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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

Decades ago, reading the minds of your customers might have seemed like an unrealistic superpower. Today, we have consumer intelligence — which isn’t the same as mind reading, but it’s pretty close.

With increasing competition, staying connected to your customers is becoming more and more necessary. Knowing what they want and need from you allows you to meet them where they are. This helps you to adjust your products and services, reveal and remedy issues, and give your customers a reason to keep choosing you.

Consumer intelligence helps you to learn more about your customers by creating a more holistic image of your customers and their experiences. You can make decisions based on data, not guesswork, so you can maintain a competitive edge.

Let’s explore the role of consumer intelligence and how to go about collecting and applying it in your business.

Definition: What Is Consumer Intelligence?

What Are the Benefits of Consumer Intelligence?

Consumer Insights vs. Consumer Intelligence: What's the Difference?

Making Meltwater Your Consumer Intelligence Solution

We define consumer intelligence as the byproduct of collecting and analyzing customer data. You might also hear it referred to as customer intelligence and customer intelligence analytics.

This intelligence comes from various internal and external sources, including but not limited to:

Consumer intelligence can help brands deliver more personalized experiences across the entire customer journey. It plays a role in marketing campaign planning, audience segmentation, and improved communications.

The goal of consumer intelligence is to gain a 360-degree understanding of your target audience’s needs, preferences, and motivations so you can make informed decisions for your business.

Consumer intelligence provides brands with a path to improve their customer experience — including customer service, product and service offerings, go-to-market strategy, communications, and accessibility.

In order to improve each of these, companies need insights into their customers’ behaviors and motivations.

Surface-level “insights” like age, gender, and income level aren’t enough to craft tailored experiences. Understanding what customers need at each stage of the buying journey allows companies to deliver on those expectations.

Consumer intelligence uses data and analytics to create comprehensive customer profiles that go beyond the surface. These insights provide actionable recommendations for improving the customer experience and building stronger relationships.

When implemented correctly, consumer intelligence can deliver the following benefits:

The ability to choose the right marketing and communications channels to get in front of more customers and increase conversions

Improving sales efficiency and marketing effectiveness by creating messaging and offers that resonate with your audience

Building stronger customer loyalty by providing programs customers use and improving social media customer service

The ability to take pre-emptive action with customers at risk of churning to reduce revenue volatility

Helping you introduce new products or services that customers will purchase

These benefits are just a few examples of what consumer intelligence can do for your business.

Consumer insights and consumer intelligence represent two sides of the same coin. They’re not quite the same, so let’s explore the nuances between consumer insights vs. consumer intelligence and the value they bring to your business.

We define consumer insights as the deep understanding of consumers that comes from gathering consumer intelligence and analyzing it carefully. The result is actionable  data your business uses that takes into account customer behaviors, feedback, and conversations and turns them into conclusions about your customers’ preferences.

To benefit from consumer insights, you need good data quality and reliable data sources, as well as a way to collect, organize, and translate the data. In other words, to gain real consumer insights, you need to first gather real consumer intelligence.

Tip: Take a look at some Consumer Insights Example Reports!

Where Do Consumer Insights and Consumer Intelligence Overlap?

Both consumer insights and intelligence play an important role in developing your products, services, and marketing strategy.

Consumer insights and intelligence can help you learn more about what makes your target audience tick. Insights are built by identifying trends in behaviors and actions throughout the customer journey that help you learn more about sentiments and the drivers behind customer decisions.

The results delivered by insights and intelligence differ from traditional market research in that you don’t know what you’re going to get. Instead of creating specific questions ahead of time, you receive answers to questions you may have never thought to ask. 

The data you receive from an insights and intelligence strategy can answer questions like:

How and where should you position your products or services so customers take notice?

How do customers feel about your competitors?

Is there a demand for your products or services, and how does demand change over time?

Are there opportunities to create new products or services?

What does your audience like, dislike, need, want, etc. and how can you connect with them wherever they are?

To get a better understanding of the value of consumer intelligence, it helps to see it in action. Let’s look at a few examples of consumer intelligence and how you can apply it.

Consumer intelligence tools like Meltwater can track customers across the entire customer journey, from how they discover your brand to the content they engage with prior to purchasing.

Pinpoint where customers lose interest or the steps they take that lead to purchasing. These details can help you identify where you might need to improve your sales funnel (for example, you’re losing lots of leads around the same point) or increase your cross-selling and upselling.

Tip: Download our free Buyers Guide: AI Enabled Consumer Insights Platforms

Consumer intelligence can help you segment your audience on factors that might not be visible to the eye. For instance, you might segment campaigns based on products purchased, buying patterns, or new customers that responded to a specific offer in the past.

Segmentation may also prove effective in marketing to audiences who share similar interests that aren’t directly related to your brand. For example, some of your customers might be soccer fans, moms of toddlers, or avid watchers of Love Island. You can tailor your marketing messages to cater to these interests and be more likely to get your customers’ attention.

These resources might be helpful as well: Ultimate Guide to Market Segmentation & Personas, What is Audience Segmentation?, Lifestyle Marketing Guide, Customer Segmentation Guide, The Top Customer Segmentation Tools, Customer Segmentation Examples, Customer Segmentation Models, The Top Audience Segmentation Tools.

Learning more about your customers’ interests and preferences can give you a starting point for personalized marketing. You’ll have a more informed idea of what drives consumer behaviors and decision-making.

Use this data to offer incentives to customers they care about and will want to act on. This might be a percent-off coupon, a free gift with purchase, free shipping, an invitation to a customer loyalty program, or a similar offer. When your offer speaks directly to their needs and wants, potential customers are more likely to convert.

The longer you track your customers’ behaviors, the more valuable this data becomes.

This proves especially helpful with demand forecasting. The more a customer buys from you, the more you can learn about their purchasing frequency and volume. This helps you to maintain a healthy inventory of products to avoid backorders when customers are ready to buy.

Banks and financial service providers leverage consumer intelligence to detect possible fraud or other suspicious activities. They look for patterns in the data to spot risks of bad debt, unauthorized purchases, or identity theft.

This not only prevents financial loss for the organization, but also gives the company a chance to strengthen customer relationships by looking out for customers’ best interests.

Consumer intelligence comes from a variety of internal and external sources. Combining data from multiple sources gives brands the most comprehensive view of their customers.

Consumer insights tools and customer intelligence platforms can ingest data from multiple internal and external sources to create these holistic profiles. Some of the best places to mine for customer data include:

Corporate databases (such as an ERP system), CRM, sales software, and call centers can all provide rich details about your customers.

Accessing this data might require cross-department collaboration with IT, customer service, procurement, and sales departments.

Be clear about the type of data you’re looking for, how you plan to use it, and why it could be beneficial to your strategy.

Customers are open to sharing personal details on social media. They’re also not shy about airing their grievances with brands and businesses when they have a poor experience. Mining social media to learn more about your customers gives you a more honest view of how they feel about your brand (and your competitors).

Consumer insights platforms like Meltwater can collect these insights on your behalf by monitoring for keywords and analyzing the context behind them.

Leveraging industry-specific third-party market intelligence and research allows you to learn more about demographics, attitudes, and general market shifts. This data can be useful in learning about customer buying patterns and preferences within specific demographics, such as income brackets or age groups.

You can also perform your own market research with your own customers. Focus groups, case studies, surveys, and monitoring online reviews can all reveal helpful insights about your customers’ sentiments.

Tip: Learn more about market research and learn how to conduct sentiment analysis.

When customers use your website, their interactions are tracked by your website analytics.

Things like session durations, number of page views, bounce rates, exit rates, and dwell time are all logged by analytics tools. These data points can prove useful in improving your website experience and ensuring customers get what they came for.

Collecting intelligence on your target consumer is just the first step. Once you have the data in hand, you also need a strategy to apply it to get the results you want.

After collection, the next step is to categorize the consumer data. Consumer intelligence platforms can do this on your behalf. You might choose to organize the data based on the data source (online reviews, social media, website analytics, etc.), current client vs. lead or prospect, or qualitative vs. quantitative data.

Consumer Intelligence: Definition & Examples

MarCom professionals have seen quite the evolution in their industry and the scope of their role over the past decade or so. On the one hand, reaching out to one’s audience has never been easier. But the complexity of the many media channels now available can make it difficult to roll out successful and cohesive marketing and communication campaigns. Understanding the definitions of paid, earned, owned, and shared media and their specific purposes is essential for modern marketing and communications teams.

In this blog post, we go over the concept of the PESO Model™ and explain how marketers can leverage the convergence of paid, earned, shared, and owned media to build integrated marketing campaigns. 

Gini Dietrich is the creator of the PESO Model™ concept, which we've outlined below. 

To learn how to leverage all four media channels, download the free Ultimate Guide to Owned, Earned, Paid & Shared Media. 

Owned, Earned, Paid & Shared Media Definitions

Leveraging Owned Media for Lead Generation

Leveraging Paid Media for Lead Generation

Leveraging Earned Media for Lead Generation

Combine All Four Media Channels For the Best Results

Integrating Earned, Owned, Shared, and Paid Media Into One Cohesive Lead-Generation Campaign

Let's start off with an overview of PESO definitions.

Owned media refers to any content that originates with you. 

Traditionally this has meant website content and newsletters, but the definition of owned media has expanded to include your brand social accounts as well.

Therefore you can split owned media into 2 categories: 

The content that you host (website and other resources such as in-app help articles)

The content that you share (newsletter & social media accounts)

Owned media is powerful because it allows brands to communicate controlled messages to their audience. The counterpart is that it is only targeting an audience who is already familiar with their company. Therefore, it is not the greatest source to acquire new customers and see their business thrive.- Angela Wiesenmüller, EMEA Marketing Director, Meltwater

For most business, your website is your most valuable owned media asset. It is where you house owned media such as blog articles designed for SEO, landing pages that illustrate who you are, and where you convert visitors into customers and clients. Your owned content strategy is a big part part of customer acquisition. 

A thorough content marketing strategy is one of the best ways to establish a long-term relationship with your audience through demonstrating thought-leadership, representing your brand values, and offering useful information on topics pertinent to your industry. 

Blogs, ebooks, and webinars are a direct extension of your brand and expertise. Other types of owned content include any in-app messaging you might offer, such as help articles.

See B2B content marketing tips and building a content marketing strategy to learn more!

If you don’t promote your content, the chances of it being seen are extremely minimal. Use your owned channels to get more eyes and interest on your brand.

Social media accounts: Social media is one of the best ways to promote content, and even though you don't have control over how content gets shared, you can control the message on your owned accounts.

Check out some of the best social media marketing examples from this year for inspiration! 

Your newsletter: Having a regular newsletter that you can send through email marketing is another extremely effective method for getting your content out into the world — while controlling the message.

Paid media refers to the media exposure you pay for on a platform or space owned by another business or brand. 

It’s a valuable way to widen your reach via print, TV, radio, and digital advertising on channels like podcasts or social.

The term "native advertising" refers to ads designed to look like regular content.

Here’s an example from Forbes, where readers can see a Paid Program tag to differentiate between regular content and sponsored content.

It is estimated that over 4 billion people are actively using social media platforms. 

This makes paid social media campaigns one of the best ways to increase your reach, generate new business opportunities, boost engagement with your brand, and drive more web traffic.

What’s more, social ads allow you to target users based on demographic criteria such as location, language, age, or even personal interests, thus making it easier for brands to only target the most relevant people.

On social media platforms, most social ads are designed to appear as native advertising and blend into the user experience. 

Paid search can help businesses to generate traffic based on what their target audience is looking for on search engines.

When targeting relevant keywords, paid search can bump your business ahead of the competition, if you’re ready to pay the price. The higher the demand on a keyword, the higher the price.

Although paid media is a fantastic way of getting your messages, products or services in front of the right audience, it is still a form of advertising, and your audience knows that it is biased.

Earned media describes the attention you receive from sources that you do not control. 

This includes websites, review sites, media outlets, podcasts, social posts, and blogs mentioning your brand.

Earned media happens when a third-party endorses your brand. And if you're doing your owned and paid media strategies right, then earned media should follow. 

Did you know 76% of consumers trust online reviews as much as recommendations from family and friends? In other words, organic reviews and testimonials are one of the best ways to gain credibility. 

Even if you can't pay influencers to promote your brand, they can still advocate for you and talk about your brand organically — simply because they like you. Un-prompted product reviews are one of the best examples of this.

Here’s an example that followed the release of popular video game "The Last of Us". Less than a month following the release, Google indicated over 300k results for the exact search terms “last of us part 2 review”.

YouTube as well also saw a surge in searches and video reviews.

Shared media encompasses any and all content posted to social media regarding your brand (that isn't posted by you — that of course would fall under owned media). Shared media includes posts to platforms such as X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, and TikTok.

These posts could come from brands, media outlets, or individuals.

Owned media is your PR paradise. You have complete control over how to create and use each piece of content you create. However, there has to be a method to the madness.

Tips to get your owned media strategy going in the right direction:

Have a clear goal for each piece of content. Are you trying to get new leads? Nurture existing leads? Increase brand awareness?

Include plenty of visual content. Videos, images, GIFs, and infographics go a long way to increasing engagement.

Write for both search engines and people. When you write a headline, ask yourself if you would click on it (and then ask if the content on the page matches what you would expect to see. No one likes click-bait and you will get penalized for it!). 

Track content performance. Attach metrics to each piece of content so you can gauge interest in the topic and make sure you're meeting your audiences expectations. See 50 content marketing metrics to get started!

Since paid media is advertising, it can be viewed with a certain amount of distrust on the part of the consumer. So it's best used as a way to increase brand awareness when expanding into new markets and getting in front of people who have never heard of you. 

Paid social media campaigns can reach those who are interested in your industry or product type.

Additionally, paying to have your blog posts distributed via sponsored posts on other sites allows your more though-leadership focused content to reach a wider audience.

Earned media can be one of the trickiest types to master. The reason is that you have far less control over this type of media. You can’t simply ask someone to plug your product or service. As the name suggests, you must earn it. But this doesn't mean you sit back and do nothing.

Achieving earned media takes masterful relationship building, and it helps if you can cultivate a large network. Start by reaching out to bloggers, journalists, podcasters, and influencers whose work you truly admire. You can connect with them on social media by commenting and sharing their posts, or simply shoot them an email to compliment an article or episode that struck you.

UGC is another form of earned media that requires great finesse and strategy on the part of your social marketing team. Encourage people to tag you, used a branded hashtag, and share their enthusiasm for your brand on social with their networks. You can do this ins several ways, but one of the most effective is a simple reshare when you've been tagged. It takes very little time or energy to let your followers know you appreciate when they give you a should-out.

Learn more about building and managing UGC as part of your marketing strategy and check out some great UGC examples!

You could also leave positive LinkedIn endorsements for those you’ve collaborated with on projects as a good tactic for keeping in touch with your network. The ol' tried and true "I'll scratch your back and you scratch mine" approach.

All four PESO channels aren’t only interconnected; they are interdependent.

Owned media won't get any traction unless you can leverage other distribution channels that you do not own.

Shared and earned media won’t work if you don’t have a robust owned media strategy that continues producing new content.

Paid media won’t deliver good results unless your owned media is strong and engaging.

Two examples of paid, earned, owned, and shared media working together

The interconnectivity of how these channels work together is important to appreciate for modern marketers and communications pros. Here are just a couple examples to illustrate:

Say you share center your next newsletter and social media posts around notifying your existing audience about your latest piece of content. If they like what they see, many will want to talk about it with friends and relatives (earned media) and they may share it on social media, or by forwarding your email on to people they think would also like it (shared media).

Now, let's say you share the news with thought leaders. If they find it valuable, they will likely share it with their audience. And if your message resonates, it has the potential to circulate virally through both earned and shared media channels. Here’s an example of this from LinkedIn:

A post is shared and receives a ton of engagement (15,000+ reactions and 800+ comments).

The post is then shared by another thought leader, who introduces it to a new audience who engages with the content (an additional 10,000+ reactions and 400+ comments).

If you play your cards right and use relevant hashtags to promote your content, or share it in relevant Facebook or LinkedIn groups, you can reach a much broader audience.

Example 2. You introduce a new product into the market

The Meltwater Blog

Consumer Intelligence: Definition & Examples

Owned, Earned, Paid & Shared Media Explained

Modernizing Sponsorship ROI Measurement with AI

How To Develop A Customer Experience Strategy

The Retail Customer Experience Guide

How Does AI Affect Customer Experience?

The 11 Best Customer Experience Examples

5 Best Practices for Customer Experience Analysis

What Is an Omnichannel Customer Experience? Meaning, Benefits, Examples

What Is Customer Experience (CX) Design?

Customer Experience Dashboard Basics

How Coca-Cola Collects Consumer Insights