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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

Meltwater is a global company with 55 offices around the world. We are interested in supporting and partnering with our clients on a local level. From sourcing hyper-local editorial and broadcast publications for our global content database to support our clients in one of a dozen languages, building a partnership with our clients is always top of mind.

As Meltwater grows, we want to ensure we can connect with our clients and continue to partner with you. Many of you have already taken advantage of our in-app chat in your local language. Across the globe, work is increasingly done at different times, on mobile and online. We recognize our clients’ work isn’t limited to the normal 9-5 work day. Our clients need answers on their own terms — and that means 24 hour support, 7 days a week. So, we’re proud to announce three chat channels our clients can use to connect with Meltwater, 24/7:

Additionally, we now surface relevant articles and in-app tutorials while you are in the Meltwater Media Intelligence application. These articles and in-app tutorials allow you to learn when it works for you.

At Meltwater, we pride ourselves on being an ongoing partner to our 30,000 clients. Whether jumping on a call to assist in creating an internal newsletter or report for your boss or setting up new employees on the Meltwater platform, we want our clients to have personal and open communication with Meltwater.  With these new chat channels, our clients can communicate with Meltwater 24/7. 

Introducing a New Way to Partner with Our Clients

Great marketing campaigns are those that still resonate with us no matter how many years ago they ran. Not only will their catchy slogans or iconic logos be preserved for years to come, but their impact on our collective identity as a nation continues to be profound (think Yebo Gogo).

Great marketing campaigns make customers feel like they’re part of a family, not just another sale. Although big budget campaigns stemming from the USA and Britain have traditionally been more popular worldwide (think Nike’s Just Do It and Coca-Cola’s Open Happiness), social media has evened the playing field and there are now a growing number of South African campaigns reaching international audiences.

Here – in no particular order – are some of SA’s best marketing campaigns (and what you can learn from them).

Lay’s is about making life’s ordinary moments magical and memorable. Other than selling “irresistible and light” crisps, the brand is about optimism, spontaneity and fun, and reflects these values in their Facebook fan page and Twitter account. It’s no surprise that South African’s fastest selling potato chip brand has also had some memorable marketing campaigns.

During the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup hosted in Australia and New Zealand, Lay’s presented the “You Gotta Love Cricket” Campaign. SA cricket captain AB De Villiers was the face of the campaign and appeared on the limited edition Prego Sauce flavoured Lay’s. The campaign also included television commercials featuring AB, competitions for cricket fans to win VIP tickets to the World Cup Final, and the “Lay’s Cricket in the Nets” activation. The activation involved setting up cricket nets in select venues across South Africa that encouraged participants to bowl each other out. It allowed the brand to really engage with consumers and fans, and align themselves with one of the country’s most loved sports.

In addition to AB De Villiers, Lay’s has featured the faces of other famous sporting favourites on their chip packets. These personalities include Olympic gold medalist Ryk Neethling and 1995 Springbok rugby captain, Francois Pienaar – creating a connection between the brand and national pride.

If you were to follow directly in Lay’s footsteps you would need Wayne Van Niekerk or Chad le Clos as the face of your next campaign. Big name brand ambassadors are a long shot for most of us, but you can still drive brand awareness through authentic promotion with micro-influencer marketing. Stick to what your brand represents (which in the case of Lay’s is youthful optimism) develop relationships with micro-influencers or brand ambassadors, and let the world see just how delicious your product or service is.

Tip: Take a look at the best South African fashion influencers and the top South African Instagram influencers if you're considering looking for influencers to elevate your brand.

“Steve” from “Beep Bank” became one of the most popular characters of South African radio circa 2011 when the campaign was first released. For the three years that it ran, one couldn’t listen to a radio station in South Africa for more than half an hour without hearing Steve from Beep Bank again attempting unsuccessfully to convert FNB customers. Whether you loved him or loved to hate him, consumers all over the country knew his name and what he represented.

Once “Steve” was a household name, FNB rolled out billboards in major cities to remind South Africans why they need to join FNB.

Within the first year of the campaign, FNB’s sales increased by an astounding 40% and continued to rise throughout its duration, earning it the status of one of the country’s best marketing campaigns.

It’s becoming increasingly apparent that digital is the future, but the success of the “Steve” campaign shows that radio marketing can still be influential and powerful, especially in case where your product or service has a more generalised audience.  It also teaches us that characterisation and persistence can pay off, as these are often what makes a message most memorable.

Nando’s advert released the day after SONA 2017

The iconic South African fast food restaurant specialising in peri-peri- chicken has come to be known for its witty (and often risqué) satire of current events. Nando’s advertisements tap into local humour as a vehicle for marketing their food – and it’s worked incredibly well.

Their ongoing social media competitions and engagement with followers across all platforms has also been advantageous for the brand, which has grown exponentially over the last decade. There are now over 1 000 Nando’s stores in 30 different countries across the globe, and it’s widely considered to be South Africa’s most successful food franchise.

While much of Nando’s marketing is reactive in nature, they are known to engage in their tongue-in-cheek micro-campaigns. One such example was entitled, “After eating a Nando’s Roll”, and encouraged audiences to upload selfies or memes to Twitter showcasing that signature post-Portuguese roll look (see example below).

Sometimes a great one-liner for an advertisement is simply inspired by a newspaper headline, so when in need of a muse, look to current affairs. In addition to being hilarious, relevant and sometimes controversial, Nando’s advertisements are unique both in style and content (note their signature font and it’s instant recognisability).

Lastly, don’t forget the power of authenticity and humour. If your brand can get away with it, have fun with your marketing campaigns, and remember as far as content goes, local is always lekker.

In the run-up to the release of the new Jeep Renegade, the brand wanted to create a campaign that exemplified the nature of the vehicle itself: unconventional, unexpected and adventurous. Jeep decided to run a four-week teaser campaign leading up to the release of the new vehicle, which saw massive return for their marketing investment.

Jeep thought “out the box” for their #UnleashRenegade Campaign

The Jeep #UnleashRenegade Campaign partnered with radio station Cliff Central hosted by Gareth Cliff – well-known for being unconventional and edgy. Gareth and three other local influencers had to complete challenges created by the online community in order to prove themselves “tough” enough to drive the Jeep Renegade. The challenges were filmed and then uploaded online, driving audience engagement, social sharing and additional traffic to a dedicated micro-site (which featured hidden clues around the competition).

“Unconventional” advertisements were also deployed in local airports that involved just a vehicle-sized box with Jeep branding, increasing the hype around the car’s launch. A collaboration with the music identification app Shazam also encouraged audiences to “unleash” (download) the locally-made soundtrack heard on the television commercials.

In terms of ROI, Jeep achieved a 50% increase in sales, 770 new leads, 102 000 downloads of the Cliff Central podcast, 100 000 active engagements and a total of 26 million impressions on social media.

What you can learn: Jeep’s creativity in bringing the Renegade’s character to life underpins the campaign’s success. Consider looking at associated themes (e.g. adventure) when marketing your product or service, and then think about how you might go about turning those into live engagement opportunities.

From a hands on perspective, the campaign also shows us the growing power of online video as a medium for connecting with audiences. So, if you’ve got the budget to film it, then film it.

With 79% market share in the glass packaging industry, Consol is the leading glass packaging manufacturer in Southern Africa.  You may be familiar with a few of their latest innovations, namely the Grip and Go Glass, a glass water bottle with colourful grips. Or perhaps the Solar Jar, a light housed inside a consol glass bottle that’s fueled by solar energy. For their 70th birthday, Consol launched the #BringBackPure marketing campaign.

Consol Glass - Bring Back Pure

The ads focused on how much more fresh, cold and tasty milk tastes in glass compared to plastic bottles. Consol spoke to South Africans who nostalgically remembered the excitement of having milk delivered every morning. To emphasise the concept that “the best things come in glass,” the brand produced an ambitious campaign to bring back fresh farm milk in glass bottles and deliver to homes across Johannesburg and Cape Town.

In addition, people who had milk delivered to their house could nominate a friend to receive milk too. Instagram exploded with selfies with the milk bottles and the hashtag #BringBackPure.

Tip: Check out the most trending hashtags in South Africa.

What you can learn: What Consol did right was touch on nostalgia. What’s more memorable than your best childhood memory? Those who were interviewed remembered everything from the sound of the glasses clinking, to the taste of the cream on top and the smell of the fresh farm milk. Bringing up these memories, with the added social media involvement, made this Consol campaign one of their most successful. Don’t underestimate the power of marketing to people’s emotions.

If you’re looking to make changes to your marketing strategy, then ensure you’re equipped with the social media monitoring tools necessary to measure whether you’ve hit the mark, or need to go back to the drawing board. For more information on how to better measure your return on marketing investment, get in touch with the Meltwater team.

Tips from the Top: South Africa’s Best Marketing Campaigns

Personality-based Marketing: Communicating with Customers as Individuals Through AI

You’ve no doubt seen ads and received emails for certain products and thought, “That’s useful, I actually really want that…”, or been similarly amazed when you’re genuinely interested in your suggested content on social media.  Far from feeling pushy or annoying, we’re usually happy when it seems like someone has taken the time to understand us and our needs.

But how often does this personality-based marketing actually happen?

Whilst marketers can get a rough idea of the content and products that will be most useful and engaging to individuals, this outline is built on basic demographics which are only surface deep.  Things like purchase history, digital footprint, age and gender might give us correlation, but not causation. They show us how the individual has arrived at their destination but give us absolutely no insight into how or why they actually got there.

This is a problem because it treats individual users like mere statistics, which are then analysed in a spreadsheet, giving no real thought to the individuality and personality behind the outcomes of their unique decisions.

So, is there a way to better understand what actually drives their decisions?

And if we did, could we improve their online experience further so that they receive communications personalised for them?

This is exactly what personality-based marketing does. Put simply, it delivers communications to a customer based on their personality. This results in content that the customer wants to see, rather than content they have to see. 

Most marketing messages – even if targeted based on certain demographics – are delivered in exactly the same way to various different people.  We would never do this in real life when speaking to people we know, so given the option… why would we continue to do this with our customers?

Our personalities underpin how we think, feel and, most importantly, act. By tailoring communications through personality-based marketing, we can increase engagement and therefore reduce the need to send multiple emails i.e. less spam. By using personalised images, words and colours that really resonate with the individual, and focusing on features they will care about, we can build a more engaging user experience for every unique customer.  Over the long-term, we can also build far better relationships by connecting with them on a more genuine level, meaning we continue to understand them more deeply and can provide them with better and more useful products.

However, to do this we need to know the personality of the user and how they prefer to be communicated with. Historically, this hasn’t been easy to do for even a handful of customers, let alone thousands or even millions. Fortunately, advances in AI have now made this possible at scale by utilising algorithms that can effectively model underlying personalities that drive a host of different decisions.

But before looking at the results this technology can give us, how exactly do we define a customer’s personality and more importantly, how can it help organisations?

Personality models are a scientific method used to segment customers in a way that enables us to effectively predict their behaviour. Through this method, we can leverage decades of impartial psychological research to build up a better picture of why people behave as they do.

Rather than simply dividing your client base into groups with similar demographics and behaviour – age, gender, buying history and so on – personality models can help you actually understand deeper motivations.

For example, figuring out what motivates urban-dwelling professional women in their 30s to purchase your products and services requires careful research. Whilst this might work well in certain cases, it doesn’t scale well (or fast) as you add new groups or new products.

This differs from a traditional approach in that different personalities respond to stimuli in unique ways. By studying these responses, we have been able to build up an understanding of how appealing different elements – words, images, colours, fonts, layouts – will be to each personality. This allows us to segment customers much more effectively, before tailoring content and marketing messages to their unique personality profile.

However, the effectiveness of this method depends on the model of personality you use. At DataSine, we rely on the widely accepted Big Five, which has been statistically validated using a technique called factor analysis, rather than being based on the opinions of a handful of people and placed into a theoretical model.

The first step towards rolling out a personality-based marketing strategy is looking at data that demonstrates decision-making, such as:

Engagement with marketing campaigns, on social media, etc.

These decisions can then be used to inform an algorithm which associates them with personality traits. To give a very simple example, through our extensive research we know that people who spend more money on restaurants and bars are more likely to be extroverts, while people that spend more money in bookshops are more likely to be introverts.

We have also built an accurate understanding of content appeal into this algorithm – for instance, that extroverts are more likely to prefer bright images containing lots of people. This is done by asking different individuals to rate the appeal of a variety of content (words, images, colours etc.) and linking this appeal to their personality.

Using this algorithm, we can analyse transactional and behavioural data, score each customer against the Big Five dimensions and predict in advance exactly how appealing content will be to them. It is this ability to predict that gives personality-based marketing an advantage over tools such as A/B and multivariate testing. While these are great for optimisation, they can’t predict the future behaviour of users.

Personality-based Marketing in Practice: DataBank case study

With retail banking clients, the information used to build personality profiles is typically about where customers choose to spend their money. In this example with DataBank (name changed for privacy purposes), we used one years’ worth of debit card and credit card spending data for 500k customers.

Once the personality profiles of every customer had been determined, the customer base was segmented according to their strongest traits. In the case of DataBank, we focused on six personality segments:

You may have noticed six traits above when we mentioned that we used the Big Five earlier. This is because the Big Five traits each exist along a continuum, so on the “extraverted” trait, we also have “introverts”; “competitive” is on the same continuum as “agreeable” and the same with “open-minded” and “traditional”.

Using this deeper understanding of DataBank’s customers, we tailored content to deliver a personalised user experience to each of them. Many types and elements of content can be customised according to customer personality, including:

In this instance, we were focused on personalising images and copy in marketing emails.

Create variations based on target personality segments

As we were using six different personality segments in this campaign, we needed to create six new variations of this the desired email campaign.

The header image of the original email is analysed and tagged. In this case, with things like ‘travel’, ‘airplane’, and ‘airport’. Similar images that would offer greater appeal to a particular chosen personality segment are offered.

Text can be personalised at the level of the individual words (e.g. changing ‘wonderful’ to ‘enticing’) and sentences (e.g. focusing on the scarcity of the product rather than the quality), again according to what appeals most to each identified personality segment.

In the case of DataBank the main KPIs were click rates and conversion rates (i.e. the percentage of customers that completed the credit card sign up form after clicking through to the landing page).

Using personalised messaging tailored to the personality segments, we were able to increase click-through rates by 59% and conversion rates by 22%. And, because our algorithms use AI, these numbers are likely to increase with time as the algorithms become more and more adept at understanding the drivers of individual personalities.

These results are not so surprising when you consider that currently, the typical marketing email conveys the same message to very different people.

Whilst we do not need to change the overall strategic message of a campaign, or the tone of a brand to suit everyone, we can present these things to our individual customers far more effectively using personality-based marketing.

Using a hybrid approach that utilises AI while retaining the strategic and creative capabilities of marketers, we get the best of both worlds and can treat every customer as an individual and see the increases in engagement and sales to match.

Personality-Based Marketing

The changing media landscape will continue to shift. As technology increases the speed of communications (you can’t really get any faster than real time without mind reading…), the way brands interact with the media also changes. While some of us prefer to hold a paper copy of our favorite magazine or daily newspaper in our hands, like it or not, the world has gone digital and many traditional media outlets are feeling the squeeze. Print publications are shutting down operations and media outlets are pushing resources into building digital versions of the news to not only keep up with consumer behavior, but also to keep up with the news cycle.

Enter social media. We don’t wait to hear breaking news on a news broadcast at a specific time, or in the newspaper the next morning when the “big story” breaks. Instead, stories are breaking on social media as they happen and reporters and editors are scrambling to be a part of the news rather than falling behind.

Media outlets consisted of traditional TV, radio, and print, but now it has expanded to include many more digital channels where influencers are the mouthpiece rather than well-known reporters and reputable news names.

The age of social media has allowed a new era of media where creators and influencers have achieved online celebrity status by amassing a network of followers who trust what they have to say. This network tunes in to watch videos and read blogs on a regular basis to get the latest news on a variety of topics whether lifestyle-related, business-related, etc. It’s a new world of heavily opinionated and sometimes owned content in a world where your target audience has instant access to information.

Change can be difficult, but in this case, it’s a huge opportunity for brands. Here are five ways brands can benefit from the shift in the media landscape.

New digital channels mean that brands themselves can become influencers within their industry and target audience. A business owner can become a thought leader by developing a great blog, or a brand can have a viral social media profile, it just takes a littler work. There are great opportunities to publish branded content (both paid and non-paid), so the focus can be put on a targeted content strategy rather than hoping that a media outlet will pick up the story – fingers crossed the messaging is clear when it’s published!

Alternatively, brands can partner directly with influencers on a one-on-one basis to develop unique exclusives that will resonate with their target audience. There is a more involved creative process when putting together a successful influencer strategy. This also allows for highly targeted individual pitches to media and influencers. The emphasis is on quality, not quantity.

Brands can either connect directly with audiences through their own branded channels or through influencers with an already-established reach. Building trust through direct relationships is important when it comes to establishing a brand following. If you can work with an influencer who has already built that trust through authentic communication, then you can leverage that.

Whenever I work with clients on media strategies, television is always the ultimate goal. However, the reality is EVERYONE is looking for coverage on the news and daytime lifestyle shows. The way the media landscape is configured now, brands have the opportunity to connect through video both through their own branded channels as well as via influencers. Having a visual library to pull from also attracts attention from producers in certain media circles. Remember that you should develop a content strategy that includes both written and visual content. Print media, even in digital form isn’t going anywhere just yet.

Social media is constantly evolving, and the accessibility of live streaming options like Facebook Live, Instagram Live, YouTube Live, and many more means that brands and influencers can connect with their audiences in real time. You don’t have to be on all channels, but you should consider channels that make sense for your brand. And if you’re not at the very least Tweeting live from your events, you should really get on that…

As more information goes out on social media, the media pulls story ideas from there. 80% of journalists research their stories on social media. If you can manage to build a bit of buzz on your social channels about your brand, then they may pick up the story. You are creating your own valuable public relations opportunities.

Change doesn’t have to be scary. Media relations has changed significantly in the past decade because of the changing media landscape and it will continue to change as the world goes even further down the digital rabbit hole. It’s best to embrace it rather than fight it.

This was originally posted to this site on May 22, 2016. We repost articles that our readers may have missed the first time around. It was written by Candace Huntly for the SongBird Marketing Blog and Business2Community and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.

PR and Marketing Trends: Navigating Changing Media Landscapes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Is a Good Marketing Strategy for New Product Development?

Immersive Experiences are the Next Frontier in PR and Brand Marketing

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

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

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

The Top Examples of Immersive Experiences

What exactly is an immersive experience?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PR and Marketing Lessons From Immersive Experiences

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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