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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

In recent years, influencer marketing has become a critical component of many brands' marketing strategies.

With the rise of social media and the growing influence of content creators, companies are increasingly turning to influencers to help them connect with their target audiences. But with new marketing channels comes new data to report. And sadly, influencer marketing reporting isn’t as neat and tidy as other methods.

These challenges are lengthening the learning curve for marketers, but it’s one they must complete in order for influencer marketing to reach its full potential. Influencers aren’t going away and are expected to play an increasing role in branding marketing. According to recent data:

As a whole, the industry is worth an estimated $13.8 billion as of 2021. 

17% of companies have allocated over half of their budgets to influencers.

89% of marketers say influencers are at least as effective as other channels.

There are a wealth of benefits at stake, and mastering the process of influencer marketing reporting is your one-way ticket to bragging rights and the ability to demonstrate real value in your efforts.

Let’s look at how you can get influencer marketing reporting right despite it being more fluid and less rooted in numbers.

What is Influencer Reporting and Why Does it Matter for ROI?

How Should Teams Track Influencer Campaign Performance?

How Can You Set Meaningful Goals for Influencer Campaigns?

Which Metrics Matter Most at Each Funnel Stage?

How to Track Influencer Impressions and Engagement

How Does Sentiment Analysis Improve Influencer Reporting?

How Can Teams Create Campaign Reports that Drive Action?

Simplify Influencer Reporting with Meltwater

Influencer reporting is the process of measuring and analyzing campaign performance to understand what impact influencer marketing has on your business. Strong reporting builds credibility by clearly connecting influencer activity to outcomes like engagement, sentiment, and revenue. It also produces the insights teams need to optimize future campaigns and invest with confidence.

To fully measure the impact of your influencer content, marketers need an easy way to keep all campaign content together. This way, you can dial into the performance of each piece of content so that no slice of ROI goes unaccounted for.

Tracking influencer campaigns consistently so you can monitor how they perform is essential. Here are a few key tactics to ensure your campaigns are tracked accurately. 

Affiliate links, discount codes, and UTM parameters

Affiliate links contain unique referral codes, user IDs, or other details that are specific to each influencer. The influencer will include this link in the content they produce, such as an ad, video, blog post, Instagram post, or other social media post. When a user clicks the link and completes the desired action, the influencer will receive a commission.

If your campaigns are geared to generate immediate sales, trackable affiliate links give you an easy way to gauge influencer success.

Count up the number of conversions for each unique link.

See who is pulling their weight in the campaign.

Similar to affiliate links, you can generate unique discount codes for your influencers to use in their content. These promo codes make it easy for marketers to track campaign performance at a glance.

See which codes are driving the most conversions to see your influencers’ effectiveness. Promo codes can also help you separate sales that come from influencers and sales that come from other marketing channels.

UTM parameters, or UTM codes, are simple codes that you can attach to a custom URL. They’re useful in tracking influencer marketing performance.

UTMs allows you to see how many people are clicking on your links, where they’re coming from, and what type of device they’re using. This information helps you see which marketing channels are working and which ones aren’t.

Use Meltwater’s influencer marketing capabilities to centralize and automate campaign data

Platforms like Meltwater's influencer marketing solution can help you manage all of your influencer marketing analytics and content from a single source. These platforms aggregate content from all of your selected influencers and social media networks, including Instagram Stories, hashtags, brand mentions, and keywords. This way, you can track the performance of individual influencers and pieces of content as well as your campaign as a whole.

Tip: Download your free Influencer Marketing Platform Buyer’s Guide.

Having clear alignment from the start, by setting clear goals for your influencer campaigns, is an essential step. Internally your marketing team should be clear on which businesses goals to tie campaign success back to, and you should be able to communicate this thoroughly with the influencers you partner with. When everyone agrees on what success looks like, it’s mush easier to plan, execute, and report on results that matter.

Influencer campaigns can support many objectives, from driving short-term sales and growing your audience to shaping brand sentiment, launching new products, or testing ideas before a broader rollout. The key is choosing goals that reflect your priorities for this specific campaign.

Once goals are set and shared, you can clearly connect campaign performance to business outcomes and track progress over time.

Here are some common influencer marketing goals and how you can measure them:

Building long-term influencer partnerships

Best for: Performance campaigns, promotions, product drops

Best for: New audiences, market expansion, top-of-funnel efforts

Best for: Brand repositioning, reputation management

Sentiment analysis of comments and mentions

Best for: Community building, long-term brand affinity

Engagement rate (likes, comments, shares, saves)

Best for: New product announcements or feature rollouts

Best for: Repurposing across paid, owned, and earned channels

Best for: Always-on programs, ambassador strategies

Get deeper insight into influencer marketing with our free eBook!

Influencer Reporting: How To Measure Impact & Prove ROI

What started out as a lip-syncing app has now turned into a full-fledged social media platform where people can share short videos on just about anything. Given its massive popularity, it’s no surprise marketers are seeking new ways to stand out and get their content noticed. That’s where TikTok hashtags come in.

Similar to using hashtags on Instagram, TikTok hashtags make it easier for users to find content they like. Content sharing the same hashtags others use may appeal to the same audience, helping your content to travel farther and faster than not using hashtags.

Sure, you could create your own hashtags or use any made-up variations. But wouldn’t it be better to use the top TikTok hashtags that tons of other people are already using?

We thought so, too, which is why we’ve rounded up some of the top TikTok viral hashtags to help you get ahead. Consider this your ultimate guide to popular hashtags on TikTok.

List of the Top Trending TikTok Viral Hashtags

Tip: Take a look at the viral phrases of 2023.

TikTok hashtags are text-based additions to TikTok video captions, starting with the hash symbol (#) followed by a word or phrase.

Hashtags on TikTok work similarly to other social media platforms. Users can add hashtags to their posts to make them more discoverable to other users. 

Hashtags can describe the content of a post, or they can be used to amplify a challenge or trend.

There are also hashtag challenges (HTCs) on TikTok that can go viral, such as the famous Lip Sync Challenge. These challenges often have their own specific hashtags that let users find all of the videos related to the challenge.

It’s no secret that TikTok is a crowded place. With more than a billion users worldwide and more than one million videos viewed each day, there’s a lot of competition. That makes it harder for brands to stand out on the platform — but not impossible.

Using a popular TikTok hashtag is a shortcut to more video views. Your video will be grouped with content using that same popular TikTok hashtag, making it easier for users interested in that hashtag to find you.

When you use TikTok hashtags strategically, you don’t have to rely on just your own audience. By appearing among related posts, you can extend your reach beyond your followers and connect with new audiences. It creates a self-fulfilling cycle — more views lead to more impressions in the feed, which lead to more views!

There's also the fact that, like on Instagram, TikTok users can follow hashtags of their choice. This means that they'll see content associated with those hashtags in their feeds, even if they're not searching for those hashtags. 

The social media landscape is always changing. Keep in mind that this list of top trending TikTok viral hashtags is subject to change. For now, here are 91 of the most popular hashtags to add to your TikTok videos. If you want to stay on top of the top trending TikTok hashtags, use a TikTok monitoring tool.

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

The Best TikTok Hashtags For More Views

The PR landscape in 2026 looks very different from even a few years ago. Modern PR teams must navigate a constantly evolving media environment where earned coverage, social conversations, influencer engagement, LLM visibility, and data-driven insights all play a role in shaping brand reputation. PR pros aren’t just distributing press releases anymore — they’re listening in real time, optimizing media outreach, and tying PR outcomes back to broader marketing goals.

There now exists a crowded market of PR technology tools designed to help communicators track coverage, build journalist relationships, analyze sentiment, and measure impact across a wide range of channels. A long-standing name in this space is Cision, known for its extensive media database, press release distribution, and PR workflow tools.

But as teams prioritize ease of use, stronger alignment with marketing and social teams and AI-powered insights they may want to explore Cision alternatives that better align with their strategy and day-to-day needs.

What Should You Look for in a Cision Alternative?

The following companies offer solutions that are good alternatives to what Cision is offering.

Scroll down to read more about their pros and cons:

Meltwater is a best-in-class social and media intelligence solution for PR, marketing, communications, and social professionals. From social media analytics and engagement solutions to an all-encompassing influencer marketing platform, Meltwater is designed to solve all the problems and obstacles (and take advantage of all the opportunities!) that come along with modern marketing.

Multi-Channel Monitoring. Track brand and topic mentions across news, social media, TV & radio, print, and podcasts for a complete view of earned media coverage

Real-time alerts & spike detection enabling teams to be notified instantly when conversation volume spikes or sentiment shifts

Sentiment & share-of-voice metrics to analyze how your brand is perceived across media and benchmark visibility against competitors or key topics

Custom scoring & comparative reports allowing PR teams to prioritize the coverage that matters most and compare coverage by region, product, or campaign

AI-assisted pitching & content generation — Use generative AI to draft pitches and press releases or find journalists who are the best match for your story based on key messages

LLM Visibility with GenAI Lens helps teams monitor how they are referenced, described, and positioned in AI models giving PR and communications teams early insight into AI-shaped narratives, misinformation risks, and emerging reputational trends

Meltwater is also an industry leader in AI innovation. Our AI-powered integrations empower users to make greater impacts and uncover deeper insights at scale. With Mira, your AI powered teammate, AI is seamlessly incorporated into your workflow, increasing efficiency, data accuracy, and productivity. 

Pricing: Custom packages available. Contact our team for a demo

Best for: Mid-size and enterprise companies looking for broad media intelligence, media relations, and social listening capabilities across numerous channels worldwide, with custom reporting options and robust analytics. 

From PR to communications to marketing to social media and every combination in between, Meltwater is a comprehensive, all-in-one Cision alternative. 

"What we value most about Meltwater is its ability to give us a comprehensive, real-time view of our media presence. Their platform allows us to easily track earned media mentions, monitor key conversations through customized keyword searches and social listening, and distribute press releases directly to targeted journalists. The ability to export clear, usable data for campaign, event, and reporting purposes is a major asset for our communications work." (Source)

Critical Mention is a media monitoring platform that helps businesses and brands keep tabs on their earned media mentions and coverage. 

Comprehensive real-time media monitoring across broadcast TV & radio, online news, podcasts, print, and social media channels

Powerful analytics, reporting, and visualization using customizable dashboards, share-of-voice metrics, sentiment insights, density maps, and integrated Google Analytics data

Media Contact Database & outreach tools with a searchable database of media contacts and influencer information to support PR and communications strategies

Contextual social listening allowing companies to capture customer feedback and sentiment through social listening features to inform reputation management

Pricing: Custom packages available. Contact through the form on their website.

Best for: Mid-sized to large PR and communications teams that require real-time, comprehensive earned-media monitoring and analytics 

While both Cision one and Critical Mention help users collect and monitor media coverage, CisionOne offers some added social media management capabilities.

"The reports are easily the best thing about critical mention. The analytics at the top, the breakdown of categories, the charts and the ability to view all coverage in one place is loved by myself and my clients." (Source)

GlobeNewswire offers a suite of PR solutions, including a media contacts database, social listening, media monitoring, and a press release distribution service.

Global press release distribution network targeted by geography, industry, and media type

Real-time analytics & performance tracking with dashboards showing reach, social engagement, and AI search visibility

Integrated PR & IR workflow — part of the Notified platform that combines distribution with media monitoring, media contacts, and social listening tools

A critical difference between GlobeNewswire and PR Newswire is the number of countries they distribute press releases to. GlobeNewswire serves 158 countries as of August 2025, compared to PR Newswire’s 170.

Pricing: No public pricing information available. Register through their website to get started with their services.

Best for: Comms teams prioritizing large-scale, compliant press release distribution with strong global reach, especially those needing to reach various stakeholders simultaneously

"What I appreciate most about Notified Public Relations Solutions is the platform’s ability to simplify media distribution and monitoring in one place. It’s reliable, easy to navigate, and helps streamline PR tasks without feeling overwhelming." (Source)

Newswire’s press release distribution service and software lets users distribute press releases, find journalists, and monitor media mentions.

Press release distribution to a broad media network with options for domestic and international reach

Custom media room & brand assets — hosts a branded newsroom space for your news, media assets, and content

Multimedia support & SEO visibility to help your story get indexed and seen across platforms

Newswire and Cision PRWeb are competitive tools, except when it comes to multimedia. Newswire has add-on charges for embedded video in its press releases, while PR Web offers unlimited media assets.

Pricing: Starter plans begin at $399. The largest plan starts at $965

Best for: Small to mid-sized businesses and lean PR teams seeking an affordable, easy-to-use press release distribution service with built-in media contacts and analytics tools without the complexity or cost of enterprise newswires.

"What I like best about Newswire is its ability to amplify a brand’s story with credibility and scale. Unlike traditional PR outreach, a single Newswire release can instantly place your announcement across hundreds of reputable media outlets, helping build trust, visibility, and SEO authority in one move." (Source)

NiceJob marketing software helps business owners manage review generation, referrals, and social media content.

 Automated review generation and management through email/SMS review invitations and customer follow-ups, increasing review volume on major platforms

Referral and social proof tools to automate customer referral invites and turn positive feedback into shareable social content and site widgets

Website integration and conversion tools — customizable “Convert” websites and social proof features to help turn visitors into leads and improve conversion rates

Cision does not have a comparable, standalone, reputation management solution. However, Cision offers enterprise-level solutions while NiceJob targets small business owners and localized markets.

Pricing: Their software plans start at $75/mo, and a free trial is available

Best for: Small businesses and local service brands in need of an automated way to generate more online reviews, referrals, and social proof to improve reputation, local SEO, and customer trust

"I really appreciate how intuitive the NiceJob interface is, which makes it straightforward to use. The assistance provided by the representative during setup was incredibly helpful, as they walked me through the process swiftly and efficiently. The ability of NiceJob to automate the solicitation of reviews without needing constant follow-up is immensely beneficial for my business..." (Source)

Prezly describes itself as a modern all-in-one PR suite. They are designed to consolidate media outreach, content publishing, contact tracking, and reporting into a single platform, replacing spreadsheets and improving workflows.

 PR CRM & contact management with a centralized media contact database offering segmentation, tags, interaction history, and enriched data to support targeted outreach

Multimedia press release creation & email campaigns enabling you to build and send visually rich press releases and personalized email campaigns directly from the platform

Analytics & performance tracking to measure campaign impact with real-time metrics on opens, clicks, newsroom visits, and linked coverage

According to Prezly’s website, its features differ from Cision’s in a number of key ways. For example, Cision offers media database selling while Prezly doesn’t, and Prezly offers a press release builder while Cision doesn’t.

Pricing: Plans start at $100 and go all the way up to custom Enterprise packages

Best for: Small to mid-sized PR teams and agencies that want a relationship-focused PR CRM combined with storytelling-first press releases and branded newsrooms, all in one intuitive platform

"I really like using Prezly.com because of its intuitive interface and seamless media distribution. It makes press release management and storytelling effortless, allowing me to create visually appealing content and share it with the right audience efficiently. The built-in CRM and multimedia support are also great features that streamline communication with journalists and stakeholders." (Source)

Businesses use Prowly to manage their PR and media relations using its media contacts database, media monitoring, media pitching, and other tools. 

Extensive media database & CRM — access and organize over 1 million journalist and media contacts with filtering, tagging, and relationship tracking

Get more insight into modern PR with our free eBook

7 Best Cision Alternatives With Evaluation Criteria For 2026

Public relations and media relations add significant 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.

But here's the deal: most PR doesn’t happen organically. It’s something that brands must proactively and intentionally pursue.

So, what is PR and how do you use it? This guide tells you everything you need to know for building a strong public relations foundation.

Why should companies care about public relations?

Advantages and disadvantages of public relations

Best public relations tools to build your image

Let’s start with the very basics: a public relations definition.

Public relations is defined as the practice of increasing awareness around a company or brand. It relies on media relations to earn press coverage, as well as content and KPIs to measure your PR performance.

Another PR meaning can be this: The planning of activities designed to shape the public’s view of your brand or company.

The Meltwater Blog

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7 Best Cision Alternatives With Evaluation Criteria For 2026

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