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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

Every year, people around the world ring in January 1 with the goal of getting in shape. However, this almost cliché resolution has a new twist in the 2020s. Internet users can now ask LLM models, like ChatGPT and Google AI Overview, which digital tools can best help them get fit.

For marketers, this is part of an important shift: LLMs are reshaping the customer journey. Understanding how they interpret authority and user intent to generate recommendations consumers trust is now a must-have capability for competitive brands. 

So, what are these AI-powered helpers telling consumers? We used GenAI Lens, Meltwater’s industry-first LLM tracker, to find out. 

Our analysis of the top LLM recommendations for fitness apps during two critical weeks — the end of 2025 and start of 2026 — focuses on how this new facet of brand discovery is influencing the customer journey. Read on to discover the brands, sources, keywords, and more that dominated this year’s New Year’s resolution season.

Note: The data below comes from our GenAI Lens analysis of responses from nine LLM models — Anthropic Claude, ChatGPT, Deepseek, Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews, Google Gemini, Meta Llama, Perplexity, and xAI Grok— from December 24, 2025, to January 7, 2026. Click here to learn more about how GenAI Lens helps major global brands decode, monitor, and impact their LLM visibility.

Our GenAI Lens analysis found that Strava was the most visible brand in LLM recommendations for effective fitness apps. 

From December 24, 2025, to January 7, 2026, LLMs mentioned Strava 138 times in response to the prompt “What are the most effective fitness apps to get in shape?” Additionally, Strava achieved a GenAI Lens Prevalence Score of 70%, meaning it appeared in 70% of the resulting responses. Those metrics along with an analysis of prominence within answers resulted in a 77% Visibility Score for the popular running app.

MyFitnessPal was Strava’s closest competitor, with a higher volume of mentions but lower prevalence, resulting in a Visibility Score of 71%. Meanwhile, Fitbod and Nike Training Club, or NTC, followed with Prevalence Scores of 61% and 55%, respectively.

Takeaway: LLM visibility doesn’t only rest on how many times your brand is mentioned. Prevalence, or how widespread your mentions are, can make or break your standing against competitors.

How Does User Intent Impact LLM Recommendations?

The language LLMs used in their responses to the prompt “What are the most effective fitness apps to get in shape?” highlights how their interpretation of effectiveness prioritized strength-building, approach, and progress tracking. For example, the keyword "strength" (75% visibility) appeared more often than other qualities related to effectiveness, like “stamina” or “endurance”, which were absent. 

"Equipment", a key factor in deciding on which workouts to try, also achieved relatively high visibility at 45%. Finally, keywords more generally related to advancement, like "progress" (38% visibility), also appeared.

Together, the top keywords highlight how the LLM models relate fitness app effectiveness to strength. But what if the user has other qualities, like efficiency, in mind when on the hunt for the best fitness app? 

To learn more about how LLM recommendations vary as user intent changes, we also analyzed responses to the prompt “What are the best fitness apps for quick routines?”

Our GenAI Lens analysis found that FitOn was the top brand in LLM recommendations for fitness apps for quick workouts, with a Visibility Score of 76%. NTC was the second-ranked fitness app recommended for quick routines with an average Visibility Score of 53%. Meanwhile, the top fitness app for effectiveness, Strava — which many users love for showing off long runs — understandably sank to 35th place with only 10% visibility. 

Contrasting with LLM recommendations for effective fitness apps, "equipment" (185 mentions) was the top keyword in responses to our prompt for quick routines. Meanwhile, "strength" (128 mentions) dropped to third place after "quick routines" (169 mentions).

Takeaway: User intent shapes how LLMs recommend and talk about brands. For marketers, this means understanding LLMs portray your brand generally and in relation to specific consumer needs. Tools like GenAI Lens let you monitor prompt variations and responses at scale, giving you a dynamic, panoramic view of your brand’s LLM presence.

How Do LLM Responses Differ from One Another?

Our GenAI Lens analysis found that fitness app visibility varies drastically between LLM models.
In AI-generated recommendations for effective fitness apps, Strava was the most consistently visible brand, with a 77% Visibility Score overall. However, that score dipped as low as 17% on Google Gemini and as high as 99% on Google AI Overviews. 

Fitbod (which ranked third in overall visibility) scored higher than any other app on ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews, two top targets for many consumer brands. And notably, most of the brands that appeared in responses from the top LLMs were nowhere to be found on Meta Llama. 

Takeaway: While high visibility across all of the top LLMs is ideal, refining strategies to target specific models can help brands more effectively reach their target audiences. GenAI Lens breaks down visibility by channel, allowing marketers to zero in on new opportunities and identify low-hanging fruit. 

Garage Gym Reviews was the top source cited in LLM recommendations of effective fitness apps, according to GenAI Lens. Its dedicated, site-wide focus on comparative fitness reviews helped make it a highly influential LLM source on the topic of fitness apps. Top URLs referenced were best-workout-apps (88 mentions), best-free-workout-apps (27 mentions), and best-personal-training-apps (17 mentions), highlighting AI’s reliance on authoritative, ranking-style content when surfacing recommendations.

Interestingly, the second-ranked source, Die Ringe, was the only fitness app brand website to make the list. The website for the German calisthenics app was mentioned 55 times in LLM recommendations, seemingly stemming from the prominence of self-referencing, user-generated reviews on its homepage. However, that visibility did not translate into LLMs recommending the app itself. 

Finally, YouTube and Reddit came in third and fourth, respectively, powered by the kind of unfiltered, peer reviews that LLMs lean on. For example, the most referenced Reddit thread was “What’s the best automated workout app?”, posted in the r/bodyweightfitness subreddit in June 2023. Its 663 engagement actions in a highly active community likely pushed LLM models to favor it as an authoritative source, even despite its age.

Takeaway: Niche websites and digital communities with high authority and engagement can have outsized impacts on LLM recommendations. Meanwhile, brands that host authentic user reviews prominently on their own websites can also become trusted sources for generative AI models. 

What Fitness Brands Need to Know About LLM Recommendations

Our GenAI Lens analysis of AI recommendations for fitness apps revealed both the dominant brands, as well as the forces behind their visibility. In a nutshell:

Brand visibility in LLM recommendations depends on both volume and prevalence of brand mentions.

Look at user intent, as expressed through subtle shifts in language, for a fuller picture of how your brand is portrayed to audiences as they go on their “prompt journeys”.

Brands with high visibility on one LLM can be completely absent on another. Understanding LLM response variations is key to building strategies that focus on reaching your target audiences where they are. 

LLMs rely on sources with both expert and peer-led expertise, even if they are old. Generally, comparative reviews, like ranking lists, and UGC, like starred reviews, are paramount. 

LLM recommendations are key aspects of the shopping experience for high-intent buyers. Brands across consumer sectors must monitor and analyze them rigorously to remain competitive, but doing so is impossible without the right tools. GenAI Lens is here to help. Fill out the form below to request a sneak peek at how this industry-leading technology can take your brand’s LLM strategy to new heights.

Which fitness apps were most recommended by LLMs for effectiveness in early 2026?

According to GenAI Lens data, Strava ranked first with a 77% Visibility Score. MyFitnessPal followed with a 71% Visibility Score, despite higher mention volume but lower prevalence. Fitbod and Nike Training Club ranked next with 61% and 55% prevalence, respectively.

What workout qualities do LLMs associate with “effective” fitness apps?

A GenAI Lens analysis of LLM responses to the prompt “What are the most effective fitness apps to get in shape?” found that they mentioned “strength” most, followed by “workouts”, “apps”, “equipment”, and “progress”. 

How do LLM recommendations change when users ask for quick workouts instead?

Meltwater’s GenAI Lens analysis of responses to “best fitness apps for quick routines” found that FitOn ranked first with a 76% Visibility Score, while Nike Training Club ranked second at 53% visibility. Strava dropped to 35th place with just 10% visibility, despite being recommended most in prompts for effective fitness apps, illustrating how shifts in user intent drastically reshape AI recommendations.

Do AI-generated recommendations vary across LLM models?

Yes. A Meltwater GenAI Lens analysis of fitness app recommendations found that Strava’s overall 77% Visibility Score ranged from 99% on Google AI Overviews to just 17% on Google Gemini. Fitbod achieved its highest visibility on ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews, while several top-ranking brands were completely absent from Meta Llama responses.

Which sources most influence LLM fitness app recommendations?

Meltwater GenAI Lens analysis of fitness app recommendations found that Garage Gym Reviews ranked as the most cited source, with 88 mentions of its best-workout-apps page, 27 mentions of best-free-workout-apps, and 17 mentions of best-personal-training-apps. Other top sources included PC Mag, Wired, Tom’s Guide, YouTube, and Reddit.

Does old content impact LLM recommendations?

Yes. In Meltwater’s GenAI Lens analysis of fitness app recommendations, the most referenced Reddit thread — “What’s the best automated workout app?” from June 2023 — accumulated 663 engagement actions in the r/bodyweightfitness subreddit. Despite being over two years old, its engagement and community authority elevated it as a trusted LLM source.

Can brand websites influence LLM responses?

Yes. In Meltwater’s GenAI Lens analysis of fitness app recommendations, Die Ringe, a German calisthenics app, ranked second among cited sources with 55 mentions, driven by prominent self-hosted user reviews. However, despite high source visibility, the app itself was not consistently recommended, underscoring the difference between source authority and brand recommendation.

How does GenAI Lens help brands improve LLM visibility?

Meltwater’s  GenAI Lens tracks mention volume, prevalence, visibility score, keyword associations, source citations, and LLM-specific performance across models. This enables brands to identify gaps — such as low visibility on ChatGPT or Google AI Overviews — and optimize content, reviews, and PR strategies accordingly.

Fitness Apps Brand AI Visibility Index

Public relations has never moved faster, or felt more complex. In our inaugural 2026 State of PR Report, we surveyed more than 1,100 PR and communications professionals worldwide to understand the realities, roadblocks, and opportunities shaping the discipline today. What emerges is a portrait of an industry balancing timeless fundamentals with dramatic change: AI adoption, increased expectations from leadership, and a media landscape that’s more fragmented than ever.

This report was created in partnership with the leading agency, We. Communications, who helped us get to the heart of the issues faced by today’s PR industry.

The days of guesswork are over. PR pros have long operated without enough strategic intelligence and reliable, financial‑grade metrics, but that is changing fast. The next chapter of PR isn’t about more coverage; it’s about provable value. When we quantify reputation like a financial asset and optimize presence across channels, PR becomes a funded engine of growth and risk reduction. 
— Charlie Baldwin, We. Communications, Senior Vice President, Insights and Analytics.

Here are the eight key insights every PR leader needs to know.

1. Resources are Tight, and it’s Holding PR Back

The number one challenge facing PR professionals? Insufficient resources (24%), followed closely by difficulty measuring impact and ROI (21%) and managing stakeholder expectations (16%).

Despite PR’s growing responsibilities, half of those surveyed work on teams of fewer than five people, and over half expect budgets to remain flat in the next year. With CEOs most often making funding decisions, PR’s ability to secure investment depends on demonstrating business impact, not just activity.
So what does this mean for PR teams? Aligning PR metrics to business KPIs like conversions, share of voice vs. competitors, and message pull-through to earn greater visibility and budget.

2. Traditional PR Responsibilities Still Dominate, but Social and Influencer Work is Growing

The core of PR remains consistent, as shown by the top three most important functions of the role:

Media Relations, Content Creation, and Thought Leadership are considered the leading PR responsibilities. 

Yet while only 10% say social media is a main function of their role, nearly half manage social media within their organization. Likewise, 36% own influencer strategy, even though only 2.3% view it as a primary responsibility.

This shows a clear disconnect: PR teams own more channels than ever, but don’t fully see them as core to their role, an opportunity for upskilling and reframing PR’s value.

3. Measurement Still Lags Behind Expectations

The most widely used PR success metrics in 2026 are:

Volume of placements, and reach/impressions are the two leading PR measurements. 

Despite years of conversation about modernizing PR measurement, activity-based metrics still dominate, with more strategic measures, like share of voice, sentiment, and message pull-through, falling further down the list.

What’s clear is that leadership wants a stronger line of sight into PR’s impact. To earn greater investment and influence, teams will need to bridge the gap between media outputs and business performance, something AI-powered analytics and unified dashboards now make far more attainable.

4. AI Has Become Essential and Most Teams are Already Using it

Generative AI is no longer experimental for PR. A majority of respondents say AI is already somewhat or fully integrated into their day-to-day workflows.

Concerns about AI center less on quality and more on job security and budget implications. Even so, 19% of professionals report no concerns at all, underscoring confidence that AI can elevate, not replace, human creativity and strategic judgment.

The biggest concern about AI in PR is that it may reduce the need for human talent. 

AI’s future in PR is clear: faster trend detection, automated summaries, smarter monitoring, and more streamlined reporting. Many of these advancements are already here through solutions like Mira, Meltwater’s AI teammate that collapses days of analysis into a single conversation.

5. Reactive Work Still Consumes Too Much Time

When asked about their biggest time sinks, PR pros pointed to:

Many of these tasks are precisely where AI and modern media intelligence tools can return hours back to teams each week. It’s no surprise, then, that generative AI ranked as the second-most critical tool for streamlining PR work, just behind media monitoring.

6. Journalist Relationships Still Matter and Getting Coverage is Getting Harder

Despite emerging channels, media relations remains PR’s top job function. Most professionals spend one to two days per week pitching, and journalist relevance continues to be the strongest factor in securing earned media.

Looking ahead, the majority believe earned media will be harder to secure in the next five years, a sign that PR teams will need smarter targeting, better storytelling, and more data-driven insights to break through.

7. Leadership Understands PR Better, But Not Well Enough

While 60% say leadership understands their work well or very well, that leaves 40% feeling misunderstood or undervalued.

How do you feel leadership understands your work?

With leadership making the majority of PR spending decisions, earning a “seat at the table” hinges on connecting PR outputs to bottom-line business outcomes, something many teams still struggle to operationalize.

More than 28% of PR pros now pitch journalists zero days per week. Why? The landscape is shifting:

Personal relationships still matter (a top factor in securing coverage)

But tools and databases now streamline much of the outreach

LinkedIn is by far the most valuable social platform for PR professionals

The report highlights a move away from pure traditional media relations into a more integrated, data-driven, multi-channel approach.

The Bottom Line: PR in 2026 Demands Alignment, Intelligence, and Speed

Across the entire report, one unifying theme emerges:

The future of PR depends on better alignment—between teams, data, technology, leadership, and outcomes.

PR’s fundamentals, storytelling, creativity, relationship-building, remain central. But the industry’s next chapter will be shaped by AI-driven insights, integrated analytics, and a recalibration of how PR proves its value.

With AI reshaping search, content, and discovery, PR teams equipped with the right intelligence will have the competitive edge.

If you’d like a deeper look at how AI and modern media intelligence can accelerate your PR performance, Meltwater is here to help.

Book a demo to see how Meltwater empowers PR teams with real-time insights, unified analytics, and AI designed for communications leaders.


The State of PR in 2026: What 1,100+ Comms Leaders Told us About the Future of the Industry

At a time when brands are constantly vying for attention and consumers are spoiled for choice, it has become more crucial than ever for businesses to have a strong and well-defined brand. But managing a brand can be a complex task — it requires the careful coordination of messaging, visual identity, and customer perception. That’s why more companies are choosing brand management software that gives them a bird’s eye view of every aspect of their brand. 

By centralizing all aspects of brand management, companies can monitor their brand’s performance, maintain consistency across all channels, and make informed decisions that align with their overall marketing strategy. With the power to streamline processes and enhance efficiency, brand management software has become an essential tool for businesses to thrive among their competition.

There are brand management platforms, tools, and software for businesses of all sizes and budgets. Let’s explore the nine best options to help you stay organized and give you deeper insights into your brand’s performance.

What to Look For in Brand Management Software

10 Best Brand Management Software on the Market

Gain Control with of Meltwater's Brand Management Software

Tip: Learn more about brand tracking, brand monitoring, brand monitoring tools, and brand tracking software.

Brand management software is a powerful tool that allows companies to manage various aspects of their brand. This software helps to streamline workflows, handle team communications, assign tasks to the right people, and collaborate on branding activities.

The goal is to keep important parts of a brand in one place for easier management, organization, and consistency. 

Brand management is a core piece of an overarching marketing strategy, so it’s essential to find tools and software that fit within your marketing ecosystem. Ultimately, brand management is about maintaining alignment within the brand, communicating your brand to your customers, protecting your reputation, and keeping up with trends or news that may impact your brand.

To address all of the above, brand management software and tools may include:

Brand asset management to centralize digital content

Project management tools to assign branding tasks

Media mentions to see who’s talking about you and where conversations happen

Sentiment analysis to see how customers think and feel about your brand

Version control to ensure a consistent brand image

Data analytics and reporting capabilities

This isn’t a comprehensive list, but it does highlight the power and scope of a brand management platform. Every brand management tool offers unique features, benefits, and interfaces to help you get exactly what you need from your branding efforts.

Now that you know a little more about the role of brand management, let’s dive deeper into the best brand management tools and software.

Use these tools to make branding a cornerstone of your marketing strategy:

The Meltwater Platform includes comprehensive media intelligence and brand management tools that give you greater visibility into brand performance. Its quintessential features lie in media monitoring and public relations, both of which are critical to brand management.

The Meltwater Media Intelligence platform gives you a clear view of what people are talking about and where your brand is being mentioned in the media. This helps your brand take a strategic approach to gaining media attention to grow your share of voice. 

Meltwater also offers customer sentiment analysis so you can learn more about how people feel toward your brand. Shifts in sentiment can help you get ahead of potential crises and preserve your reputation. 

As part of your brand management strategy, Meltwater monitors unlimited keywords on your behalf and sends real-time alerts regarding mentions and social media shares. You can compile these insights into automated reports that demonstrate the ROI of your earned media and PR efforts.

Get a free demo of the Meltwater brand management software today!

With many branding efforts taking place on social channels, it’s important to see how your social performance stacks up. That’s where Sprout Social shines brightest.

This social media management platform offers helpful tools to build and maintain a social media strategy. Brands can monitor posts and engagement, schedule content to be posted, and manage their inboxes from a central platform. It also offers insights into audience growth, engagement rates over time, and other data and analytics to see how your social presence evolves.

Collaboration tools make it easy for teams to create on-brand content and gain approval before publishing. You can publish to multiple social media channels, including TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, from within the platform and see optimal send times to maximize visibility. 

Compared to other social media management platforms, Sprout Social is on the more expensive side. It also doesn’t support the full branding picture outside of social media, so you may need other tools to complement your strategy.

Tip: Take a look at the best social media management tools on the market and check out other Sprout Social alternatives.

HubSpot is one of the most recognized names in customer relationship management, and for good reason. This CRM software is an excellent tool for nurturing customer relationships.

This inbound marketing and sales platform offers unified features for sales, marketing, and customer service. CRM features allow you to maintain records of all customer interactions and history so you can maintain a consistent customer experience.

HubSpot's content management system (CMS) helps you create, publish, and manage web content, including blog posts, landing pages, and website pages. Email marketing tools enable you to design and create branded email campaigns that maintain consistent branding your leads and customers will see. Automation features allow you to personalize communications at scale based on user behaviors and preferences.  Centralizing these assets ensures your online presence follows your brand guidelines. 

Your brand is the sum total of all interactions a customer has with your company, so pulling as many of these aspects as possible into the same arena makes it easier to boost your professional image.

Brand24 offers a combination of social media management and reputation monitoring, both of which are critical to brand management. It monitors your social channels in real time to help you stay up to date on conversations as they happen. You can also monitor competitor mentions to see what others are saying about your competitors and see how your brand compares.

While not a full social media management tool, Brand24 allows you to engage with social media conversations directly from the platform, making it easy to maintain an active presence and consistent messaging.

Tip: Take a look at some more Brand24 alternatives.

Bynder is a brand asset management system that helps you stay organized with your branded materials. As teams create more content, asset libraries proliferate and make it harder to find the content you need. It can also lead to creating duplicate content if you don’t know what you already have.

The Meltwater Blog

Fitness Apps Brand AI Visibility Index

The State of PR in 2026: What 1,100+ Comms Leaders Told us About the Future of the Industry

The 10 Best Brand Management Software and Tools 2026

B2B Social Listening: How to Turn Insights into Action

PR Pitch GEO Optimization: How PR Professionals Should Craft Pitches for AI Search and LLM Responses

PR + GEO: How to Win Visibility in AI Search & LLM Answers

Buzz vs. Engagement: What the Marty Supreme Campaign Teaches Us About Cultural Marketing

8 Best Competitive Intelligence Tools (2026 Buyers Guide)

How to Find Social Media Trends That Drive Strategy

Ultimate Guide to 2026 Social Media Holidays

LLM Metrics & KPIs: How to Measure & Improve AI Visibility

What Is Data Analytics? [Beginner’s Guide 2026]