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Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Guide

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

Media monitoring helps organizations stay informed about what’s being said across online news, print, broadcast, podcasts, and other media channels. Whether you're tracking brand mentions, measuring PR performance, monitoring competitors, or identifying emerging trends, our expert guides, best practices, and industry insights will help you build a smarter media monitoring strategy and make more informed communications decisions.

Discover expert media monitoring guides, best practices, and industry insights to track brand mentions, monitor competitors, and stay ahead of the news.

Media Monitoring: Guides, Best Practices & Industry Insights

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

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

AI adoption is no longer the challenge—trusted context is. Most organizations have AI tools, but many still rely on disconnected, stale, or unverified data, limiting the quality and trustworthiness of AI-generated outputs. Meltwater MCP brings trusted, real-time intelligence into AI assistants.

Your Best Context is Already in the Room

Today, PR teams aren’t just tracking media coverage and share of voice. They’re also measuring how their brand shows up in AI-generated answers, search summaries, and large language models (LLMs). This new LLM visibility layer is quickly becoming a critical part of PR performance.

15 Must-Have PR KPIs and How to Track Them

See how one platform can power every decision across PR, communications, and marketing.

The Meltwater Blog

Blog Topics: Generative Engine Optimization, Media Intelligence, Media Relations, Social Listening, Consumer Intelligence, Influencer Marketing

Find out how you can leverage Facebook to boost your brand's online presence and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

Facebook Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage Instagram to boost your brand's visual appeal and gain a competitive edge. Explore our category page today!

Instagram Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage LinkedIn to grow your professional network and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

LinkedIn Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage TikTok to elevate your brand with creative content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

TikTok Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage X / Twitter to engage your audience effectively and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

X / Twitter Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage YouTube to create engaging video content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

YouTube Blog | Meltwater

There is no shortage of brand content competing for attention on social media. So what is it that makes a social media campaign break through? Strategies that give audiences something more to do than simply watch tend to cut through the noise.

The top social media campaigns of 2026 show just how many forms that participation can take. Audiences are inspired to vote, build, remix, share, compare, or create — contributing to brand success and engagement on social.

We used Meltwater social listening data (2026 YTD) to look beyond the campaign concepts themselves and more deeply examine the conversations they encouraged.

What to look for in a social listening platform for campaign tracking

A social media campaign is a coordinated series of posts and activities on social platforms, usually run over a defined period to achieve a specific measurable outcome.

It often sits within a broader marketing campaign or social media marketing strategy, but the driving force behind it should account for how your audience actually behaves on social. A TikTok challenge, for example, asks something different of its audience than a LinkedIn thought-leadership campaign or an X conversation tied to a live sporting event.

Simply distributing the same creative across every platform is typically ineffective for getting meaningful results and participation in your campaign

All social media campaigns should start with a clear goal. A brand might want to build awareness, support a product launch, generate user-generated content, reach a new audience, or change how people think about an existing product.

That goal then shapes the creative idea and the action you want the audience to take. That could mean sharing their own version of a piece of content, using a campaign hashtag, demonstrating a product, entering a competition, or posting something personal that inspires other people to compare their own experience. From there, social marketers decide which platforms are best suited to the campaign, what formats to use, and where and when to post.

Measurement and KPIs should be part of this planning stage, not something added once the campaign ends. Social listening can show how conversation changes as a campaign unfolds, which content drives engagement, whether audiences are adopting the intended message, and where unexpected themes or trends are emerging. That context is often more useful than a final engagement total on its own.

What counts as a successful social campaign depends on the goal, so this list is intentionally varied. Some campaigns generated enormous conversation volumes. Others created disproportionate engagement or reach from relatively small communities. The common thread is a social call to action people actually want to participate in and engage with.

<table class="table-primary alternate-color">
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>Brand</th>
      <th>Platform</th>
      <th>Campaign hook</th>
      <th>Why it worked</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>Pepsi</td>
      <td>X + cross-platform</td>
      <td>Turn a Super Bowl rivalry into a taste challenge</td>
      <td>Combined memorable creative with an immediate participation mechanic</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Cisco</td>
      <td>Cross-platform</td>
      <td>Turn Cisco Live into shareable event conversation</td>
      <td>Mixed product news with learning, creators, and community</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Spotify</td>
      <td>Cross-platform</td>
      <td>Make personal listening data shareable</td>
      <td>Turns data into identity and social comparison</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Figma</td>
      <td>X + Instagram</td>
      <td>Invite creators to build with Figma Make</td>
      <td>Made the product itself the creative medium</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Lay's</td>
      <td>X + TikTok</td>
      <td>Connect the brand to FIFA World Cup conversation</td>
      <td>Gave fans and creators a timely cultural hook</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Parker</td>
      <td>LinkedIn + Instagram</td>
      <td>Let an unsolicited anti-AI ad inspire the campaign</td>
      <td>Responded to organic creative momentum instead of manufacturing it</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Salesforce</td>
      <td>LinkedIn</td>
      <td>Ask users to demonstrate Agentforce solutions</td>
      <td>Turned customer builds into peer-led product proof</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Coca-Cola</td>
      <td>Cross-platform</td>
      <td>Personalize the product itself</td>
      <td>Creates an endlessly adaptable social artifact</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>CeraVe</td>
      <td>TikTok + Instagram</td>
      <td>Turn skincare education into a creator competition</td>
      <td>Left room for creators and markets to interpret the idea</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>TOEFL</td>
      <td>TikTok + Instagram</td>
      <td>Turn a global brand message into a dance challenge</td>
      <td>Made an abstract message participatory</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

<table class="table-primary">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Metric</th>
<th>Value</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Mentions</td>
<td>46.5K</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Reach</td>
<td>198M</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Engagement</td>
<td>125K</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

 Pepsi took one of advertising's oldest rivalries back to the Super Bowl with “The Choice,” a Taika Waititi-directed spot in which a cola-loving polar bear chooses Pepsi Zero Sugar in a blind taste test. It then extended the idea onto social, including an X participation mechanic tied to cash prizes.

The interesting part is how differently the creative and promotional sides performed. Meltwater's analysis found that high-engagement posts revolved around jokes and meme-style reactions to the polar bear, while many lower-engagement posts were formulaic contest entries. Overall, #PepsiTasteWins generated 46,500 mentions, an estimated 198 million reach, and 125,000 engagements in the conversation period analyzed.

<table class="table-primary">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Metric</th>
<th>Value</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Mentions</td>
<td>11.5K</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Reach</td>
<td>962M</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Engagement</td>
<td>281K</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Cisco on Instagram: "WOW powered by the NOC at #CiscoLive 🤩"

 Cisco Live shows that B2B social campaigns do not need to abandon technical substance to generate participation. The 2026 event put major AI infrastructure, security, and AgenticOps announcements at the center of the conversation, while attendees and creators added training, meetups, booth experiences, career development, and behind-the-scenes event content.

That combination gave people more reasons to post than product news alone. Cisco Live conversation produced 11,500 mentions, an estimated 962 million reach, and 281,000 engagements.

<table class="table-primary">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Metric</th>
<th>Value</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Mentions</td>
<td>196K</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Reach</td>
<td>29.8B</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Engagement</td>
<td>35M</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table> 

I’m scared of Spotify wrapped #gymmusic #fyp #funny #gymtok #gymplaylist 

Spotify Wrapped remains one of the best examples of what happens when a brand makes its own customer data inherently shareable. Spotify packages listening behavior into individualized stories designed to encourage participation, turning something as pedestrian as your most-listened-to artist into a statement about taste, identity, or mild embarrassment (don’t worry, though. Guaranteed others listen to them too. You’ll find your people). Spotify described its 2025 edition as a global campaign built around personalized, shareable experiences for more than 700 million fans.

And although the campaign is centered around the New Year period, the conversation doesn’t disappear after January. Meltwater social listening found Wrapped still appearing in jokes, fandom posts, song promotion, and social comparisons going further into the start of the year. The conversation analyzed generated 196,000 mentions, an estimated 29.8 billion reach, and 35 million engagements.

<table class="table-primary">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Metric</th>
<th>Value</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Mentions</td>
<td>4.3K</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Reach</td>
<td>45.1M</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Engagement</td>
<td>70.8K</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Figma's Makeathon invited its community to create with Figma Make, with winning categories spanning craft, new interactions, boundary-pushing ideas, and a fan favorite selected through social response. The resulting projects included a wide variety of playful, highly interactive experiences.

The creative freedom the campaign encouraged was its advantage: participants demonstrated what the product could do while simultaneously producing content people wanted to explore and share. Meltwater recorded 4,300 mentions, an estimated 45.1 million reach, and 70,800 engagements around the Makeathon.

<table class="table-primary">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Metric</th>
<th>Value</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Mentions</td>
<td>38.2K</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Reach</td>
<td>704M</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Engagement</td>
<td>2.04M</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

We are World Cup Ready Lets go Mexico😁😁 @lays #LaysFWC26 #jennyv004 #momsoftiktok #momlifebelike 

Lay's used its FIFA World Cup sponsorship in 2026 to connect the brand with the rituals surrounding the tournament, from watching matches together to game-day snacking. Meltwater recorded 38,200 mentions, an estimated 704 million reach, and 2.04 million engagements around the #LaysFWC26 campaign.

The campaign benefited from joining a conversation audiences were already highly motivated to have rather than trying to create a cultural moment from scratch. 

6. Parker's crowdsourced anti-AI campaign

<table class="table-primary">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Metric</th>
<th>Value</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Mentions</td>
<td>846</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Reach</td>
<td>125M</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Engagement</td>
<td>27.9K</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Parker Brand Moment Sparks Global Creative Challenge | Newell Brands posted on the topic | LinkedIn

Parker's campaign is unusual because the brand did not originate the idea. Freelance copywriter Kushagra Oberoi posted an unsolicited ad reframing a Parker pen for the AI era, which helped inspire a public creative challenge that attracted more than 350 submissions. Parker's parent company, Newell Brands, ultimately backed the momentum and put shortlisted concepts on a Times Square billboard. The ensuing conversation generated only 846 mentions, but an estimated 125 million reach and 27,900 engagements.

The lesson is not simply “crowdsource your advertising.” It is that brands need enough cultural awareness and flexibility to recognize when organic attention is worth joining. 

Learn more about how social listening can help you spot trends

<table class="table-primary">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Metric</th>
<th>Value</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Mentions</td>
<td>57.7K</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Reach</td>
<td>14.2B</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Engagement</td>
<td>630K</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

#agentforceinaction #agentforceinaction | Trailhead

 Salesforce's Agentforce In Action challenge asks builders to create or showcase an Agentforce agent, record a short demonstration of the problem it solves, and post the video publicly on LinkedIn with #AgentforceInAction.

It is a strong B2B campaign mechanic because participation doubles as product education: instead of Salesforce simply telling an audience what Agentforce can do, customers and builders provide concrete use cases. Conversation captured around Agentforce In Action and the wider Agentforce discussion generated 57,700 mentions, an estimated 14.2 billion reach, and 630,000 engagements.

<table class="table-primary">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Metric</th>
<th>Value</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Mentions</td>
<td>6.13K</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Reach</td>
<td>12B</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Engagement</td>
<td>634K</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Hanamade Cookies ~ Cookie Artist on Instagram: "Not the husband hitting us with the “would you rather” question🥤happy national share a coke day! 

#cookiedecorating #husbandvoiceover #sugarcookieart #satisfying #cookieideas"

“Share a Coke” is an excellent example of an evergreen social media campaign. Coca-Cola revived the popular tagline for a new generation in 2025, returning to the deceptively simple idea of replacing its logo with names and giving people a reason to find, personalize, photograph, and share the product.

In 2026, Meltwater's analysis found the format still being repurposed across fandoms, jokes, friendships, celebrations, and even tribute posts. That adaptability helps explain its longevity: the packaging provides a template, while the audience supplies the meaning. Share a Coke conversation generated 6,130 mentions, an estimated 12 billion reach, and 634,000 engagements.

<table class="table-primary">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Metric</th>
<th>Value</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Mentions</td>
<td>3.61K</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Reach</td>
<td>373M</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Engagement</td>
<td>2.93M</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

CeraVe turned creator content into the centerpiece of the CerAwards, culminating in its first Global CerAwards event with 111 award-winning creators from 22 countries. Local executions gave creators room to interpret the campaign through formats including acting, humor, and culturally specific references.

That flexibility created more than contest entries; it gave the campaign several different avenues into broader social culture. CeraVe generated 3,610 mentions but 2.93 million engagements, alongside an estimated 373 million reach—a clear of why mention volume should never be evaluated in isolation.

<table class="table-primary">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Metric</th>
<th>Value</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Mentions</td>
<td>383</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Reach</td>
<td>118M</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Engagement</td>
<td>145K</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Weeks of focus lead to bigger possibilities. If studying in Dubai is on your mind, this is where confidence begins — with @TOEFL @toefl.middleeast  🎵 You Speak World #TOEFL, #YouSpeakWorld, #StudentLife, #Dubai Paid Partnership

TOEFL's You Speak World campaign started with a broader message: language skills can unlock education, work, confidence, and connection. It then made that positioning participatory through a global dance promotion asking users to create short-form videos with an official sound and using the #YouSpeakWorld hashtag on TikTok or Instagram Reels.

The campaign translated abstract brand positioning into something tangible audiences could actually join in on. Although Meltwater recorded just 383 mentions—the smallest conversation in this group—the campaign still generated an estimated 118 million reach and 145,000 engagements.

A social listening platform should help you answer more than “How many people mentioned us?” Because as we can see, that’s only part of the story. Campaign teams need enough coverage to see conversations across the channels where audiences actually participate, and then they need enough context to understand what’s driving the numbers.

Look for the ability to track conversation volume and engagement alongside sentiment, themes, and share of voice.

Speed matters too. Social campaigns can change direction within hours, particularly when creators or communities start interpreting the idea in unexpected ways. AI-powered analysis can surface changes in volume, sentiment, and themes quickly, while marketers provide the judgment needed to decide whether those changes are meaningful, and how to react.

Meltwater's social listening capabilities bring social, news, forums, and other signals into one unified intelligence platform, with AI-powered analysis for themes, sentiment, competitive intelligence, and reporting. 

The point is not simply to collect more campaign data. It is to understand which campaigns are gaining momentum, what audiences are responding to, and why. It's gaining intelligence your team can actually use while there is still time to act.

Book a demo to see how Meltwater can help you find emerging campaigns and measure the conversations around your own.

A social media campaign is a coordinated set of posts and activities created to achieve a specific goal on social platforms. Unlike an ongoing social media strategy, a campaign usually has a defined objective, creative concept, audience, measurement framework, and time period in which the activity takes place.

How do you measure the success of a social media campaign?

Measure success against the campaign's original goal. Useful metrics can include mentions, reach, engagement, conversions, sentiment, share of voice, audience growth, or traffic. Social listening adds context by showing what people are actually saying, which themes are gaining traction, and what is driving changes in performance.

What makes a social media campaign go viral?

Viral social media campaigns usually combine a timely or distinctive idea with content people have a reason to share or recreate. Participation hooks, platform-native formats, recognizable cultural references, and good timing can all help. Virality itself should not be the objective, though; attention only matters if it contributes to the campaign's goal.

How long should a social media campaign run?

There is no universal campaign length. A campaign tied to a live event may peak within hours, while a product launch, creator program, or challenge may run for weeks or months. Track conversation and engagement throughout the campaign and adjust the timeline when audience interest starts to decline or the original objective has been achieved.

What is the difference between a social media campaign and a social media strategy?

A social media strategy is the ongoing framework guiding how a brand uses social platforms, including its audiences, objectives, channels, content, and measurement approach. A social media campaign is a more focused initiative within that strategy, created around a particular goal, message, launch, event, or period of activity.

Do social media campaigns still work in 2026?

Yes, but audiences expect more than branded posts placed in their feeds. The strongest campaigns give people a reason to participate, personalize, create, or respond. Spotify Wrapped, for example, generated 35 million engagements in the conversation analyzed by Meltwater, showing the scale a genuinely shareable campaign idea can still achieve.

What should I look for in a social listening platform to track campaigns?

Look for broad cross-channel coverage, reliable campaign and competitor tracking, sentiment and theme analysis, real-time trend detection, and reporting that connects activity to campaign outcomes. AI-powered analysis can reduce manual work, but marketers still need source-level context to understand why a conversation changed and decide what action to take.

Get inspired by 10 of the top social media campaigns of 2026, plus how to track your own with social listening.

10 Top Social Media Campaigns of 2026

August confirms a more divided AI citation landscape

Top individual sources: Citation volume and trends

YouTube and Reddit retain the top two positions

Social performance splits sharply by platform

Reference sources continue to lose ground

AI citations reach further into specialist media

What PR and marketing teams should do next

Conclusion: Build a portfolio of citation paths

Generative AI platforms are changing how people discover companies, compare products, and form an opinion before they ever visit a brand’s website. For PR, communications, and marketing teams, that makes the sources behind an AI answer almost as important as the answer itself.

Using Meltwater GenAI Lens, we analyzed thousands of prompts and approximately 7.3 million citations across eight major AI platforms: Anthropic Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot, Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews, Google Gemini, Perplexity, and xAI Grok. This report compares August with July and places the results within six months of tracking from March to August 2026.

The prompt set covers a balanced mix of high-intent consumer categories, including AI, retail banking, automotive, fast food, streaming services, apparel, and fashion. Prompts were distributed equally across categories and contained no brand mentions. All month-over-month figures come from the platform’s August versus July calculations.

Source preferences can vary with prompt wording, category, location, timing, and the specific version or retrieval system behind each AI platform, which is why repeated measurement is more useful than a one-off snapshot.

August builds on the pattern we saw in July’s AI search visibility report, although the picture has become more uneven. LinkedIn rose again, driven mainly by Perplexity. YouTube and Reddit remained the two most-cited individual domains, even as the overall social category declined. At the same time, Earned/News, Wikipedia, NIH, and Statista all lost ground.

The result is a more fragmented citation landscape. Different models are drawing from very different information ecosystems, and even sources within the same category are moving in opposite directions.

YouTube, Reddit, and LinkedIn formed the top three in August. LinkedIn was the only one of those sources to increase its citation volume, while Yahoo was the only other top-five domain to grow.

<table>
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>Rank</th>
      <th>Source</th>
      <th>Total citations</th>
      <th>Visibility score</th>
      <th>Citation volume MoM</th>
      <th>Citation rate MoM</th>
      <th>Visibility score MoM</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>1</td>
      <td>youtube.com</td>
      <td>212.5K</td>
      <td>26%</td>
      <td>-7.34% ↓</td>
      <td>0% →</td>
      <td>0% →</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>2</td>
      <td>reddit.com</td>
      <td>127.0K</td>
      <td>19%</td>
      <td>-0.95% ↓</td>
      <td>+16.7% ↑</td>
      <td>+5.56% ↑</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>3</td>
      <td>linkedin.com</td>
      <td>100.2K</td>
      <td>16%</td>
      <td>+24.8% ↑</td>
      <td>+11.1% ↑</td>
      <td>+14.3% ↑</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>4</td>
      <td>nih.gov</td>
      <td>65.6K</td>
      <td>11%</td>
      <td>-19.1% ↓</td>
      <td>0% →</td>
      <td>-8.33% ↓</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>5</td>
      <td>yahoo.com</td>
      <td>64.2K</td>
      <td>12%</td>
      <td>+17.1% ↑</td>
      <td>+14.3% ↑</td>
      <td>+9.09% ↑</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>6</td>
      <td>facebook.com</td>
      <td>62.4K</td>
      <td>13%</td>
      <td>-29.6% ↓</td>
      <td>-11.1% ↓</td>
      <td>-7.14% ↓</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>7</td>
      <td>wikipedia.org</td>
      <td>56.8K</td>
      <td>11%</td>
      <td>-14.8% ↓</td>
      <td>0% →</td>
      <td>-8.33% ↓</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>8</td>
      <td>forbes.com</td>
      <td>54.6K</td>
      <td>11%</td>
      <td>-11.9% ↓</td>
      <td>0% →</td>
      <td>-8.33% ↓</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>9</td>
      <td>statista.com</td>
      <td>42.5K</td>
      <td>10%</td>
      <td>-15.9% ↓</td>
      <td>0% →</td>
      <td>-9.09% ↓</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>10</td>
      <td>instagram.com</td>
      <td>30.3K</td>
      <td>9%</td>
      <td>-43.1% ↓</td>
      <td>-33.3% ↓</td>
      <td>-18.2% ↓</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

The ranking is important, though the movement across several metrics gives us a fuller view. LinkedIn increased in citation volume, citation rate, and visibility score together. Reddit’s volume held nearly flat while its citation rate and visibility score improved. YouTube declined in volume after July’s rebound, yet its citation rate and visibility score stayed level.

LinkedIn has produced the clearest multi-month rise in the current dataset. It moved from eighth in June to fifth in July and third in August, reaching 100.2K citations after another 24.8% month-over-month increase.

Perplexity drove most of that growth. It generated 69,302 LinkedIn citations in August, roughly 69% of LinkedIn’s total within this sample. That is the largest single model-source pairing recorded across the six months, narrowly ahead of the 68,073 Gemini citations and 68,011 Google AI Mode citations generated by YouTube in August.

LinkedIn is growing across the overall dataset, although much of its current scale depends on one model. Google AI Mode cited LinkedIn 13,855 times, Google AI Overviews 8,232 times, Copilot 3,941 times, Grok 3,540 times, and Claude 699 times. ChatGPT and Gemini recorded zero LinkedIn citations among the tracked data.

For B2B brands, LinkedIn now deserves deliberate attention within a GEO plan. Company research, executive expertise, practical explainers, and clear points of view can create useful public source material, especially when a post states its main point early and supports it with specific evidence. Our report on how LinkedIn content wins in AI search explores that opportunity in more detail.

The model breakdown also sets a clear guardrail: LinkedIn activity should support a broader source strategy. Its influence varies widely from one AI platform to another.

YouTube remained the leading individual source with 212.5K citations, despite a 7.34% decline from July’s record 229.3K. Its citation rate and visibility score were unchanged, which suggests that YouTube’s reach across the tracked prompt set remains broad.

This was a softer month after July’s strong rebound, rather than a second consecutive decline. YouTube also remained well above its May total of 188.9K citations. September’s data will tell us whether August was normal variation or the start of a longer downward run.

The model data continues to show why YouTube holds such a large lead. Gemini cited it 68,073 times, Google AI Mode 68,011 times, Google AI Overviews 38,217 times, and Perplexity 30,774 times. For brands, clear titles, detailed descriptions, accurate transcripts, chaptering, and focused educational content can give AI systems more useful information to extract.

Reddit stayed in second place with 127.0K citations, down just 0.95%. Its citation rate improved 16.7% and visibility score increased 5.56%, so the underlying picture was stronger than the small volume decline suggests. Gemini generated 48,972 Reddit citations, Perplexity 35,007, Google AI Mode 20,684, and Google AI Overviews 16,146.

That broad support across several models makes Reddit more resilient than any one headline about a single AI platform might suggest.

At category level, Social declined from 7.8% in July to 7.2% in August. That puts it level with April and still above March, May, and June. The aggregate number hides four very different platform stories: LinkedIn grew, Reddit remained almost flat, Facebook reversed its July increase, and Instagram declined for a second month after its June surge.

<table>
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>Source type</th>
      <th>Approx. August count</th>
      <th>August share</th>
      <th>July share</th>
      <th>MoM change</th>
      <th>Current read</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>Other</td>
      <td>4.5M</td>
      <td>61.3%</td>
      <td>56.4%</td>
      <td>+4.9 pts</td>
      <td>Fourth consecutive share increase</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Earned/News</td>
      <td>2.1M</td>
      <td>29.4%</td>
      <td>33.1%</td>
      <td>-3.7 pts</td>
      <td>Third consecutive decline</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Social</td>
      <td>522.0K</td>
      <td>7.2%</td>
      <td>7.8%</td>
      <td>-0.6 pts</td>
      <td>Below July peak, still elevated against several earlier months</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Reviews</td>
      <td>91.6K</td>
      <td>1.3%</td>
      <td>1.6%</td>
      <td>-0.3 pts</td>
      <td>First material decline after several stable months</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Wiki</td>
      <td>53.2K</td>
      <td>0.7%</td>
      <td>0.9%</td>
      <td>-0.2 pts</td>
      <td>Third consecutive decline in share</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Press Release</td>
      <td>15.8K</td>
      <td>0.2%</td>
      <td>0.2%</td>
      <td>0 pts</td>
      <td>Stable at a low base</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

Facebook fell 29.6% to 62.4K citations, giving back the gain it recorded in July. Instagram dropped 43.1% to 30.3K and showed declines in citation rate and visibility score as well. The June surge across those platforms has not developed into a sustained upward run.

This volatility makes channel-level measurement essential. A strategy based only on the overall Social share could miss LinkedIn’s rise, Reddit’s resilience, and the sharp reversals on Facebook and Instagram.

The “Other” category needs equally careful interpretation. Its share grew to 61.3%, yet its rounded count remained at 4.5 million, the same as July. The category covers a wide range of corporate sites, research databases, market intelligence platforms, financial reference sites, and other web sources. Its rising share shows that sources beyond the named categories dominate the mix, while the stable rounded count gives us no evidence that every type of owned content increased in August. Brands should track citations to their own domains directly instead of treating “Other” as a proxy for owned-content performance.

Earned/News accounted for 29.4% of citation domain count in August, down from 33.1% in July. This is the third consecutive monthly decline, following 37.6% in May and 35.0% in June, and the first reading below 30% in the six-month dataset.

That downward run deserves attention. Earned media still contributed approximately 2.1 million citation domain counts, more than any category except the broad “Other” group. High-quality reporting continues to provide third-party validation, category context, expert analysis, and source diversity across AI answers.

For communications teams, the practical response is to connect earned coverage with other citable sources. A strong media story can support an executive LinkedIn post, a YouTube explainer, a research page, a customer-facing FAQ, or a clearly sourced article on the company website. Each format gives AI platforms another route to the same credible information.

Press Release held at 0.2% for a fourth month. Press releases continue to serve disclosure, distribution, and media relations needs, while the direct AI citation opportunity remains small in this dataset.

Three sources that rose earlier in the year declined together again in August. NIH fell 19.1% to 65.6K citations, its second monthly decline. Wikipedia dropped 14.8% to 56.8K, and Statista fell 15.9% to 42.5K, giving both sources a third consecutive decline.

They still sit inside the top 10, so their authority has not disappeared. ChatGPT and Claude continued to cite NIH heavily, Copilot favored Statista among the ten leading domains, and Grok cited Wikipedia more than any other domain in the table.

The data supports maintenance over abandonment. Keep public factual information accurate. Publish clearly sourced data where it serves the audience. Correct outdated information and make supporting evidence easy to find. Then assess new investment against the models, topics, and source pathways that influence your own brand.

Aggregate rankings can make the citation environment look more consistent than it is. The leading domain among August’s overall top 10 changes across the eight AI platforms.

<table>
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>AI platform</th>
      <th>Leading domain among August’s overall top 10</th>
      <th>Citations</th>
      <th>What stands out</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>Anthropic Claude</td>
      <td>NIH</td>
      <td>12,764</td>
      <td>Statista followed at 9,902, maintaining a strong data and institutional profile</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>ChatGPT</td>
      <td>NIH</td>
      <td>10,638</td>
      <td>The five named social domains in the table recorded zero citations</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Copilot</td>
      <td>Statista</td>
      <td>7,826</td>
      <td>Forbes followed at 6,006, with Wikipedia at 4,806</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Google AI Mode</td>
      <td>YouTube</td>
      <td>68,011</td>
      <td>It also drew heavily from Facebook, Reddit, and LinkedIn</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Google AI Overviews</td>
      <td>YouTube</td>
      <td>38,217</td>
      <td>Reddit, Facebook, and LinkedIn all contributed meaningful volume</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Google Gemini</td>
      <td>YouTube</td>
      <td>68,073</td>
      <td>Reddit followed at 48,972, while LinkedIn and Yahoo recorded zero</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Perplexity</td>
      <td>LinkedIn</td>
      <td>69,302</td>
      <td>The largest model-source pairing in the six-month dataset</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>xAI Grok</td>
      <td>Wikipedia</td>
      <td>7,276</td>
      <td>Citations were spread more evenly across institutional, social, and data sources</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

Citations were spread more evenly across institutional, social, and data sources

Perplexity’s profile changed most clearly. LinkedIn led at 69,302, while Reddit reached 35,007, Yahoo 31,433, and YouTube 30,774. Facebook, which led Perplexity in July, fell to 8,994. Anyone measuring Perplexity through a blended AI visibility score would miss that reordering.

Gemini continued to lean heavily toward video and community content within these leading domains. YouTube and Reddit together generated 117,045 citations, while Wikipedia remained a meaningful third source at 22,077. Google AI Mode showed greater breadth, combining very high YouTube volume with Facebook, Reddit, LinkedIn, Yahoo, and NIH.

Claude, ChatGPT, and Copilot retained more data-led or institutional source profiles. Grok remained the most evenly spread across the ten domains. These patterns describe citation behavior within the current sample; they do not measure answer quality or tell consumers which platform is best for a particular type of question.

The industry discussion around Reddit in August shows why those distinctions count. Axios reported on a separate dataset in which Reddit’s share of ChatGPT Search citations fell from an average 3.83% through August 7 to 0.52% by August 14. Our tracked sample recorded zero ChatGPT citations to Reddit from May through August, even as Reddit held second place across all eight platforms.

Different prompt sets, collection windows, and methodologies can produce different baselines. Both findings reinforce the same operating principle: examine each model on its own and keep monitoring, because a source can remain influential across the wider AI ecosystem while disappearing from one platform’s citations.

August also brought considerable turnover among the most-cited journalists and content creators. Six new names entered the top 10, spanning sports technology, healthcare, travel, retail, golf, and biotechnology.

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