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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

The WNBA is having a big year. Founded 28 years ago, the Women’s National Basketball Association is seeing a level of popularity it hasn’t since the late 1990s. Viewership, attendance, and advertisers have all increased during the 2024 season games, largely thanks to star rookie players Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. 

According to our analyses of March Madness 2023 and 2024, Clark and Reese were, respectively, the first and second most mentioned players across digital sources during the women’s NCAA championships in those years. They’ve gone on to sustain that popularity from their college years into their professional ones while racking up dozens of endorsement deals with high-profile brands like Reebok, Wilson, Reese’s, Gatorade, and more. 

To learn more about the WNBA’s growth over the years, we dove into the news coverage numbers. Here’s what the data says about the popularity of U.S. professional women’s basketball.

Note: Data for 2024 includes mentions from January 1 to October 1, 2024. Data from previous years includes mentions from January 1 to December 31.

News coverage of the WNBA is on the rise.

Our analysis found that news mentions of the WNBA in 2024 so far are at least at a 15-year high. 

Zooming in on the past few years, news mentions of the league nearly doubled from 2021 to 2022 before decreasing by 7% in 2023. However, mentions have surged in 2024 and will continue to as this season reaches the finals later this month. 

News coverage of the WNBA is much more positive than negative.

Along with the volume of mentions, the sentiment of those mentions has also improved. This year 37% of news mentions are positive, up from 33.6% in 2023 and 20.7% in 2022. Some positive news articles with the furthest reach covered Team USA’s gold medal win in women’s basketball at the 2024 Olympics in Paris. The team included a record 31 athletes from the WNBA. 

Caitlin Clark gets more news mentions than any other WNBA player.

Caitlin Clark, point guard for the Indiana Fever, is not only mentioned more than any other player, but is also mentioned more than top keywords like “points” and “game”. Her rival Angel Reese, power forward for the Chicago Sky, is the second most mentioned player, while Breanna Stewart, power forward for the Seattle Storm, is third. 

The WNBA still has less news coverage than the NBA.

The NBA has long gotten much more attention than the WNBA, and 2024 isn’t much different overall. From January 1 to October 1, the men’s league was mentioned about 472% more than the women’s league. However, in August, that gap started to narrow as the WNBA regular season wound down. Finally, on September 21, just before the first round of the playoffs, the WNBA got more news mentions than the NBA for the first and only time this year. Though, once the WNBA season ends on October 20 and the NBA one begins soon after, mentions of the men’s league should take off again.

Overall, the WNBA has gained much more prominence over the past several years, as proven by the rise in news coverage. The success of the 2024 season has created hundreds of thousands of new fans and generated a demand for news about the league and players that may continue into future seasons. The Olympics undoubtedly brought more attention to the WNBA this year, but star players like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese may be able to drive that popularity further even without the Games. Time will tell if the league can continue this momentum, but no matter what happens 2024 will go down in basketball history as a major turning point in news coverage for the WNBA.

News mention trends are important for understanding the wider conversations and narratives surrounding specific topics, franchises, and brands. For the WNBA, the significant increase in news mentions in everything from sports to lifestyle publications shows how the league’s popularity has broadened beyond core basketball audiences. Use historical news data and analytics to learn more about how sports audiences are changing — see how in our industry snapshot report.   

The WNBA’s News Coverage Has Surged in 2024

Gone are the days of manual documents and spreadsheets — sales software is helping salespeople spend more time selling and leave time-consuming admin in the dust.

Staying ahead in a highly competitive space is crucial for success. One way that businesses can gain a significant edge is by honing their sales process. By plugging pipeline leaks, identifying the best prospects, automating tasks, and tracking every interaction, sales teams can focus on building stronger relationships with current and potential customers.

Sales software makes it possible to do all of the above — most importantly, driving growth and revenue. Let’s take a closer look at 21 sales software and tools that can add value to every sales approach.

Sales software can take many different forms, but they share a common goal: to improve the sales process (or at least some part of it).

Many sales platforms offer a range of functionalities, from lead scoring to automated follow-ups to performance data analytics. Software creates predictable, repeatable processes for sales teams to follow, ensuring they’re focusing on specific objectives or tasks and have a centralized way to organize their efforts.

Sales intelligence software, sales automation platforms, CRMs, partner management software, and document signing services are all examples of sales software.

Tip: Learn how to scale your sales efforts by reading our ultimate sales intelligence guide.

Using sales software allows businesses to simplify, track, and even automate some of their sales functions.

Here are our top picks of must-have sales software and why we chose them:

Seismic Learning (formerly known as Lessonly by Seismic)

Hunter.io -  All-in-one cold email platform

Textmagic - Business Text Messaging Software

As a sales professional, you know that optimizing your prospecting strategy is key. With competitive sales intelligence and sales intelligence tools, you can achieve higher conversions, reduce churn, and encourage customer loyalty.

Execute more accurate prospecting.
Throwing spaghetti at the wall doesn't yield results. Improving the accuracy and relevancy of your outreach will engage the prospects that will convert.

Get back crucial time.
When you automate sales processes you not only reduce the capacity for human error, you free up your sales teams to do the things that machines can't.

Strengthen customer relationships.
Once a client signs on the dotted line, the challenge becomes keeping them invested. The key is staying relevant by leveraging the Meltwater sales intelligence solution.

The Meltwater Sales Intelligence Suite has you covered in the following fields:

Interested in getting a free personalized tour of our suite today? Simply fill out this form and get started!

Owler excels as a sales prospecting tool, ensuring your sales team receives qualified leads to speak to. This sales software tool comes into play at the very top of the funnel and offers benefits throughout the process until decision day.

Easily discover new contacts and qualify them for your sales process so you’re not wasting time on leads that never would have closed to begin with.

Owler also lets you automate certain tasks based on actions your leads take, allowing you to keep the conversation going without the heavy lifting. You can also dig deep into company data, such as revenue, employee headcount, and news, so you can have more impactful conversations with your prospects.

Owler is a Meltwater company. If you'd like to get a free demo, simply fill out this form. Our experts will be in touch with you.

Zendesk’s sales CRM specializes in the sales aspect of customer relationships. Included in its platform is a customer contact manager, lead management system, and activity tracking so you can see how your sales reps are moving the needle. 

Zendesk’s user-friendly interface and customizable sales funnel make it easy to start using right away. Dashboards show you important information at a glance, such as new leads, top deals, and revenue for the month.

You can make Zendesk Sell even more powerful with a suite of app integrations, including apps for social media, email marketing, lead generation, and data analytics and reporting.

PandaDoc leads the pack in contract management software. Contracts are critical tools that help sales reps secure deals. With fewer companies wanting to deal with paper, PandaDoc makes it easy to turn contracts into digital assets that clients can e-sign and send back to the sales rep.

Companies use PandaDoc to create new contracts or convert paper versions to digital copies. The tool comes with multiple templates that can be customized to fit a brand’s requirements.

PandaDoc keeps sales reps updated every step of the way, with real-time notifications when the contract is delivered, opened, and signed and automated follow-up to nudge clients who have yet to sign.

Signature-capture software DocuSign replaces the need for faxing, snail mail, or bulky email attachments when a signature is required. This software offers a variety of use cases across departments, but in the sales ecosystem, it’s a great tool for sales contracts, invoices, and agreements.

Drag-and-drop tools let you customize contracts. You can easily highlight what you need clients to fill out. Docusign will also send them a copy for their records automatically, saving your sales team several steps in the contract phase.

Pipeliner CRM puts a firm emphasis on the “relationship” part of sales CRM. This feature-rich platform caters to lead management, pipeline management, and contact management, enriching each of these areas with visuals for better tracking. 

Relationship maps show key connections between people in your CRM, leading to better overall account management and conversation builders. You can also see products you’ve already sold customers, what they’ve passed on, and what they have yet to hear about, which can lead to more impactful interactions. It also allows sales teams to take a project management-style approach to their pipelines and break them into tasks and objectives. 

Made for small businesses, Keap CRM uses simple features to move leads from one stage to the next. With small teams needing to make the best use of time and resources, Keap’s automation features relieve reps of busy work that can slow down the entire sales wheel.

Among Keap’s most notable features are email and text marketing, business lines for personal smartphones, and lead collection and organization. Reps can schedule appointments, invoice customers, convert and upsell clients, collect reviews, and keep a running record of their interactions, all from a single place.

Sender provides affordable email and SMS marketing software designed to boost sales for startups, small businesses, and ecommerce stores. 

The platform helps you capture quality leads with high-converting popups, automate your email and SMS campaigns, and create professional emails in minutes using its drag-and-drop email builder and responsive templates.

The sales and marketing software also offers advanced segmentation features that enable you to group customers based on their preferences and behavior. This way, you can target them with personalized emails that boost engagement and sales.

Moreover, you can effectively track your campaign’s performance with Sender's detailed analytics and reports. This includes understanding how your audience engages with your emails, which leads to better targeting and personalization strategies. 

With such a data-driven approach, you can ensure that your sales and marketing campaigns always align with your business goals, maximizing the return on your investment.

Freshworks incorporates AI into its sales CRM to help sales professionals sell more, faster.

This AI sales assistant software finds the best deal opportunities for sales teams so they can focus their time and energy on leads that are most likely to convert.

It can also predict future revenue to ensure you’re meeting critical targets and shows you next best actions to keep productivity high.

Creating effective landing pages is crucial for capturing leads and driving conversions. Hostinger's Landing Page Builder is designed to simplify this process, offering an intuitive platform that allows you to build high-converting landing pages without any technical expertise. This tool is ideal for businesses of all sizes looking to enhance their online presence and improve their marketing efforts.

Popupsmart, a no-code popup builder, excels in helping sales reps collect potential customers' contact information, address cart abandonment, allow direct phone calls, gamify marketing campaigns via popups, and even offers email automation for Shopify brands to improve consumer engagement.

Its easy interface lets sales reps pick from over 350 templates or design custom popups.

With advanced targeting options, Popupsmart ensures the right popups reach the intended audience based on their visit history, language, or the traffic source they navigated with. This effectively boosts the impact of sales messages.

Brainshark is a sales enablement platform that caters to the entire sales spectrum. It gives reps data-driven insights into their performance and color-codes performance issues so reps can see where they need to step it up. The platform also includes multiple content creation features for interactive learning and selling. 

Sales leaders can also use the tool as a coaching and feedback tool to share areas of opportunity with their teams. Leaders can provide feedback in the form of videos or text to coach or train employees and assess what they retain during trainings.

LinkedIn has become a mainstay in modern B2B selling, so it’s no surprise its Sales Navigator platform creates a powerful bridge between sales reps and prospects. This data-driven platform provides insights into the accounts where reps should be spending most of their time.

Sales reps can use the platform to find target buyers at moments when they’re ready to pull the trigger. And with a mountain of LinkedIn data to support it, sales reps can find hidden connections between prospects to help them nurture and grow their relationships. (Sales is all about who you know, after all.)

21 Top Sales Software to Boost Your Business

Connecting your brand with the latest trends is a great way to get your audience’s attention. When you become a part of what people are already talking about, you have an easy “in” into their conversations. It can get people talking about you just as much as the trend itself.

This process is what we call trendjacking, and there’s an art to it. It’s not just about finding what’s trendy and then slapping your brand on it. Rather, you want to find a way to authentically connect with that trend in a way that helps your brand stand out.

Let’s explore trendjacking and how social listening can help you leverage it in your social media marketing strategy.

Tips for Using Trendjacking to Your Advantage

How to Implement Trendjacking in Marketing

Trendjacking meaning: The art of using popular trends or topics in your marketing to make your brand visible and relevant.

Our trendjacking definition doesn’t just include trends like fashion and color schemes. We’ve seen brands trendjack memes, viral videos, events, interests, and anything else that’s part of our digital pop culture. 

Say your favorite coffee shop shares a video of employees doing the latest viral TikTok dance challenge. Suddenly, they’re no longer just a coffee shop; they’re part of a much bigger conversation.

Part of what makes trendjacking so alluring is its immediacy. Brands have to stay on their toes and quickly identify trends as they emerge. Companies need to be reactive as well as creative to put their unique spin on popular topics. Otherwise, they get lost in the noise or don’t appear authentic.

TIP: Learn all of the do's and don'ts of trendjacking, as well as real world examples, in our Ultimate Guide to Trendjacking!

Comparing newsjacking vs. trendjacking, there are some similarities between the two. However, newsjacking stays in the news lane. It focuses on breaking news stories, such as a major weather event or a corporate scandal. 

By comparison, trendjacking sticks mostly to cultural themes. These are things that trend over time, not just in the moment. 

Trendjacking might not have the same adrenaline rush as newsjacking, but it does allow brands to better build authenticity without seeming too opportunistic.

For marketers, trendjacking content can make your job easier and your results more effective. Here are some of the benefits you can expect when you tap into the hottest trending topics.

Increase your visibility. Jumping on a trending topic helps your brand appear in conversations that are already happening, giving you exposure to a wider audience.

Boost engagement. People are discussing what’s relevant right now, and when your brand chimes in, it sparks more comments, likes, and shares.

Build your brand’s personality. Trendjacking lets you show a different side of your brand, one that’s personable, human, and relatable.

Create cost-effective content. Since trends are already buzzing, content creation becomes a low-lift task that can lower costs and speed up the process.

Make your brand relevant to your audience. Being part of trending conversations makes your brand seem more in touch with what’s going on around you.

Drive traffic. Using popular topics or hashtags, you can get more eyes on your content, which may result in more clicks and visits.

Go viral. If your take on a trending topic is relevant, clever, and witty, you stand a good chance of going viral alongside that topic, which can be game-changing for your brand awareness.

Connect with your audience on a deeper level. Engaging with topics your audience cares about allows you to build stronger, more authentic connections.

TIP: See how brands achieved these benefits and more with their own trendjacking strategies in our Ultimate Guide to Trendjacking.

Trendjacking can take many forms, and plenty of brands have gotten it right. Here are a few trendjacking examples to inspire you.

Oreo’s “Dunk in the Dark” message as a nod to the 2013 Super Bowl power outage

Burger King’s “Moldy Whopper” to show it uses real ingredients without preservatives

The black and gold vs. blue and white dress, where NASA entered the conversation to share insights on lighting and perceptions

Taco Bell’s “Taco Moon” that aligned with a major astronomical event in 2021

The assignment is clear: Find what people are talking about, then use those trends to support your marketing messages.

One thing each of these trendjacking examples has in common is their timing. These companies capitalized on trends that were relevant and already being talked about. Someone talking about “the dress” right now isn’t likely to use this trend effectively.

Want to use the power of trendjacking in your marketing? Here are some practical ways you can start implementing trends to grow your online presence and build stronger connections.

Holidays and other special events (like the Super Bowl or National Pizza Day) give you a low barrier to entry. Most people are already thinking about and prepping for these special days, so you have an easy entry into the conversation. 

Create themed content that plays off these events. This might be a quirky social media post or an exclusive offer for the occasion, for example.

Timing is everything in trendjacking. Once a trend starts gaining traction, be prepared to make a splash. The key is to not overthink it. Just create something that’s relevant to the moment and let it ride.

TikTok dance challenges, the Ice Bucket Challenge, and the TikTok Olympics were digital gold for user-generated content. You can create your own themed challenge that aligns with your product or service.

If your competitors have jumped on a trend, offer a witty response or an alternative take. For example, the sign wars between McDonald’s and Dairy Queen in Missouri went viral and brought attention to both brands.

Not every trend will feel like a good fit for your industry, and that’s okay. The key is to find the right angle. With a little creativity, you can adapt just about anything.

For example, if you’re selling tech gadgets, you can use fashion trends to talk about “dressing up” your tech. (So demure, so mindful.)

When you’re tracking trends in the moment, it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement. But as with any type of marketing, trendjacking can go horribly wrong if you don’t go about it correctly. 

Don’t jump on the wrong trend. If you try to force your way into a trend that doesn’t align with your audience or values, it can feel out of place. 

Don’t arrive to the party late. Timing matters, so make sure you’re choosing trends that haven’t yet peaked.

Avoid offending your audience. Certain trends, such as those tied to sensitive topics or social movements, require extra caution.

Don’t overdo it. Constantly chasing trends can make you appear reactive rather than original or strategic. Use trendjacking sparingly.

Make sure you understand the trend. Remember DiGiorno’s disastrous use of the #WhyIStayed hashtag? Talk about awkward!

Don’t ignore your analytics. Just because you’re riding the trend wave doesn’t mean you’ll be successful. Make sure you’re tracking the performance of your trendy content and adjusting your approach as needed.

There are plenty of places where you can find inspiration for your trendjacking campaigns. Let’s look at a few options and how to surface the best trending topics for your marketing.

Popular marketing trends can give you some food for thought. For example, using MS Paint to make billboards and collateral had a moment. Amateur artwork was all the rage for a brief time, and it became a viral joke.

You can also tap into influencers and other types of user-generated content to see the type of content they’re creating.

Trendjacking social media ideas will give you inspiration for days. Social media trends tend to carry a lot of weight with audiences. It’s also where trends go viral, which gives you an inside look at what people are sharing and talking about.

You can start with your own social feeds. See the types of content others are talking about and pick out trends that might fit your brand. Our free eBook, The Ultimate Guide to Trendjacking, provides more guidance!

Meltwater’s social listening solution simplifies the search for trending topics. Using AI and data science, social listening tools monitor for keywords and phrases, including how often they’re used and how people are talking about them. It compiles these findings into reports and alerts so you can decide on your next steps.

Built for trendspotting and trend detection, Meltwater constantly monitors conversations across all social media channels. It can detect spikes in the number of mentions of a given topic or keyword so you can hop on trends before they go viral. Better to be an OG than a late follower.

Meltwater’s social listening platform lets you be everywhere all at once. You can monitor unlimited keywords related to your brand, product, or service, then get alerts when people are talking about those keywords. Meltwater also analyzes the sentiment behind these conversations so you can gauge whether these mentions are positive, negative, or neutral.

Learn more when you request a demo by filling out the form below!

What Is Trendjacking and How Can You Use It For Your Brand?

A single X post can spark a revolution. A viral meme can push an average citizen into the global spotlight. And a single Facebook or Instagram post can help brands rake in thousands of extra dollars in minutes. There’s power in social media, and to harness it, you’ll need to create a social media marketing strategy like no other.

Social media isn’t just a playground for creativity and fun. The latest social media statistics show it’s become an essential tool for business. It lets you directly connect with your target audience to hold conversations, get instant feedback, and showcase the human side of your brand.

Behind every viral sensation lies something more: strategy. Just like any successful business venture, winning big on social media requires careful planning and execution. 

Let’s start by developing your social media marketing strategy so you can turn casual scrolls into meaningful interactions.

Why You Need a Social Media Marketing Strategy

How to Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy in 7 Steps

Creating a Social Media Strategy with Meltwater

We define a social media marketing plan as a roadmap for building meaningful connections on social media. It’s a combination of your audience, goals, social channels, and content that will combine to reach the right people.

Imagine going out in a boat without a compass. It’s easy to see how to head out into open waters. But once you’re there, you’ll likely float along aimlessly. 

It’s the same with social media marketing. Your social media marketing plan isn’t just a checklist of tasks. Instead, think of it as the steps you take to reach a desired outcome. You have an idea of what you want to happen, and the plan will help you achieve those goals.

That said, plans aren’t set in stone. They provide guidance rather than hardwired steps. In some cases, you’ll need to veer off course to take advantage of trends that will help you stay relevant. You can build flexibility into your social media strategy so you’ll always be on the move.

TIP: Trendjacking help take your social media marketing strategy to the next level. Download our free resource The Ultimate Guide to Trendjacking to learn more!

Before you start posting on social media all willy-nilly, take a little time to create a plan. Your plan will become your social media marketing plan template that you can use in the future. This helps you avoid skipping important details.

Let’s look at the steps involved in creating a social media marketing strategy.

The Meltwater Blog

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