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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

Events thrive on social media exposure. Whether you’re planning a gala, in-store promo, or street marketing event, those attending can help you get in front of thousands of other viewers just by posting about the event. Social walls are what inspire and encourage this form of UGC and we'll discuss some ways you can incorporate them into your strategy.

Read on to learn best practices for using a social wall and see how other brands are getting it right.

Let’s start with the definitely of a social wall. A social wall is a curation of social media posts (largely user-generated) related to a specific event, product, service, or brand. An aggregator automatically collects relevant posts to display in an event space or on a website. They typically update in real-time and are often interactive. Companies usually have the control to moderate this collection so that only the most relevant content appears. 

Social walls usually involve a digital screen that gathers, filters, and displays tagged and shared content relevant to the event.

For example, a new restaurant using a #GrandOpening hashtag might pull all social media posts using this hashtag to display on the social wall. 

People at the event can see the social content other people have uploaded from the event using that hashtag. This not only serves to inspire others to share their own content but also shows them the right hashtag to use.

Within minutes, a person uploading content to a brand’s Instagram or Facebook might see their content appear on the social media wall.

Social media walls are all about blurring the lines between online social media engagement and physical location engagement. Users can take to social media to talk and share about an event in real-time.

Social media walls are an underutilized element of social media marketing. With one tool and a few clicks, social walls can pull user-generated content as well as owned content from your channels to demonstrate popularity and inspire wider engagement. It's also a powerful success indicator for sharing with stakeholders, providing a clear picture of your event’s reach.

As a whole, social media functions like a two-way street. It’s an outlet for brands to share content, news, and updates with an audience. But it’s also beneficial (arguably more-so) when a brand’s audience also shares brand-related content to their social networks.

A social wall pulls users into the moment. Attendees engage with the wall by posting content and will see their posts displayed on the wall shortly after.

With increased engagement for their social walls, brands get a flood of incredibly useful UGC on their social feeds. Companies can embed the wall on their website to amplify the impact of the event. This way, the content isn’t “lost” after the event and continues making a statement to website visitors, prospects, and customers. Make a social wall part of your content calendar so you can maximize every opportunity.

User-generated content has an innate way of sounding more authentic and less like sales jargon. When customers and attendees are doing the talking for you, you reach a wider audience that’s in tune with the conversation.

You’ll find social media walls at live events of all sorts and sizes, from music festivals to in-store openings. While there are no hard-and-fast rules about when to use a social media wall, the general goal is to build a buzz. 

For example, let’s say your next event is a new product launch. A social wall can help to build hype around what the product might be or what new features it will include. Once the product is unveiled, your social wall can display attendees’ first reactions. This is a great way to help your media partners get “sound bites” for articles and press releases on your event.

As part of your event, you can include a hashtag campaign to generate interest in your event on social media. Ask people to use a certain hashtag when they’re posting about the event. That hashtag will be the trigger for users’ content to appear on your social wall.

The above details when a public social wall may be implemented but the term can also apply to internal social listening. Are people complaining about a certain feature or service? Are customers making suggestions on how you can improve? Do you want to keep tabs on a specific hashtag? A social wall monitors all of the above on your behalf so you can collect feedback in a central place.

Considering using a social wall as part of your strategy? You can approach this in different ways.

The best place to start is by exploring social media wall tools and their features and functions. From there, you can see how those tools can enable your social engagement strategy.

The Meltwater platform offers newsfeed functionality for brands to curate and display UGC on TV screens, dashboards, or websites as a part of social media marketing activities. 

Use sponsors to spearhead your social wall strategy by promoting your hashtag campaign. These posts can also provide examples and inspiration for others to follow. This could be an ad for a product or your favorite influencer posting a selfie, for example.

If your event includes guest speakers, post highlights of their talks on your social wall. This allows people who aren’t at the event to take part in the conversation. 

Promote a giveaway, contest, or poll that gets people talking. This is a direct ask for customer engagement and makes it easy for anyone to participate.

Another easy way to gain user-generated content is by asking a question and sharing the answers. Ask a question and let your audience post their answers with your chosen hashtag.

Or you could do the inverse: if you have a guest speaker, ask the audience to share their questions and let the speaker answer them.

Social events aren’t limited to your in-person events. Your non-attendees can stay in the loop when others are sharing updates to your social feeds.

It's similar to giving a play-by-play at a football game. Your audience members are your very own commentators who can share all the best moments of your event in real time.

The fun part about social walls is that no two ever look quite the same. This can also be the biggest challenge, especially if you’re preparing your first social media wall.

Get inspired with these social media wall examples from brands that got it right.

NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning unveiled a new video wall for maximizing digital and social interactions. Dubbed Bolts Social Central, the wall was designed to aggregate fans’ Twitter and Instagram posts into a single display for all visitors to view. For fans that check into the Forum via Facebook, their Facebook profile photos will also be displayed.

To accompany the new video wall, the brand also launched a new digital photo booth that lets visitors take photos of themselves in a mock-up penalty box. Fans can upload their photo to the digital video wall via Instagram or Twitter, along with other user-generated content.

The highly anticipated Tomorrowland music festival introduced a social media wall to its virtual event in 2020. The event already had an impressive social media following, including more than 9.8 million YouTube subscribers and 7.4 million Instagram followers. It uses social media to engage its attendees and connect them to events across the massive event space.

For its virtual event, Tomorrowland created a new hashtag and encouraged attendees to use it across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Featured sponsors like Pepsi Max and BMW also used the social wall to promote their products as well as the event. 

The big takeaway from Tomorrowland's social wall is how customizable and curated the social content can be. The look and feel of the wall made the ads blend in naturally with the user-generated content.

In a time where social interactions were needed most, Harvard stepped up to honor its 2020 graduates with the help of a social wall. Using the hashtag #HKSGrad, the virtual event garnered more than 100 unique social media posts. Each post is displayed on the school’s website on a page dedicated to honoring 2020 graduates. It’s one of our favorite university social feeds to-date.  

For more examples on how universities or higher ed institutions can leverage UGC, download our UGC for Universities & Higher Education guide.

No event? No problem! Rebel Ice Cream shows that you can include a social wall on your website for any occasion, even if it’s just to add social proof to your brand.

The rapid growth creamery got its start on Kickstarter and quickly rose to fame for its low-fat, low-carb ice cream. It shares its handle and hashtag on its home page and pulls user-generated content from its social feeds for its website visitors.

Investing in a hashtag campaign? Trying to build social proof? Want your event to gain as much exposure as possible? Social walls offer unlimited potential. Reach out to our team today to start crafting your strategy by using our social media listening platform in combination with a Newsfeed integration!

Social media walls add instant credibility to your event. They are a display of social proof showcasing the event unfolding in real-time. Attendees become part of the buzz as they share their experiences with others, expanding your event’s reach in a way that’s nearly effortless.

How To Use a Social Wall With Examples

TikTok trends are the beating heart and soul of TikTok. They often form organically and develop a life of their own through the TikTok community. Creating content on TikTok that relates to current and topical trends gains more traction as it's relatable and shareable. So, let's look at what’s trending on TikTok?

14 Ways for Brands to Participate in TikTok Trends

Tip: Make sure you're aware of all the basics you need to leverage TikTok as a channel. These resources will help you: What Is TikTok And How Did It Become So Successful?, TikTok Stats You Need To Know, How To Use TikTok For Business

TikTok trends are made up of user generated video content that all share commonalities and themes. They frequently use the same songs or sounds. These trends encourage others to engage on TikTok, either with their own contributions or by engaging with similar content.

Learning about the videos trending on TikTok can inspire your own content strategy. It can also give your content more visibility by appearing alongside similar content.

TikTok trends change all the time, so it’s important for marketers to keep up to date on current TikTok trends to maximize their presence.

GRWM (Get Ready With Me): Involves choosing outfits, hair-stying, or makeup routines for events or regular activities. A classic video format that has many different variations. 

POV (Point of View): Videos from a certain perspective commonly illustrating points of frustration or interest. Despite the often fast-and-lose interpretation of what "POV" means, this trend has remained strong on TikTok for years.

ASMR: Close up shots and crystal clear sounds in high-quality mics. Typically made for the relaxation effect, but you definitely need to find noises that appeal to you. Luckily there's no shortage to choose from.

TikTok Shop reviews: Users share their opinions on popular TikTok Shop items, often sharing whether or not they think it's worth the hype. These videos are commonly tagged with #tiktokmademebuy it.

Reaction videos: There are many types of reaction video, but one of the more popular involves first-time viewings of shows or movies.

Dances: One of the original types of TikTok trends that took off during Covid are bite-size dance videos to popular audios and songs.

These trends are largely evergreen, but there are many more niche and viral trends that have had major cultural impacts before fading away. You keep track of what's trending, and how users are responding, using social listening tools for TikTok monitoring (and be sure to keep up with the Meltwater blog for topical trend analysis!)

Keeping up with trends and consumer preferences as a marketer is a bit like trying to hit a moving target. It's difficult but it you get it right, the rewards are many. Being able to jump on TikTok trends in an authentic way humanizes your brand. You can develop a rapport with your customers, and attract new fans. This kind of brand equity goes a long way toward inspiring sales and loyalty.

Make sure you get the most out of hopping on a trend and don't create problems. Learn how in our Ultimate Guide to Trendjacking.

Widening the lens out a bit, understanding what's trending allows you to follow consumer behavior, to learn how their communicating. When you deeply understand how they interact with each other it can inform marketing campaigns, bring to light certain preferences, offer clarity on likes and dislikes, and more. This helps you keep your social media content relevant and topical.

 Monitoring social media trends is best practice and applies to all social channels, like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn. The influencer you partner with today might be old news next year. The cool split-screen effect on your last video might be viewed as cliche. An unlikely viral TikTok might just inspire your next piece of content.

Whether you're building a small business marketing strategy or managing brand awareness for a global brand, TikTok trend discovery can help you feel right at home on the app.

If you're looking for some inspiration, we’ve rounded up some of the most popular types of TikTok videos and TikTok themes that will help you participate in trends:

One of the OG TikTok trends, a hashtag challenge (HTC) uses a hashtag of your choice, then requests followers to create their own spin based on the challenge.

Participants will include the branded hashtag in their content, helping your hashtag and brand to travel farther.

Peloton’s #TogetherWeGoFar comes to mind. Not only does the hashtag evoke images of connectivity and group empowerment, but it also created a whole slew of user-generated content around the brand’s core products.

Tip: Learn more about The Principles of Wildly Successful Social Media Challenges and learn more about how to use hashtags.

Satisfying videos have emerged in their own category of sorts.

These are the videos that you just can’t look away from because they’re so, well, satisfying.

Think of someone masterfully painting a room or decorating a cake with picture-perfect precision. Smooth-gliding calligraphy pens drawing perfect circles, or even hands laying bricks in a creative way. Bonus points if the video comes with soothing music.

Oddly Satisfying Video With Relaxing & Calm Deep Sleep Music for Stress Relief & Meditation Ep200

Another original TikTok trend, dance challenges (especially those with an original sound) helped to skyrocket the platform to global fame.

TikTokers will do a dance, then issue a challenge for others to copy the dance (and use the dance challenge hashtag, of course). It’s another example of how TikTok builds community and engagement.

There are some successful examples of brands using dance challenges for promotion, such as  Prime Video using this dance to generate buzz for a new season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel:

Dance the night away. 💖 #themarvelousmrsmaisel #primevideo #pslchallenge #pinkshoelaces #maiselchallenge #maisel #maiseldance 

The video is tagged with #maiseldance and posed as a challenge (#pslchallenge) inspiring a slew of creators to get in on the fun:

Users will also often take it upon themselves to create a dance craze based on popular media. Look no further than the Wednesday phenomenon. 

✨ WEDNESDAY Dance Challenge ✨ ( Bloody Mary~Lady Gaga) | TikTok Dance Compilation

This type of UGC is hugely valuable for creating interest that turns into eyeballs, viewers, and purchases.  

Lip sync videos will likely never go out of style on TikTok. Like dance videos, lip sync is one of the oldest styles of video, letting users sing along to their favorite songs or audio clips in a whimsical way.

They’re also super easy to create, which is part of their appeal. Just start a new video, choose a song or a soundbite, go back to the recording screen and you're ready to go!

Amazing lip sync TikTok compilation (may 2020)

During the pandemic, walls came down as Zoom calls let our coworkers, teachers, and long-distance friends enter our the homes.

This distinct societal moment may have something to do with the popularity of a-day-in-the-life TikTok videos, where users showcase a small slice of what their day-to-day lives look like.

Brands can easily use these kinds of video to highlight different offices and inspire potential applicants with the office culture.

Day In The Life 🍀 TikTok Compilation

TikToks power to cultivate community is one of its greatest gifts. Over the years, several prominent subcultures have emerged and they continue to grow and evolve.

Examples include #booktok, #cleantok, #gymtok, #dadtok, #momtok, and #witchtok. 

Brands should tread carefully when trying to ingratiate themselves with a TikTok subculture, but if it can be done tastefully and offers something of value to the community, then there are plenty of positive dividends.

Pop culture references and memes are defining features of many social media platforms, including TikTok.

TikTok users will often reference popular TV shows and movies in their content to respond to certain topics, news stories, or comments on videos. Brands can easily get in on the action as well, just make sure you know your meme!

We’ve all gone through that Ugly Duckling phase of life. Some people are more willing to look back on those days than others, however, and their bravery gives us the wonderful and humanizing glow-up video trend. These videos show a before-and-after look at a person, showing that beauty is subjective and knows no age.

Tip: Take a look at the top beauty influencers to inspire your brand.

Not only are glow-ups super relatable, but they also give you that “wait for it” moment, keeping you hanging on to see the end result.

Brands can use the glow-up trend to humanize their corporate image, or adapt it when celebrating a milestone (i.e. we started with three people in a room and dream and now we're opening our 3rd office!)

Glow Ups That Made My Jaw Drop | TikTok Compilation

The word ‘vulnerable’ has become a trend in its own right. After the pandemic, more people are expressing their need form real connections with others. There's also a growing dissatisfaction with a lack of in-person connection, so many people share their frustration about this and post videos trying to establish a less digital-heavy life. They’re putting it all out there as a way to break down walls. What brands can learn from this is that genuine and vulnerable communication works.

Engagement is key to going viral, and one of the easiest ways to inspire engagement is to make participation easy and fun. You can create a simple video that asks viewers to comment something specific in response. It might be something like “Drop your favorite dance challenge” or “Caption this video”. The TikTok comments are often a place of hilarious takes and fun conversations are regularly sparked, so you never want to discount the power of the comment section.

Going behind the scenes has always enthralled social media users, and this TikTok trend is no different. Given TikTok’s inherently authentic nature, behind-the-scenes videos are extremely popular.

They’re fun, educational, captivating, and make users feel like they’re getting in on a secret.

Awesome Behind The Scenes TikTok Videos (How To & Tutorials)

A simply delightful trend that has remained popular on TikTok is the "watch my" trend, in which a creator asks the viewer to watch their pet or kid for a few minutes, while they leave the frame. Viewers are treated to adorable puppies looking confused as their mom leaves the room, rambunctious kids, or even curious cockatoos. The comments are also delightful, often filled with "he tried to eat me, but same time next week?" type responses to vicious puppy attacks as they attempt to destroy the videoing device.

This trend has been adopted by brands with the "Can you watch my boss" trend, another excellent way to humanize and highlight the faces behind a company.

Stitching videos is an excellent tactic for brands to provide uniquely qualified advice, answer questions, or offer responses to critiques. If you are tagged in a video that has Stitches turned on, creating a response of some kind demonstrates that you care about your consumers and what they think.

The comment section of TikTok is its own universe, not to be ignored. Brands often join the conversation, chiming in on videos as though their merely a viewer enjoying the content. This can be met with mixed responses though, so choose videos carefully and comment sparingly at first to test the waters. 

And there you have it! Tapping into TikTok trends is a wonderful way to connect with communities and showcase a different side to your brand. Good luck!

What's Trending? The Top TikTok Trends for 2026

PR measurement is the backbone of any communications strategy. This is how you deliver clear metrics to show how your efforts drive awareness, engagement, and real business outcomes. Without reliable data, even the most creative campaigns risk getting lost in the noise.

Public relations measurement tools provide visibility into how earned media coverage, social conversations, and influencer mentions contribute to brand awareness, sentiment, and engagement. By tracking these metrics, communications teams can quantify their impact and refine strategy with data-backed insights.

Today’s public relations pros have a wealth of tools and dashboards at their disposal. They each promise to capture the story behind your coverage. However, they don’t deliver the same depth, accuracy, or user experience.

Choosing the right PR analytics software means looking beyond surface-level vanity metrics to find the technology that matches your objectives and reporting needs. Read on to learn how!

Choosing the Best Public Relations Measurement Tools for Success

A solid PR measurement tool should connect earned media results to audience behavior, brand lift, and bottom-line performance. These PR measurement tools help comms teams prove impact and fit into a broader communications strategy.

When evaluating PR analytics software, look for features like real-time monitoring, sentiment analysis, share of voice tracking, and customizable reporting dashboards. These capabilities help you connect earned media exposure to measurable brand outcomes.

<table class="table-primary">
  <caption>Comparison of the Best PR Measurement Tools</caption>
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>PR Measurement Tool</th>
      <th>Main Use Case</th>
      <th>Key Features</th>
      <th>Best For</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>Meltwater</td>
      <td>Comprehensive media monitoring & analytics</td>
      <td>AI analysis, share of voice, sentiment, competitor benchmarking</td>
      <td>Large enterprises and agencies needing full analytics</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Cision</td>
      <td>Media monitoring with journalist database</td>
      <td>PR Newswire access, outreach, reporting tools</td>
      <td>Brands with frequent press releases</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Mention</td>
      <td>Real-time media and sentiment tracking</td>
      <td>Social listening, reporting templates</td>
      <td>SMBs and agile PR teams</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

Meltwater is a comprehensive media monitoring platform that tracks, measures, and translates media coverage for brands. Our platform covers billions of data points in real time. Unlike other tools that focus on specific social media channels or outlets, Meltwater captures mentions across online and offline sources, including news sites, podcasts, print media, blogs, and social media. 

As a PR analytics tool, Meltwater distills comments, shares, mentions, reach, and other metrics into clean and easy-to-understand reports. Media impact doesn’t exist in a vacuum; it relies on multiple data points over time to create the full story. With Meltwater tracking mentions in multiple places and analyzing what people are saying and the actions they’re taking next, PR pros gain a comprehensive look at every campaign.

Meltwater’s AI-powered analysis for PR doesn’t just show you where you’re published or what people are saying about it. It also surfaces the surrounding context, so you can see what those comments mean and how they affect perceptions and actions.

Meltwater can help you handle modern PR campaigns from end to end, empowering users to find relevant media outlets and journalists to help launch their campaigns. From there, you can track coverage and conversations across multiple channels to see who’s driving the narrative, how people react to it, and any actions they take (visiting your website, following you on social media, etc.). 

Would you like to learn more about how Meltwater can help with your PR measurement efforts? Get a free demo and tour our platform today.

Cision’s PR platform includes media monitoring and PR measurement tools, giving users a broad view of their media coverage. The platform pulls in data from a global set of sources, including online, print, broadcast, social media, and review sites. Data-driven PR helps you see where your brand is showing up, what people are saying about you, and why these insights matter.

While Cision is mostly used to ignite PR campaigns, thanks to its media database and PR Newswire access, it can also bring insights under one roof. It includes tools to tell you what all those mentions mean, including sentiment analysis, share of voice, audience reach, and how many people acted or visited your website as a result of earned media. 

These insights help you move from “How much coverage did I get?” to “How effective is my coverage?”, tracking volume along with influence.

PR Newswire (part of Cision) has long been a go-to tool for submitting press releases for widespread coverage. Its primary function is for distribution, allowing you to quickly contact multiple outlets and get your press release seen. As a PR analytics tool, it also shows you how far your press release travels.

The Visibility Reports let you track metrics like release statistics, public views from PR Newswire’s own channels and partner sites, and media views. You can also see how these numbers mature over time. This data shows immediate reach and how visibility stabilizes over days, giving you a clearer idea of campaign momentum. 

Key features of PR Newswire as a PR analytics tool include:

AI tools to generate, optimize, and distribute press releases

In terms of being an example of PR analytics software, it’s not the most robust. Its insights are limited to the sites within the PR Newswire ecosystem. But if you’re using its press release distribution service, you’ll get accurate, up-to-date metrics on your press release reach without needing a separate tool or platform.

Mention constantly monitors for brand mentions across millions of sources, including blogs, websites, news, review sites, and forums. Because it operates in near real time, you can catch alerts almost instantly and start watching how your earned media coverage affects your brand.

As one of the top PR measurement tools, Mention shows you the raw counts of mentions along with breakdowns of sentiment analysis (positive, negative, or neutral), influence (how authoritative a source is), and geography. You can pull these and other metrics into pre-built report templates to visualize trends.

Key features of Mention as a PR analytics tool include:

What makes Mention one of the best PR analytics software solutions is its simplicity. Users can set up filters and tags, then follow along in the Mention dashboard feed to find all their press clippings. It turns searching for that needle in a haystack into a direct, intuitive process, showing you everywhere your brand appears.

TIP: Meltwater's new Unified Dashboards are another tool to help you gauge the effectiveness of your PR efforts, combining owned content, paid social, and earned media performance into one comprehensive view.

Brandwatch is a name you’d typically find in social media management. But since analytics is part of any social media strategy, its features also support PR measurement.

Media intelligence is part of the Brandwatch suite. It combines Cision’s data with its own to monitor an extensive network of media sources and partners. This means pulling together voices from across social media and the web (think blogs, forums, news sites, etc.) to give teams a rich view of what people are saying about a given topic.

Brandwatch can help you modernize your PR reporting with real-time alerts and big-picture understanding. Rather than just tracking media placement, you can see where people are talking about your brand beyond the outlet that published you. 

These insights help to pull all of the pieces together, especially when you’re analyzing comments for sentiment and tying actions to metrics, such as website traffic spikes after receiving earned media.

Reputation Forecast from We. Communications is a reputation management and PR measurement tool that brings financial-grade analytics to corporate reputation tracking. Built with Steel City Re, it combines proven reputation value metrics from the insurance industry with AI-powered stakeholder intelligence to help brands quantify, benchmark, and shift in reputation.

Unlike traditional sentiment analysis tools, Reputation Forecast unified financial data, media coverage, and social conversation to show how reputation impacts business performance and risk. With forward- and backward-looking metrics, communications professionals can see how issues, campaigns, or crises affect stakeholder confidence, and adjust strategy in real time.

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