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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

If your brand lives online, so does your reputation, and it’s always one post, review, or news cycle away from a PR crisis. That’s why PR monitoring is a necessity. You need to know who’s talking about you and what they’re saying so you can take quick action, for better or worse.

How to Choose the Right PR Monitoring Platform

PR monitoring is the process of tracking and analyzing what is being said about your brand, company, or key people across news outlets, social media, blogs, and other public channels.

PR monitoring helps you measure public perception, spot potential issues early, and evaluate the impact of your PR efforts. It sounds a lot like media monitoring and social listening, but there are a few nuances to note:

PR monitoring focuses specifically on how your brand is being perceived in the public eye, often combining elements of media monitoring and social listening.

Media monitoring tracks mentions of your brand across news outlets, blogs, and press channels. 

Social listening gathers insights from platforms like X, Instagram, and Reddit to understand what people are saying in real time.

PR monitoring brings these together to give a broader view of your brand reputation. 

The key goals are to track sentiment, measure media coverage, and catch early signs of a crisis so you can respond quickly and strategically.

PR monitoring is important because with the non-stop news cycle and algorithm-driven social feeds, brand perception can shift overnight. Brands need a constant finger on their pulse so they can manage their images proactively. PR monitoring can help by protecting brand reputation, tracking media mentions, measuring PR campaign effectiveness, real-time crisis alerts, and competitive benchmarking.

Your reputation is your most valuable asset. PR monitoring is a crucial part of brand reputation management, helping you understand how your brand is viewed by the public, media, and stakeholders. That way, you can reinforce the positives and address the negatives before they spread.

Your brand can show up anywhere – podcasts, blog posts, press releases, news articles, and viral social content. Monitoring lets you see where and how you’re being mentioned, giving you a complete picture of your digital presence.

PR campaign impressions are easy to track, but they’re only part of the story. PR monitoring digs deeper so you can see which campaigns gained traction, how they were received, and what kind of media coverage they actually generated. You can use real data to refine your strategy and prove ROI.

Real-time crisis alerts and damage control

The faster you spot a brewing issue, the faster you can contain it. Monitoring tools flag spikes in negative sentiment, unusual activity, or damaging coverage, giving you a head start on damage control before a story spirals.

What you monitor for yourself, you can monitor for competitors. See how your brand compares to others in your industry on media reach, sentiment, and number of mentions. These side-by-side insights can help you better spot trends, gaps, and opportunities.

TIP: Don't miss our free guide to Mastering Media Relations for Crisis Communications for more information on how to monitor your brand reputation and reach out to journalists that matter when a crisis hits!

PR monitoring tools sweep public data sources (e.g., social media, blogs, press wires, forums), searching for mentions of your brand, products, or competitors. It pulls this data into a platform to give you a centralized view of your media coverage, including PR key performance indicators (KPIs) like:

Share of voice (how much you’re mentioned compared to competitors)

Sentiment (how people felt about your message)

Message pull-through (how often your messaging appears in coverage)

AI tools take that raw PR data and distill it into usable insights. For example, natural language processing helps you understand whether all that chatter is praise, sarcasm, complaints, or something else. Machine learning models surface anomalies, like a sudden jump in a niche forum, so you can act accordingly.

In the past, PR pros had to search for, collect, and compile this data manually. Today, automated tools provide broad, high-speed coverage across multiple channels. There’s some manual setup involved, but then you can collect insights and get real-time alerts automatically.

PR media monitoring is largely driven by technology. Here are some of the top tools that make PR monitoring a faster, more efficient process.

Meltwater’s AI-powered media intelligence suite provides a single source of truth across billions of sources and data points. PR pros can monitor for an unlimited number of keywords, then get real-time insights and alerts wherever those terms show up. 

Content breadth: Meltwater monitors mentions on all major social platforms, print sources, broadcast, and other media such as blogs, review sites, and podcasts

Sentiment analysis: understand the sentiment behind a message surge so you can be better prepared to address it

Real-time alerts: Be alerted to spikes and surges so you can spring into action quickly and mitigate crises early

GenAI Lens: offers visibility into how LLM models are representing your company

Get in touch to watch a product demo and find out more!

PR pros who are looking for extensive PR monitoring, including LLM coverage. Meltwater also eliminates the need to have multiple different tools for PR activities, so it's ideal for teams looking to consolidate efforts and save time.

AI technology analyzes the data to automatically calculate share of voice, consumer sentiment, media exposure, social media mentions, and other KPIs. Overviews let you quickly grasp essential details, with the option to dig several layers deeper into what you want to know.

When spikes in conversations occur, Meltwater spells out what those spikes mean so you can see what’s driving interest. 

See how easy Meltwater makes PR monitoring! Just click here and fill out the form below to request a demo.

Google Alerts is among the most simplistic media monitoring public relations tools. You can set up alerts for any keyword, brand, or topic, then get an email digest of all the places where that term has appeared each day.

PRs just getting started with media monitoring. Google Alerts offers a great introduction to the process and helps you get a sense of where your brand is showing up.  

Mention (which has been acquired by Agorapulse) lets you monitor any term or brand on social media or the internet. It reviews over a billion data sources daily and gives you a rundown of all the places where your keyword shows up. You can also grab data from up to two years in the past to see how mentions have evolved over time.

Assisted query creation: for accurate and precise results

Customizable alerts: get alerts relevant to your needs so you can better strategize and execute fast responses

Identify key influencers: discover the voices driving the conversation

Mention has an Enterprise Suite starting at $599

Mention is well suited to PR pros and brand managers looking for actionable insights and contextual analysis on brand mentions, that is easily shareable with multiple stakeholders.

Awario focuses specifically on brand mentions. It monitors multiple corners of the web, including popular social media platforms, blogs, and news sites, crawling billions of pages daily. You’ll receive a notification when someone mentions your brand.

Always-on monitoring: be the first to know when conversations impacting your brand occur

Extensive analytics: track sentiment, top influencers, reach and more

Multi-language support: track mentions in any language

Awario has three different plans: Starter, Pro, and Enterprise

Teams that require wider language coverage for PR monitoring and are looking for deep analytics to help determine the best course of action.

Awario also helps distinguish between meaningful mentions and filler noise, so you only see the mentions that might affect your brand image or PR strategy. And as with similar tools, you can apply this media monitoring to your competitors.

Perceptions can change faster than your home page loads, but real-time insights help you stay ahead of a story instead of scrambling to catch up. Here’s how PR monitoring works, top tools, and how you can do it effectively.

What Is PR Monitoring? Tools, Tips & Benefits Explained

2025 saw rebrands from three major brands — Cracker Barrel, HBO Max, and Jaguar — but which one got the biggest buzz from online audiences? We used our consumer intelligence solution, Explore+, to dig into the data. 

What were the biggest corporate rebrands of 2025?

Which corporate rebrand got the biggest buzz in 2025?

Cracker Barrel, HBO Max, and Jaguar had three of the biggest corporate rebrands of 2025. First, Jaguar launched its rebrand late in 2024 — complete with a new typeface, color palette, and logos — which continued to generate buzz into 2025. Next, the streamer formerly known as HBO Now (and then HBO Max and then Max) re-rebranded as HBO Max on July 9. Finally, on August 19, Cracker Barrel announced its rebranded diner design, menus, and logo, removing the “Old Timer” character leaning on a barrel and leaving only the chain’s name. The announcement sparked backlash from conservative groups in the US, leading Cracker Barrel to scrap the new logo.

From January 1 to November 15, 2025, social media users mentioned the Cracker Barrel rebrand about 351,000 times, significantly more than they discussed Jaguar’s rebrand (about 43,700 mentions) or HBO Max’s (about 40,000 mentions). Social media discussions about the Cracker Barrel rebrand also generated significantly higher levels of engagement, peaking at about 7.8 million in July 2025 alone. 

However, the conversation around Cracker Barrel has one important caveat: Much of it was generated by bots, according to reporting from The Wall Street Journal. As Meltwater Chief Product Officer Chris Hackney recently told Marketing Brew, bots are now a part of the digital landscape brands are facing. “Are your customers listening to those narratives, and how do you react?” he said. “And at what speed can you react to put forward the narrative that you think is true and accurate for your brand?”

And unlike Cracker Barrel’s acute spike in mentions and engagement by far, our analysis found that discussions about HBO Max’s and Jaguar’s rebrands took place over longer periods of time. 

For example, HBO Max’s July 2025 rebrand was being discussed as early as April, when the platform, still known as Max, changed its brand colors. The following month, Warner Bros. Discovery announced the forthcoming name change. By early July, volume of and engagement with the discussion was at a three-month low, making for a seamless re-rebrand. Consumers were used to it before it happened, best illustrated by the Warner Bros. Discovery press release stating simply: “It's good to be Home.” Meanwhile, in summer 2025, there was a resurgence of discussion of Jaguar’s 2024 rebrand with announced changes in company leadership, highlighting how brand perception is ongoing, with multiple opportunities to clarify messaging and positioning.  

Rebrands are a long-term game requiring long-term, intentional engagement with audiences to get right. Phased or gradual changes can smoothen the process. Meanwhile, dramatic spikes in conversation and controversy don’t always translate into genuine engagement. In the AI-age, bots are a constant threat, needing to be analyzed and assessed accordingly. Ultimately, rebrands are costly investments that can turn into expensive lessons. It’s imperative that brands test the waters, validate sentiment, and truly understand their audiences before committing.  

Which companies had the biggest corporate rebrands in 2025?

Cracker Barrel, HBO Max, and Jaguar had three of the biggest corporate rebrands of 2025. Jaguar launched its rebrand late in 2024 with a new typeface, color palette, and logos which generate into 2025. Max re-rebranded as HBO Max on July 9. Finally, on August 19, Cracker Barrel announced its rebranded diner design, menus, and logo. Backlash from conservative groups in the US led Cracker Barrel to scrap the new logo.

Which rebrand generated the most social media buzz in 2025?

Cracker Barrel generated the largest buzz on social media, with about 351,000 mentions of its rebrand. That is significantly more than mentions of Jaguar’s rebrand (about 43,700) or HBO Max’s (about 40,000). 

What was the sentiment around corporate rebrands in 2025?

Cracker Barrel had the highest positive sentiment at 16% and HBO Max had the lowest negative sentiment at 40%, showing that even when rebrands generate controversy or fluctuating buzz, certain measures of success can still be achieved.

Get the hard data on how much buzz your brand generates online. Tour our solution listening solution or fill out the form below for a free demo. 

2025’s Biggest Rebrands: Lessons from Cracker Barrel, HBO Max, and Jaguar

Influencer marketing is extremely effective for diversifying how you promote your brand or product, and is a great way to build brand loyalty.  Influencer marketing platforms help to facilitate the searching, vetting, and managing of influencers who participate in you influencer marketing program.

Social media influencers have large followings of engaged users who trust their opinions. It’s no surprise that 89% of brands say that influencer marketing ROI is comparable to, or better than other forms of marketing. 

But as the practice of using influencers grows, so do the challenges in finding, vetting, and managing them. The best influencer marketing platforms are designed to help facilitate these processes so you can manage and scale your influencer program effectively.

What is an Influencer Marketing Platform?

What Are the Best Influencer Marketing Platforms for 2026?

How does AI Improve Influencer Marketing Platforms?

How do Influencer Marketing Platforms Use Data for Brand Insights?

How to Choose the Best Influencer Marketing Platform for Your Team

The global influencer marketing industry is projected to grow to ~US $22.2 billion in 2025. (Stacker)

Brands on average earn approximately US $5.78 for every US $1 spent on influencer marketing. (Lovepixel Agency)

Instagram remains the dominant platform, with over 2 billion monthly active users and ~44.7 % of users aged 25-34. (HypeAuditor.com)

TikTok is rapidly growing and expected to reach ~1.8 billion monthly users, closing the gap with Instagram. (Boston 25 News)

User-generated content (UGC) is gaining traction: ~93 % of brands using UGC reported higher performance than traditional branded content. (Stacker)

The influencer marketing platform market is forecast to reach ~US $216.3 billion by 2033 (CAGR ~32.7 %). (GlobeNewswire)

An influencer marketing platform is a software solution used for finding, vetting, and managing influencers and influencer campaigns. They typically offer the ability to filter by topics, demographics, and metrics (such as engagement rate or follower count) so marketers can quickly narrow down their influencer search.

Once influencers of interest have been identified, influencer platforms may include the ability to reach out and send promotional gifts, as well as sign influencers up to participate in campaigns. From there comprehensive platforms allow you to manage the partnership, monitor performance, and facilitate payments.

Tip: Also take a look at the best influencer management platforms on the market and download your free Influencer Marketing Platform Buyer’s Guide.

A global leader in social listening and media relations, Meltwater brings confidence to the process of finding and vetting influencers, measuring campaign ROI, and partnership management. The Meltwater influencer marketing solution centralizes your influencer marketing efforts by giving you a single interface for your entire strategy.

Meltwater influencer marketing is best for marketers at medium to large and enterprise-level companies looking for a comprehensive influencer marketing solution that offers end-to-end management, from discovery to overseeing campaigns to analyzing performance. 

See how Meltwater helped Canon find and work with influencers for a 37% campaign performance increase.

Meltwater offers customized pricing for its influencer marketing platform. Get in touch for a demo and to find out what pricing options are available to suit your needs!

Tip: Explore influencer marketing costs and rates for more information on working with influencer partners!

Starting with influencer discovery, brands can lean on the platform's True Reach score to determine a creator's real audience size and level of influence, letting them choose partners based on engagement rather than audience size.

Meltwater’s influencer marketing solution also allows you to manage your entire end-to-end influencer marketing strategy. From content creation to campaign measurement, automated reporting helps you track the success of each piece of content and campaign.

Meltwater's influencer marketing solution sets a new standard in Influencer marketing, making it easy to systematize and streamline influencer strategies. Use AI-driven technology to easily identify best-fit influencers in your niche. You can filter your options based on attributes like audience size (nano influencers, micro-influencers, etc.), category, location, and more.

What’s more, you can analyze each prospect before moving forward with paid influencer campaigns. This helps you keep your influencer marketing costs low by avoiding partnerships with the wrong influencers.

Meltwater's influencer marketing solution also includes CRM functionality so you can maintain relationships with your chosen influencers. Keep track of conversations, content, timelines, and submit payments from a single source of truth.

Building strong partnerships is key to getting the best results from influencer marketing, and our platform does most of the heavy lifting for you.

Want to see Meltwater's influencer marketing solution in action? Request a 15-minute demo!

This recognizable name in content marketing is also a helpful influencer marketing platform. Its main focus is helping brands find influencers to partner with based on niche, engagement, and content. BuzzSumo searches for popular accounts that post similar content to yours so you can amplify your voice across their channels.

Brand managers and social media managers seeking an affordable and useful tool for influencer and journalist discovery.   

BuzzSumo offers four different price plans to choose from, three of which are applicable to the influencer marketing use-case: PR/Comms plan ($299/mo), Suite plan ($499/mo), and an Enterprise plan ($999/mo). They also offer a free trial.

BuzzSumo’s influencer marketing software helps you find influencers based on your social media channels. You can also set up alerts to see when your chosen influencers post content.

BuzzSumo also offers a free trial so you can test drive its influencer discovery features.

One of the simplest influencer marketing tools, Audiense gives you deeper insights into your target audience. By learning more about the segments that drive your business, you can discover the influencers your audience cares about.

Related audience signals and influencers in common

Audiense is recommended for social marketers and community managers who want to get deeper insights into their audience. Audiense excels at helping teams discover connections that go beyond basic demographics. You can see similarities in who your audience follows and get analysis on common trends in audience behavior.

Audiense offers two main plans: a Base plan which includes 25 reports per year and unlimited seats, and and Unlimited plan which includes unlimited reports per year, 3 seats and API access. The Base plan is available for a free trial, while the Unlimited plan is not.

While not a tool specifically designed for influencer marketing in the traditional sense, Audiense software offers a reverse engineering approach to influencer marketing. 

By partnering with influencers with whom your audience is already familiar, you’ll have a better chance of landing on their radars. What’s more, you’ll build positive brand association, trust, and familiarity, which are among influencer marketing’s biggest benefits.

BuzzStream's focus on list building helps you create and curate lists of potential influencers, send pitches, and track your results. Keep all of your influencer profile information in one place, including conversations, metrics, contact history, and more. Touted as an outreach CRM, BuzzStream also provides tools for influencer marketing.

BuzzStream is ideally suited for marketing teams who are keen on scaling and systematizing their outreach approach, with the goal of establishing relationships for link building purposes. 

BuzzStream offers four pricing packages, appealing to a wide range of budgets: Starter ($24/mo), Growth ($124/mo), Professional ($200/mo), and Custom (starting at $999/mo).

Once you earn media placements, BuzzStream will manage your links and mentions. It replaces clunky spreadsheets and helps your team avoid pitching the same publications.

Traackr is a comprehensive influencer marketing tool that bridges the gaps between finding, coordinating, and executing influencer campaigns.

Top 10 Influencer Marketing Platforms for 2026 (Compared)

A brand is so much more than a logo, a cool color palette, mission statement, social media, and a tagline. Likewise, a branding strategy is more than plastering your branded materials over everything you make and do.

As with any type of strategy, a brand strategy requires intentional and conscious thought about the who, what, where, when, why, and how behind your brand.

It’s about finding the right opportunities to get in front of your ideal audience. It’s also about saying no to opportunities that won’t help you present your brand in the best possible light.

All of the above is more easily accomplished with a brand strategy framework — a roadmap of sorts that helps you connect all the moving parts of your marketing strategy with your branding goals.

Here’s why brand strategy matters and how you can use our framework to create one of your own.

What Is a Branding Strategy and Why Is It Important?

First things first: We define a brand as a collection of visual elements, values, feelings, and characteristics you want people to associate with your name and products. Your brand identity encompasses your visual identity as well as your value proposition To achieve branding goals, companies focus on branding strategies to guide their efforts.

Tip: learn more about the difference between corporate branding and product branding.

A brand strategy is simply the plan to create, grow, and support a brand. With a plan, you have clarity over the goals you want to accomplish.

Your branding strategy approach can include developing visuals like a logo, colors, and typography. But it should also include intangibles, such as how you want your customers to feel about your brand or products, brand growth strategies, and the overall impact you want to make in the marketplace.

Branding is an essential part of every marketing strategy. It gives your consumer audience insight into who you are beyond a corporate name.

As a marketer, one of the greatest rewards from a well-thought-out brand strategy is seeing the impact on brand growth,, recognition, and an increasing customer base.

Learning how to build your brand strategically takes the opposite approach of brand development strategies based on gut instinct or personal preference. Rather, it requires asking questions and collecting data. It means testing ideas with consumers and considering your brand from multiple angles.

When creating a brand identity,  you’ll want to leave no stone unturned. 

Let’s look at where you should focus your efforts:

One of the fundamental steps of how to start a brand is to settle on your brand definition.

When you think of H&M, you’re likely to think of inexpensive, fashion-forward clothing. When Chips Ahoy! comes to mind, you might envision happy dancing cookies.

Chips Ahoy! “Drip” Commercial

Even CEOs and "solopreneurs" have brands. This is known as a personal brand, where the person is synonymous with their company, product, or service. Think Elon Musk and Gary Vee, for example.

Every brand has a definition. This is the way you want others to think of you. Put on paper how you define your brand, then build your brand values, brand voice, brand mission, and other brand guidelines around it.

No successful brand strategy is without a defined audience. Consider the people you want to buy from you. 

The Meltwater Blog

What Is PR Monitoring? Tools, Tips & Benefits Explained

2025’s Biggest Rebrands: Lessons from Cracker Barrel, HBO Max, and Jaguar

Top 10 Influencer Marketing Platforms for 2026 (Compared)

Mastering the Ultimate Brand Strategy Framework

What is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)? & How to Do It

The Future of PR Series: André Pechmann (Microsoft)

What Is Competitive Intelligence and Why Does It Matter?

Ultimate Guide to Writing PR Reports

Three Types of Influencers Driving Results for Alcohol Brands

What Is a PR Coverage Report? Guide & Best Practices

How To Use a Social Wall With Examples

What's Trending? The Top TikTok Trends for 2026