with an elusive attention span?

Supercharge your marketing with statistics and you’ll grab them with take-notice data! 

This infographic unpacks how to use metrics and data in a powerful way and harness the full strength of your marketing materials. Magnify the impact of your messages by adding statistics with authority. As PR and marketing pros, tapping into that extra bit of gravitas could be what is needed to break through the static to be heard. 

Places to find great marketing statistics include:

Statista is one of the world’s largest statistics portals. It provides access to relevant data from over 18,000 sources.

Market Force works with brands to create custom predictive models for both soft metrics (like overall satisfaction or Net Promoter Score) and hard financial KPI’s like same store comparable sales or revenue per available room.

Economics & Statistics Administration from the United States Department of Commerce provides ongoing statistics on macroeconomic indicators like Advance Report on Durable Goods Manufacturers’ Shipments, Inventories, and Orders and Homeownership Rate.

Pew Research Center tracks public opinions on U.S. National Conditions, Political Attitudes, and Domestic Issues. They emphasize key national, political, economic and demographic trends over time and use regularly updated charts.

Surveys created using Google Consumer Surveys, Polldaddy, Qualtrics, Survata, and SurveyMonkey. 

And of course, Meltwater for analytics related to your brand, your competition, and your industry. 

Infographic: Supercharge Your Marketing with Statistics

A talented marketer is not one but many things in the digital era. While team members with well developed, specific skills (design, copywriting, etc.) allows a marketing department to function at peak performance, making sure your key marketing team members are well-rounded is the best way to ensure success. Today’s marketing campaigns are much more than just putting a great ad in a well-targeted paper and hoping to gain leads. Modern marketers develop material for all stages of the sales cycle, using data and an understanding of the customer to help companies close deals. In this post are just some of the descriptions that fit a well-rounded, modern marketer.

Successful marketing requires the ability to collect valuable data and incorporate the data into a digestible, actionable format. Usually this means having data converted into visuals including charts and graphs which are much more easily deciphered than a raw dataset. For their clients, the modern marketer must be capable of putting together reports which show return on investment. This can be quite labour-intensive, considering all of the platforms which exist today that we use to market goods and services (Facebook, Pinterest, Google, Amazon, landing pages, Twitter, the list goes on). Marketers can more quickly achieve success by using a marketing automation platform which will help compile this data.

On top of reports, however, the modern marketer must also know how to make smart decisions based on the data. For example, it is absolutely imperative to incorporate A/B testing in email marketing, using data to determine successful market segmentation and other strategies.

While the modern marketer may not be a designer or an artist themselves, they must be a dutiful critic of all visual marketing materials, and be able to guide designers using data and logic to justify their opinions. The successful marketer will also be able to tell determine if typography and graphics are outdated or not ideal for a target audience (hint: avoid Times New Roman!). Today’s iconography and typography is flat, clear, and simple. But in two years, expect that to change. A good marketer stays on top of these trends, and understands the “art” as much as the science.

In my opinion, it is difficult to imagine a successful marketer that is not also a copywriter themselves. Writing good copy is, in its most basic form, the ability to sell using only words. This means knowing how to write for top, middle, and bottom of the funnel leads and a variety of audiences. Great copy is extremely important for developing landing pages, white papers, and other marketing materials. The successful marketer knows what information prospects need to know in order to buy.

On top of developing marketing materials, the modern marketer should also be an adept salesman. This is important because marketing is about sales, and if your marketer couldn’t close a deal on his or her own, how can you know that he/she will be able to develop the best strategies and materials to lead to that all-important close?

At the same time, keep in mind that there are many types of salesmen, and not all of them have marketing finesse. Those that do will be geared more towards meeting the needs of the customer than bullying prospects into a sale. Both strategies may be effective, but only one of them is scaleable (Hint #2: meeting the needs of the customer).

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

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