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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 time I tell someone that I work as a ‘Marketing Data Analyst,’ I’m met with questions about the specifics of the job. Typically, people assume I’m a data scientist and work exclusively with code and database querying languages. While there is overlap between marketing analysts and data scientists, there are also distinct differences. As the name suggests, marketing analysts specialize within the marketing field, so engage with marketing-specific programs such as CRM and Marketing Automation platforms. The modern marketing analyst has evolved over the last ten years from a strict data-crunching role within the confines of a marketing department to a cross-functional position that influences product development and strategy decisions.

As the marketing analyst position has expanded, so has its responsibility. On any given day, I will analyze program performance using data-driven marketing and statistics tools, develop Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to assess the effectiveness of existing programs and success of recently completed campaigns, monitor marketing trends, forecast future outcomes, highlight areas for growth and improvement, and report findings to management through text and data visualizations. Additionally, I work collaboratively with marketing team members to provide quantitative findings that support qualitative and illustrative reports and presentations.

There are a variety of tools and resources to help accomplish these daily tasks; some of those tools are available for free or freemium. Many of my responsibilities are standard for 0marketing analysts; however, specifics vary as marketing analysts work across a wide array of industries. (I.e. A conference focused marketing department might wade into statistics related to conference attendance, geography-related budgets, and the efficiency of specific caterers.)

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, marketing analyst employment is projected to increase by 19 percent from 2014 to 2024, an increase significantly faster than the 7% average for other occupations. The expected uptick in marketing analyst positions is due to the widespread adoption of analytics across all industries, creating more need to quantify and measure the effectiveness of marketing departments and their effect on business goals. The expected demand for marketing analysts thus begs the question: what traits make an effective marketing analyst?

In general, analysts are scientifically oriented, driven by numbers, data, and logic. Marketing analysts are no exception, but they also possess an appreciation for data visualization, design, and collaboration. Strong math, statistics, and analytics skills are vital to success in this role, and, although not required for all organizations, there is an increased interest by employers placed on technical skill and expertise in statistical analysis software, predictive analytics, and SQL databases. Further, effective communication is a critical function of the marketing analyst role—it’s imperative to relay key findings to colleagues and decision makers (including non-technical audiences) in easy to understand language. It is this communication that is often the basis for future department financial decisions.

Overall, marketing analysts study information to help their company and team make informed strategic decisions and optimize processes. Marketing analysts have the ability—if utilized appropriately—to positively contribute to the health and progression of a successful marketing department.

If you’re considering implementing more data-driven processes into your marketing department, download our free ebook, The Keys to the Kingdom: Making Marketing More Data-Centric, to get started.

Why You Need a Marketing Data Analyst on Your Team

Content marketing is a newish role, and we can’t always find that person with a journalism background. So what do you do? Spotting and mentoring talent has become an important skill for content marketing managers.

Creating engaging content continues to be a focus for content marketers, with 2016 Content Marketing Institute research citing it as the top priority for B2B (72 percent)  and B2C (56 percent) marketers. Content as a priority is due, in large part, to the difficulty in having the resources to create compelling content that maps to the varying stages of the buyer’s journey.

Many marketers pursue increasing their freelance writing budgets or syndicating content to fill those gaps. And although those are great tactics, they overlook a frequently underutilized content resource: your current staff outside of the content team.

Early in my content marketing career, I spotted a departmental administrative assistant with some extra time on her hands who had a knack for proofreading and copyediting. In fact, it turned out she had been doing significant research and rewrites for one of our team’s writers on a regular basis. Like any smart content marketer would, I sat down to talk to her about career goals and asked if she was interested in pursuing a marketing career. Once I found out that she was, I gave her bite-sized writing assignments, kept track of customer praise for her work and met with her regularly to provide mentoring and feedback.

In a few months, I was able to make the case for promoting her to a writer position on the team. Not only did this broaden our team’s writing bench strength, but it also launched her on a career path she’s still on today. As the manager who saw that initial spark, that feels great.

Who are good candidates for content mentorship? Of course, not everyone is interested in joining your content team. Many employees are happy to be right where they are with a full plate of duties. Still, I have consistently found content rock stars in a few of the same roles:

Product Managers: With insight into your product road map and a knowledge of your customer’s key issues your customers bring up, these folks can help you identify the day-to-day problems your customers face and how to fix them.

Sales Reps: Your sales team spends every day talking to prospective customers. If they’re engaging in social selling, they can be a great resource for the latest trends and news that you can build off of for your content, not to mention insights on thought leaders to quote.

Data Analysts: Whenever you see a great piece of content that involves slicing and dicing an organization’s user or customer data in a meaningful way, you’ve likely been consuming the work of a data analyst. They can help pinpoint unique and exciting data while deriving insights your customers find interesting.

Customer Success or Community Managers: If you’re looking for stories to elevate and real life examples for how your product or service is making a difference in customer lives, these are the folks who can uncover the right stories to feature.

Executive Admins: These professionals often have a better sense of what’s going on in the company—from what partnerships are in the works to what the CEO said in his most recent media interview—than anyone else. And thanks to spending the bulk of their days on executive communication activities, they typically have sharp and efficient writing skills.

Ideal Buyer: In many cases, your organization has someone in the functional role that your company sells to (B2B), or has numerous people who make up your typical consumer base. If they have access to and experience with your product or service, they’re a valuable resource for your content team.

How to start mentoring new content team members

Once you’ve identified a couple of prospective content mentees, how do you begin a mentorship relationship with them? It all starts with a conversation. Set up a private in-person meeting to talk to them about the content team’s needs and ask them about their career goals. How do their goals and your content needs overlap?

This conversation will serve as the foundation for your mentorship road map. During your initial meeting, you’ll be looking to determine what sort of role, if any, this person is interested in and how to make the most of their time. By the end of the conversation, you’ll want to know:

Do they have an interest in writing for the blog or creating other written resources?

Do they have another skill or talent, such as photography, videography or illustration, that they can use to produce content?

What unique perspective or information do they have that you can amplify?

What expertise can they contribute to the content team?

While it may seem time-consuming, even daunting, to set up a series of meetings to recruit employees onto your team, this approach is more successful than sending out a blanket call for blog authors or another narrow, tactical request. Why? Because instead of framing your appeal through the lens of what team members can do for you, you’re approaching them from the perspective of how this opportunity can assist them in their career.

Your company culture will dictate if you will want to setup a more formal mentoring program, or if a casual approach is best. Regardless of which approach you take, a few common best practices will come into play:

Set clear expectations. How often will you meet? How long will the mentoring last? What is the result? Make sure both parties are aligned.

Define a goal, and how to get there. In this context, it could be writing a specific number of blog posts, completing an e-book, or creating a template.

Encourage and inspire your mentee. Invite them to content team brainstorms. Acknowledge their contributions in all-hands meetings.

Celebrate their success and attainment of their goals. Provide timely, constructive feedback.

For more ideas on how to increase your content team by nurturing internal talent, check out our e-book In-Sourcing Your Content Creation.

Non-Marketing Employees: An Untapped Content Resource

B2B marketers today certainly live in “interesting times” (in the sense of the not-actually-Chinese curse).

While search, social media, ecommerce and content marketing have dramatically altered the roles of buyers and sellers, a number of traditional channels (that is, pre-dating millennials) remain highly effective.

The collection of facts and staticts below shed light on this paradox, as well as other insights. Here are four key takeaways that we have included in this blog post from this research for Business-2-Business marketers:

Sales people won’t disappear, but their role is changing, and many are struggling to adapt. Statistics say that 82% of B2B decision makers think sales reps are unprepared; product demonstrations are among the least-valued types of information for buyers; and half of all B2B purchases may be made directly online by 2018. To succeed, B2B sales people need to focus on the three Rs—no, not reading, `riting and `rythmetic, but rather responsiveness, or the response rate (50% of sales go to the first salesperson to contact a prospect), relationships, and references.

Social media accounts are like seat belts; they’re only effective if you actually use them. 55% of B2B buyers say they search for product/vendor information on social media. Yet while 95% of B2B marketers have created corporate social media accounts, half are still not active on social media on a regular basis.

Don’t rely too much on advertising. Ads certainly have their place in a web presence optimization (WPO) framework, as the “paid” pillar in the paid-owned-shared-earned (POSE) media model. Search ads are effective for capturing immediate demand and display ads are useful for brand awareness. But 80% of B2B decision makers prefer to get information from articles rather than advertising, and 40% of millennials don’t trust ads—so strong organic tactics and strategies need to be part of the mix as well.

The classics still rock. Despite the tremendous growth in digital marketing, several basic old-school marketing channels remain highly effective. Trade shows remain the top source for B2B lead generation, with 77% of marketers saying they generate a significant quantity of leads and a better conversion rate. 59% of CMOs still say print marketing is an effective channel—and 64% of buyers cite print among their trusted sources of information—while 51% still see value in direct mail and email marketing.

Get more inspiration from these 20 B2B marketing and digital business statistical facts.

Death of the salesman? When purchasing online, B2B buyers rate pricing as the most useful information (though not, generally, special offers or discounts). Technical information and specifications are the next-most important topic. Product demonstrations are least valued. (V3B Blog)

55% of B2B buyers and internet users search for information on social media. (Biznology)

Today’s sales process takes 22% longer than 5 years ago. (Biznology)

91% of customer say they’d give referrals; only 11% of salespeople ask for referrals. And 82% of B2B decision makers think sales reps are unprepared. (Biznology)

80% of business decision makers prefer to get company information in a series of content marketing methods, like articles and blog posts, versus through advertising. (B2B PR Sense Blog)

B2B customers now expect the same range of omnichannel buying options they enjoy as consumers – which is why almost half of B2B buyers (49%) prefer to use consumer websites to make work-related purchases. (The Future of Commerce)

52% of B2B buyers say they expect half of their purchases to be made online by 2018. (The Future of Commerce)

78% of B2B customers (and 83% of consumers) say fulfillment options – such as next-day delivery – are important or very important. (The Future of Commerce)

Although 95% of B2B marketers have created corporate social media accounts, half still are not active on social media on a regular basis to showcase corporate content, like through blog posts–and just 10% feel they are able to articulate the business value of social media and marketing efforts. (MediaPost)

Good old-fashioned trade shows remain the top source for B2B lead generation and reaching new customers, with 77% of marketers saying they generate a significant quantity of leads, and 82% saying they generate high-quality leads. (MediaPost)

As a business statistic, the average cost of a B2B sales lead varies widely by industry. Healthcare leads are most expensive ($60) followed by business/finance ($43). At the low end are leads for marketing products/services ($32) and technology ($31). (B2B Marketing Insider)

Just 34% of B2B organizations say they touch leads with lead nurturing on a monthly basis as part of their marketing efforts (B2B Marketing Insider)

Six of the ten busiest websites are based in the U.S. – but 86% of their visitors come from outside America. (TechCrunch)

15 of the 25 largest U.S. tech companies were founded by first- or second-generation Americans. (TechCrunch)

Marketing is all about digital now, right? Not quite. 59% of CMOs still say print advertising is an effective marketing channel over digital marketing or even email marketing. 58% say the same for TV, 51% direct mail, and almost half radio and telemarketing. (AdWeek)

The larger the company, the higher the marketing expense budget as a percentage of revenue. Firms with revenue of $5 billion or more spend on average 11 percent, compared with 9.2 percent for those with revenue between $500 million and $1 billion. Digital Marketing budgets as a percentage of revenue varied widely, with nearly half of companies (46%) spending less than 9% of revenue; 24% spending 9-13% of revenue; and 30% spending more than 13% of revenue. (Gartner)

40% of millennials, many who are internet users, (aged 25-34) don’t trust advertising. Marketers trying to appeal to this group need to understand that, but also that this group is highly educated (33% have a college degree) but their struggles include finances: many have student loan debt, 52% don’t have enough money to cover basic living costs, and 35% are either unemployed or work part-time. (Heidi Cohen)

50% of sales are received by the first salesperson to contact a prospect. (Biznology)

So much for the “death” of old media. Though the heyday of print may be over, the two most trusted sources of information remain the online versions of traditional media outlets (68%) and print (64%). Blogs come in at 21% (ugh). (Cision)

14% of businesses fail due to a poor marketing strategy that includes a content marketing strategy, email marketing and methods of improving conversion rates. (B2B PR Sense Blog)

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

The Meltwater Blog

Why You Need a Marketing Data Analyst on Your Team

Non-Marketing Employees: An Untapped Content Resource

20 Brilliant B2B Marketing and Digital Business Stats and Facts