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AI adoption is no longer the challenge—trusted context is. Most organizations have AI tools, but many still rely on disconnected, stale, or unverified data, limiting the quality and trustworthiness of AI-generated outputs. Meltwater MCP brings trusted, real-time intelligence into AI assistants.

Your Best Context is Already in the Room

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

15 Must-Have PR KPIs and How to Track Them

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

The Meltwater Blog

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

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

Facebook Blog | Meltwater

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

Instagram Blog | Meltwater

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

LinkedIn Blog | Meltwater

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

TikTok Blog | Meltwater

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

X / Twitter Blog | Meltwater

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

YouTube Blog | Meltwater

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?
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

Media monitoring helps organizations stay informed about what’s being said across online news, print, broadcast, podcasts, and other media channels. Whether you're tracking brand mentions, measuring PR performance, monitoring competitors, or identifying emerging trends, our expert guides, best practices, and industry insights will help you build a smarter media monitoring strategy and make more informed communications decisions.

Discover expert media monitoring guides, best practices, and industry insights to track brand mentions, monitor competitors, and stay ahead of the news.

Media Monitoring: Guides, Best Practices & Industry Insights

When a customer opens your email, they usually skim it for relevant information. Subscribers typically read the first line, check out the picture and glance at your Call-to-Action (CTA). That’s why creating a compelling CTA is so important. It’s one of the few items within your email that can draw attention and encourage the reader to act.

What makes one CTA better than another when it comes to affecting your conversion rate? We’re glad you asked. To help distinguish between good and bad calls to action, we’ve created a list of CTAs that sell, and a list that repels. At the end of each list, we explain why they work, or don’t work.

We scoured inboxes and created a list of 50 CTAs that sell, and broke them up by category.

All of the calls to action are descriptive and provide enough information for subscribers to act. You don’t even need to read the entire email to understand its purpose.

Calls to action should encourage an instant reaction. All of the CTAs above use urgent language to do just that. Words like “now,” “today” and “limited time offer” show a need to act immediately.

There are a few traditional calls to action like “shop now” and “read this post,” but the list also has quite a few original ideas too. For example, “Love to share? Please do” isn’t a call to action that you see every day. It’s okay to think out-of-the-box and be creative when you write a call to action.

Now for the not-so-great calls to action. Here’s a list of 10 CTAs that could repel your customers.

Most of the calls to action on this list don’t provide any real information. For example, what does the CTA “continue” mean? Is it encouraging a customer to continue to a website? Is a customer supposed to continue shopping? Or should a subscriber continue on to a brand’s Facebook page? There just isn’t enough information to inspire a customer to act. CTAs play an important role in the UX sphere, helping drive people to their next action but they can't get there when a challenge or obstacle is in the way. In this instance it's a lack of clarity. 

The call to action “Get our custom report” focuses on the business, not the customer. A CTA should focus on the customer. In this case, it’s better to explain how the report helps a customer. For example, “Download now to increase your traffic” defines the value of the report to the customer. By getting specific about what you're offering them in exchange for their action, they can progress to the next stage and feel like they're important to your brand as opposed to another number, while you focus on your business. 

Some of the calls to action are just bad habits. You don’t need to tell customers to “click here” anymore; everyone understands the concept of clicking on a link.

You want customers to act quickly so why would you ever use a CTA that says “get it later?”

You don’t need to write out your entire website address. Instead, just create a CTA that says, “Learn more on our website" and link to it appropriately. This will help you in terms of search results, which factor in the words you hyperlink from various channels. 

Any sell sheet without an effective CTA is missing a huge opportunity. These simple yet targeted phrases or links are directly responsible for encouraging your audience to take the next step toward becoming a buyer of your product. Without a CTA, your sell sheet will amount to little more than an unprofitable writing exercise. Here are some tips that I have developed from my product marketing experiences that will help improve the response rate to your sell sheet:

Put your CTA in the appropriate place on your sell sheet. On a product’s sell sheet, the CTA will typically be included with the company’s information, and with the physical details of the product. It might be included in a list of items, or in a separate text box, or simply lined-up on the bottom of the page.

Keep CTA text short, simple, and actionable

It doesn’t need to be long or complicated. Keep it as simple and attention-grabbing as possible. Your buyers don’t have time to be wasting trying to figure our what to do to get more information about your product.

On the printed version of your sell sheet, make sure that the links are short and easy to follow, not long and complicated. On the PDF version of your sell sheet, make sure that all of the links are live and that readers can click-through. You can even incorporate CTA buttons on PDFs, pop-ups or opt-in pages. 

Don’t just send them to your landing page

On the sell sheets for my books, for example, I simply tell them that my books are available from “B&T” and “Ingram”. Every book buyer at every library, university book store and library, and every bookstore retailer knows exactly what this means, and within minutes can order my books. I also list “Amazon” so that the general public can get more information and buy my books.

I also offer an email address for more information, as well as my publisher’s website address. All very simple and effective. Your users don't have to be a website visitor of yours in order to acquire your products. Plus, it's easier for them to order your product from a third-party sometimes and that's okay. Website traffic isn't the be all and end all if it's not the best place for the user to go to. 

Calls to Action: 50 That Sell and 10 That Repel

As we continue to lead in media intelligence across the globe, we, at Meltwater, are honored to hold an elite place as one of the Top 50 Best Products for Marketers 2020, recently announced by the independent reviewer, G2. 

As the largest tech marketplace for businesses, G2 is changing the way decisions are made. Until recently, selecting business solutions was hard, risky, and inherently biased. G2's real-time and unbiased user reviews help objectively assess what is best for businesses by leveraging the crowd, limiting the risk, and getting what works.

Their prestigious awards list is independently compiled based on thousands of reviews from real customers of various SaaS companies. These software tools are then rated against competitors, and their pros and cons are distinguished. We are grateful to our 30 000 clients globally who rated Meltwater’s media intelligence tool as one of the best in the world, and we are pleased to be ranked as one of the best products for Marketers in 2020.

With the way that the needs of PR, Communications and Marketing teams are constantly changing, we have continued to innovate and look for ways to add features that improve the efforts of our customers. This is what we achieved with Fjord, our latest product release that enables comprehensive AI-powered insights and breaks down the silos between PR and Marketing, by offering an all-in-one solution. The platform prioritizes simplicity yet still captures more content than anyone else within the industry. If you are looking for a solution that will advance your analytics into insights, let Meltwater show you how here.  

But while we are a tech company, and still hold the fresh, start-up culture within our organization, our customers have also enjoyed the content we provide them on a weekly and monthly basis. From our blog articles to our webinars and guides that are freely available resources, we have ensured that we not only build a formidable platform but build valuable content - solidifying our place not only as one of the best marketing tools of 2020 but true global leaders in media intelligence.

In addition to having an award-winning tool, the support structure that Meltwater offers - in terms of dedicated Account Managers, 24/7 Live Chat, and plenty of product-related resources - is also of the highest standard. 

One of our clients said of our Support Team, “The support [team] is also amazing and goes above and beyond to understand what our company's mission is and how they can support that mission. The software is also very user friendly and I have picked up many tricks by using it.”

What Makes Meltwater The Best for Marketers?

When it comes to marketing, you cannot measure what you cannot manage. But with Meltwater, we are helping to change that for marketers. We have the largest media database in the world, so tracking and analyzing media mentions, as well as social listening, has been a feature that marketers love about Meltwater, and a feature that is highly rated on G2.

This speaks to the investments and acquisitions that we have made over the years to ensure that we remain the chosen all-in-one tool for Marketers, helping Marketing professionals around the world consolidate their efforts, and prove the worth of their efficient work. We know that digital data is always growing, and at an exponential rate. But we lead in this industry because of how we can apply AI to spot trends, track and analyze content, and help our customers find the right influencers to engage with.

But it doesn’t stop and end there for us. We also pride ourselves in bringing advanced analytics through our dedicated team of media analysts as well as morning reports delivered right to your inbox. We understand the importance of not only tracking the mentions that matter, but proving the marketer’s efforts through our Meltwater reports. 

Another client said of their Meltwater Reports, “The most helpful thing about Meltwater are the Morning Meltwater Reports. They help my team stay on top of mentions in the media and on social media. Meltwater acts as the eyes and ears for our brand. I don’t know what we would do without them.” 

“It is such an honor to be recognized on G2’s list of the Top 50 Best Products for Marketers in 2020. We are thrilled to be in the Top 20, amongst some of the most effective marketing tools of the year. We’re also incredibly grateful to the thousands of Meltwater clients around the world, for using and reviewing our Marketing software!” said Angela Wiesenmüller, Marketing Director for EMEA at Meltwater. 

With technology that can decode billions of data in real-time, the Meltwater solution:

Connects you with influencers and journalists to generate earned media 

Creates presentation-ready reports to prove your ROI 

“I love the Outreach tool that allows me to contact the media directly in the program and track who read, skimmed, or ignored my messages. This allows me to adequately follow with specific people. Another great feature is the reporting capabilities Meltwater has,” said one validated G2 reviewer.

Recognized as a high performing tool for those working in PR, we are proud to also be named in the Top 10 PR Analytics Software, as well as a being named a High Performer, based on the reviews of customers and the criteria that:

Our product has a high quality of support

“The ease of use is wonderful. It allows me to get my information out to the contacts I want. I appreciate the fact that I can organize my contacts by groups. The feature that is most helpful to me is being able to search for news contacts in different areas of the country. I also can check with the local area to update old emails as well.” - Validated G2 reviewer

Along with being named as one of the best marketing tools in 2020, we have also received the following the G2 Awards and badges for 2020 in the PR Analytics category:

As an independent review platform, G2 has over one million validated user reviews, amplifying the voice of customers and users while playing a role in decision making through transparency. An award like this shows our consistency in being one of the best tools for marketers, but achieving success while doing it.

From our employees across 60 global offices to all our valued customers, thank you for your trust in our product and capability to lead as we do. We are honored for an achievement like this and we look forward to bringing you only the best in media and business intelligence in 2020 and beyond.

Meltwater Named One of the Top 50 Best Products for Marketers in 2020

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:

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

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