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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

Influencer marketing is evolving, and so is the way brands measure success. That’s why Meltwater is proud to announce a new partnership with YouTube, integrating YouTube’s Creator Partnerships API directly into our Influencer Marketing platform.

Introducing Verified YouTube Data in Meltwater Influencer Marketing

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

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

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

The coronavirus pandemic has upturned our lives, completely redefining the way we communicate. Social media usage is up and brands are finding new ways to connect with their audience, most of whom are self-isolating at home.

As screen time increases, many have been utilizing new features like Instagram Live (IG Live) to drive engagement and provide valuable content during this time. In fact, in a recent study, we observed that Instagram Live’s popularity surged 288% from March 15 – April 14. And, this popularity is not just with influencers and celebrities, from fitness to food to performing arts to playboy, many different brands are utilizing this unique feature.

IG Live is a component within Instagram Stories, that allows for real-time video streaming and audience interactions (comments and likes). 

Similar to Stories, IG Live offers unfiltered, authentic content.

IG Live is a nice replacement for face-to-face and communal interactions during lockdown.

SoulCycle is a global fitness brand offering cycle-based workouts. The brand has over 90 studios worldwide, all of which have shut down due to coronavirus. For a fitness-brand, whose workout is based on a very specific prop, this posed some technicalities that SoulCycle would have to workaround. The brand decided to offer “Off The Bike”, live courses offered on the official Social Cycle Instagram page, and a calendar of courses offered by SoulCycle instructors on their personal Instagram pages.

SoulCycle couldn’t offer fans the “cycle” component of their brand, but the core of the brand is fitness and that is what they are still providing.

Sabra is a food and beverage company, offering a variety of Mediterranean-style foods including a range of hummus flavors and Guacamole. To better adapt to COVID-19, the brand launched “Hummus at Home”, an initiative to bring sabra-based recipes to people’s homes. Sabra hosts different chefs on their Instagram channel who teach followers how to prepare a fun and delicious recipe.

By collaborating with chefs, Sabra is able to show how their ingredient is the perfect ingredient to a great dish. What type of collaborator would give your brand the stamp of approval?

DPAC is a performing arts center located in Durham, North Carolina. DPAC hosts touring Broadway shows, concerts, comedies, and other live events. It has currently suspended all performances until April 30th, due to the coronavirus pandemic. But, DPAC is still offering fans a small taste of the arts on their Instagram page, by offering IG Live interviews with Broadway stars and behind-the-scenes and a “private-tours” of the performing arts center. For theater geeks, this is awesome content.

Your fans are home looking for new things to attract their attention. An exclusive interview with someone relevant to your field or a tour of your office is a great way to engage your fans while social distancing.

For customer-facing businesses, like fitness centers and hair salons, social distancing completely impacts a brand's ability to give services. Figuring out a format for your brand to operate virtually lets you maintain a relationship with customers, even if it’s remote. Just as SoulCycle is offering “off the bike” lessons, IG Live is a great place to offer some form of support or service to your customers even if it’s not at full capacity.

2. Let Someone Take Over Your Brand’s Instagram

If you’re still feeling uneasy about hosting your own IG Live find an influencer from your industry and have them host a fun segment. Try using a social media publishing tool like Meltwater to schedule some posts promoting this takeover in advance. For example, If you are a food company, perhaps you should have a chef offer your followers a cooking lesson, or if you a beauty brand have an influencer offer your fans a make-up tutorial. Not only are Lives a great format for showcasing how your products can be used, but influencers can give you the stamp of approval.

3. Host an Interview With an Important Player in Your Ecosystem

Whether your brand is Fortune 100 or a smaller national organization, you’re going to have people interested in what you know and eager to get to know the people behind the scenes. Many brands, and even celebrities, have been using the IG Live tool to host interviews. The “add a friend to broadcast” feature, lets two users participate in a Live simultaneously. This is a great way to put a face to your brand, without it seeming overly curated or forced.

Should Your Brand Be On Instagram Live?

10 years ago, ordering a mattress online would seem crazy. The logistics alone would be hard to fathom. The mattress-in-a-box industry has changed all that. From Casper to Leesa to Purple, the market continues to grow with new players offering consumers an easy way to shop and deliver a mattress. Tuft & Needle is an Arizona-based brand providing affordably priced mattresses and a simplified buying process.

Dilemma: In an oversaturated market, ripe with competition, Tuft & Needle must find a way to stand out from the masses (of mattresses).

Solution: #WakeUpBetter: a creative campaign utilizing a diverse pool of niche influencers, each connecting the Tuft & Needle experience with their personal narrative.

Result: A collection of targeted personas that can easily speak to a specific audience.

#WakeUpBetter is an ongoing campaign run by the mattress-in-a-box brand Tuft & Needle. As of now they have partnered with 75 influencers across many different industries including lifestyle, fashion, beauty, parenting, entrepreneurship, cooking, fitness, and dance. The successful combination of strategic messaging and collaboration has helped Tuft & Needle separate themselves from the competition. By collaborating with multiple personas, Tuft & Needle is expressing

“this is a product for every person and every situation”.

Target Audience: Young, Active, New Yorkers

Antuan Byers, a professional dancer and model located in New York. Antuan has 25K followers, and outstanding engagement metrics for an influencer of his size, averaging, 8.7K true reach (real views) per post.

We identified that 59% of Antuan’s followers are women, 30-years old, 33% are from New York City, 14% are dancers or in the dance space, and the top hashtag used by his network is #art. Meaning, Antuan’s followers are extremely focused and interested in the type of content he produces.

Through Antuan, Tuft & Needle is able to connect with young men and women, who are interested in dance, and convey that their products are perfect for people who live an active lifestyle and need a place to rest and restore.

Meltwater Influencer Profile: Antuan Byers

Target: Interior Decorators & Design Lovers

Kamille Magette is an Arizona based interior designer with 35.5K instagram followers. Her instagram account @dreaming_of_decor share’s design inspiration with her followers from her house and other projects she has worked on.

94% of Kamille’s audience is Female, and #homedecor #boho and #interiors are the most popular hashtag used and generating engagement by her followers.  Meaning, she is consistently engaging with a network of people that are passionate about interior design.

With Kamille’s carefully curated posts, Kamile was able to effectively articulate that Tuft & Needle is the brand for those looking for sleek and stylish items. Not only is her audience passionate about interior design, they see Kamille as a source of style inspiration. With her help, Tuft & Needle can express they are not just a mattress, they are an it-item for those looking to update their home.

Creating an exciting brand message that resonates across age, gender, and interest is challenging. Yet, Tuft & Needle managed to do so by establishing a pain-point anyone can relate to. Whether you’re a parent of young children, a touring dancer, or an entrepreneur, you’ll need to feel refreshed when you wake up in order to start your day right.

Ready to plan your next campaign? Schedule a demo and discover how your brand can benefit from Meltwater Influencer Marketing's industry-leading solution.

Influencer Marketing Inspiration: Tuft & Needle

Is your public relations team reaching the right media contacts? Having a list of journalists compiled in a media database helps you stay organized and efficient with your media outreach. Read on to improve your PR strategy through tips to creating and maintaining a journalist database.

Are you looking to leverage a media database in the Australian market? Check out our dedicated blog.

Filling & Maintaining a Media Database with Lists of Journalists

5. Nurture journalists for your media database

9. Keep your list of journalists up-to-date

How To Create a Media List with Meltwater

A media database is a repository of media contacts and journalists that PR professionals can use when reaching out for earned media coverage of a product, service, or company announcement. 

Media or PR databases include, at a bare minimum, contact information for each journalist. Ideally, though, each journalist will also be tagged with other information making it easier to sort by industry and improve the relevancy of your public relations outreach.

Looking for media contacts? Check out Meltwater's media database.

Discovering relevant press contacts to add to your media database is a painstaking job. You could approach this project in-house, however most public relations agencies will use a service, such as Meltwater, to access a curated list of global journalists and influencers. 

Here are the 9 top tips to compiling and using a stellar press list of journalists for your media database:

To help with pinpointing the right journalists from a PR database, it’s good practice to build a detailed persona of your target audience. Who do you want your story to be read by? The more niche your answer is, the more relevant (and ultimately more useful) your media list will be.

Of course, you’ll be considering basic demographics like age range, gender, location, and job title but these don’t tell you the whole story. 

Psychographics are just as, if not more, important for getting in front of the most relevant communications cross-section. They can tell you preferred social networks, lifestyle, personality, political views, and the kinds of publications they read & media they consume — do they prefer reading blogs, newspapers, trade magazines, forums, etc.? Get granular when creating audience personas; all this information will inform your journalist selection!

Tip: Take a look at the most popular US magazines

Some questions to ask yourself about your target audience:

Once your audience has properly been profiled, and you know the type of content that interests them, you can start researching meaningful publications and gather your journalist list with this in mind.

Reading Tip: Take a look at the largest US newspapers

Media Relations: How to Search for Media Contacts

It can be easy to get caught up in reach figures. Logic dictates that reach = eyeballs, so that’s good, right? Wrong. It’s important to go after the right eyeballs, to maximize your PR efforts beyond just an impression.

Knowing exactly which contacts to add to your list of journalists is the first step in organizing and optimizing PR outreach. You need to have good foundations in order to see tangible results. We have listed a few considerations below. 

Get to know writers, not just titles. Being aware of specific journalists that cover the types of content you want to get involved in is essential if you want your press list to be a useful tool. 

You can uncover new journalists by staying up to date with news and jotting down key spokespeople covering the stories and trends relevant to you. This is time-consuming, however, and there’s lots of room for human error. You simply can’t read every single publication and are bound to miss some relevant writers. 

To save time you can use a media monitoring tool like Meltwater to track industry news. Meltwater also provides a press contact / PR distribution solution to help scale your PR outreach efforts. Users can filter journalists by content, department, location and publication. You can also search based on topics they’ve written about recently to eliminate out-of-date contacts.

Meltwater also recently added a Media Contacts tab within our Explore tool for even more seamless way to identify and vet journalists who write on a particular topic. 

In addition to that, Meltwater PR solutions now has an integrated AI assistant, powered by ChatGPT, to help recommend relevant journalists and provide writing assistance for effective pitches. 

What are the different types of journalists?

There are many different types of journalists that you could consider for your press list. Journalists may specialize in one specific kind of reporting or then may cover a wide range - before doing any kind of media outreach from your PR database it will be important to know the journalist's specialty.

Get more information below on the following types of journalists:

Here are 6 different types of journalists your press list could include:

Business journalists: covering stories in the business world such as notable IPOs, c-suite hires, mergers, the stock market, and investment advice. They will likely also cover various trends in business such as gender and racial diversity, or company work-from-home policies post-Covid to name a recent example.

Investigative journalists: taking a tip or a hunch and probing further to produce heavily researched articles. These journalists often write pieces that form public opinion and will typically write on the same story multiple times as new information comes to light. Examples include: The Boston Globe unearthing years of abuse in the Catholic Church, and the Watergate scandal.

Entertainment journalists: covering entertainment news these journalists write about film, arts, music, dance, and stage productions from many different angles. They could focus on the scholarly side, such reviews or trends, or they might focus on celebrity culture, either in tabloids or for lighter news sites such as BuzzFeed.

Photojournalists: photojournalism refers to telling a story through visuals rather than words. Often these journalists cover major events like warzones or natural disasters. They may also work in tandem with reporters to provide accompanying images for news pieces.

Sports journalists: like entertainment journalists, these reporters cover sporting events, athletes, teams and coaches, sports medicine, and trends in the sports industry. 

Opinion journalists: opinion pieces are written on a particular topic from an opinion-based point of view rather than purporting to be non-biased and strictly based on facts. These pieces offer a specific perspective based on the journalist's area of expertise, background, or other qualifications. Op-eds, essays, and advice columns are two popular forms of opinion journalism. 

Keep a record of previous earned media and refer back to see which journalists and media outlets provided the highest volume of coverage. Do you see a pattern? Is there a particular story that received more press? Are there journalists or outlets that frequently cover you? If so, these are valuable contacts with whom you should maintain a good working relationship. They’re likely to be quick wins for coverage compared to others who aren’t familiar with your company.

In addition to the number of hits you received, look at the sentiment of the mentions. This helps you identify the journalists who consistently write favorable articles and flag those authors who may require some extra nurturing. Any good media monitoring tool will be able to provide you with this kind of insight.

Your competitor’s strengths and weaknesses can easily become yours, so it’s good practice to put the same amount of effort into reviewing your competitor’s coverage as you do your own. Make a note of the types of publications their name keeps popping up in and add the journalists mentioning them to your own media list.

Tip: Learn how to conduct a competitor analysis

Where you can, try and build media lists on social platforms too. Journalists may prefer communicating via channels like X or Facebook rather than by emailed or phone. This is also an easy way to keep up with the content they’re sharing on social media. 

Social media can also be used to spot future opportunities. Journalists use hashtags such as #journorequest when they’re looking for support with stories. A social listening tool can send you instant alerts when a journalist tweets something along those lines, so you’re the first to know!

Authentic relationships take time to build, but those who play the long game are rewarded with sustainable and fruitful PR partnerships. Media relationships need to grow before they reach their full potential, yet many PR professionals’ skip the nurturing process and dive straight into what they want from the influencer — thereby not realizing these opportunities. 

Instead, you should build up engagement over a long period of time. Start by following the journalist across all social platforms. Like their content, ask questions, and respond to questions posed by their community. Basically, get on their radar before “needing” them.

A blanket pitch sent to a broad set of journalists is easily disregarded as spam. Editors and journalists get up to hundreds of pitches a day, so it’s important to stand out and pitch with intention. The key is to identify the right person at a publication to pitch. 

Pitching multiple people at the same publication reveals the lack of exclusivity, which immediately diminishes the value of your story. Meltwater can help save you time here by using keyword searches to identify individuals who write about topics relevant to your pitch. Further refinement is possible through a range of filters (geography, media type, role, reach, etc.). You can also use Meltwater's PR AI assistant to help with ideas and hone in on specific language that makes your pitch even more irresistible to journalists.

Tip for journalists: having a Meltwater profile can be a helpful asset in receiving pitches that are relevant and if you move publications, this information is easily updated as well.

Keep a close eye on the market and your competitors on a regular basis. Note the publications and journalists that have already talked about subjects related to your company. These types of journalist lists are more likely to warm to your message since they have already shown a strong interest in your sector.

When you pitch, one thing you should always be considering is how to differentiate yourself from your competitors. After all, if they have already talked about a product similar to yours, they’re not going to want to cover the same story again. But you could offer them an alternative viewpoint or an extension of the story.

Keep your press lists short and sweet. It’s more effective to have a handful of very relevant journalists with whom you have good relations than a huge database of contacts you rarely speak to.

Here are some criteria to pay attention to when refining your list of journalists:

Is the journalist a generalist or specialist?

Are they addressing the general public or are they experts in a specific area?

What’s their editorial line: critical, humorous, analytical?

Do they mind being contacted via social media?

Do they write chronicles, reports, articles, blogs etc?

By being aware of the above, you can adapt your messages to their way of processing information.

Leveraging a Media Database to Build a List of Journalists

Meltwater Influencer Marketing searches and organizes influencer information across the leading social networks to help you find the most relevant influencers for your brand.

How Meltwater Organizes Social Media Influencers

Meltwater Influencer Marketing organizes information about influencers into a search index. This index is like a library, with an extremely efficient librarian. In the Meltwater search index, each influencer is categorized by their topic.

Our AI technology is able to classify influencers into topics by looking at hundreds of different features and significant signals. These signals include #hashtags, audience interests, network quality, and more.

How does AI pick up significant signals? 

Our AI sifts through thousands of signals to identify which of those highly correlate with specific topical communities. It would be impossible to list them all, but here are some examples of questions machines ask themselves during the process:

Which hashtags are unique to this influencer’s audience? 

On what topics does this influencer influence their audience? 

Are there similar usage patterns between this influencer to other influencers surrounding the said topic

Are there any suspicious signals in this influencer’s audience (like newly created accounts, no-name, low/too-high activity rates, bot patterns).

That way, whether you search by a #hashtag or a Topic, our AI algorithm has already leveraged categorical prediction capabilities, to result in the most relevant influencers for your influencer search.

With the number of influencers and various social networking platforms, identifying suitable influencers for collaboration can be nearly impossible without help sorting. The Meltwater Influencer Marketing scoring system does just that. In a millisecond, Meltwater's search algorithm sorts through millions of influencers in our search index. We then present you with the influencers whose topic classification best aligns with your search criteria.

Our scoring systems are made up of not one, but a whole series of algorithms. To give you the most useful information, Search algorithms look at many factors, in order to infer if a user has the ability to generate social influence. We use machine learning and data prediction analyzing thousands of features and billions of posts. Using these algorithms, we calculate influence across the top social networks. That way, you will see how well influencers align with brand goals.

Using machine learning algorithms, we predict the number of real views an influencer’s post has the potential to receive. We evaluate network patterns that correspond with real people vs. automated bots or sporadic usage. There are thousands of different patterns our system identifies. For example, receiving many new likes from newly created accounts is considered a low-quality pattern, while long-lasting relationships and high-interest space matches are considered a high-quality pattern.

Search Results that are Easy to Understand

To ensure that you embark on the most impactful collaboration, Meltwater Influencer Marketing presents search results in a useful and digestible format. Whether you want to review an influencer’s topics, #hashtags, engagement, audience demographic, portfolio, or more, it’s all at your fingertips and we are constantly developing new ways to present information. 

If you set Spain as a search criterion, you most likely want an influencer with an audience in Spain, not just an influencer located in Spain. Meltwater's index is built to sort results based on such requests and presents the main country of an influencer’s audience. Always offering you the full picture.

Social media is constantly evolving, and this is reflected in the results you see in Meltwater search. We constantly recrawl the social index for new content. Depending on your query, some results pages change rapidly, while others are more stable. 

Meltwater search is great, but we know it can always be better. We want to ensure we are always providing the most useful and updating results. That is why we are continually evolving Meltwater search by applying testing and evaluations. 

Our engineers have many ideas on how to improve our Search Results. Each idea is placed through a rigorous testing and evaluation process. The data from these experiments go through a Data review process, including engineers, data scientists, and search analysts, and then we decide if the idea can be launched. Every year Meltwater runs thousands of experiments, resulting in thousands of improvements.

Get a free tour of our platform and start your own influencer search today:

How Does Meltwater Influencer Search Work?

Learn how to use Instagram collab posts to co-author content and grow its reach — it’s fast, easy, and powerful in helping you grow your Insta presence.

Differences Between Collab Posts and Mentions or Tags

How Instagram Collab Posts Increase Your Reach

Other Benefits of an Instagram Collaboration Post

How To Find Influencers for Instagram Collab Posts

One of Instagram’s most unique advantages is its ability to connect you with other brands and influencers to create powerful, results-driven content. If you’re not using Instagram collab posts to do this, you’re missing out.

Instagram has become synonymous with brand collaborations over the years. It’s a platform of inspiration, influence, and more than a little FOMO. To help its creators improve the way they work together (and encourage more unique content), Instagram creates features like the Instagram collab post that takes your posting game to a whole new level.

Here’s what marketers should know about the Insta collab feature and how you can use it to fuel your influencer marketing.

Instagram rolled out its collaborative posts in 2021. The collab feature allows two accounts to co-author a Reel or feed post. Basically, it looks like the post came from both people.

In the context of influencer marketing, brands can add influencers as collaborators to a post (and vice versa). When this happens, the audiences of both authors will see the content. They share the likes, views, and comments.

And since the content is being shown to two sets of followers, the total number of views and engagement rates will be larger than either could achieve on their own.

Tip: Learn more about Instagram impressions and reach, how the Instagram algorithm works, and about Instagram analytics.

You might be thinking, this sounds like mentions or tags with extra steps. There are significant differences, though, and they’re important to consider.

When you mention or tag another account in your content, that doesn't guarantee visibility to the tagged account's followers. For instance, if someone tags you in a video, your followers won't automatically see it. They would need to visit your profile to view the tagged content.

In a collab post on Instagram, both parties are listed as authors, and their account names appear in the post's header. This is not the case with mentions and tags, where you are not credited as an author of the post.

The collab feature on Instagram provides both parties with access to success metrics, such as reach and engagement. This is in stark contrast to posts where you are merely mentioned or tagged, as those don't offer any insights into the content's performance —  unless you use specialized tools like Meltwater Influencer Marketing.

The term "collab" itself signifies a more formal, professional, and official relationship between the involved accounts. Unlike mentions or tags, a collab requires acceptance of an invitation, indicating a mutual agreement and partnership. This adds a layer of personal investment for both parties involved.

When you use the Instagram collab feature, you can guarantee your content will be seen by more people. Collaborators are co-authors, so the content is shown to both sets of followers. It’s a fast and easy way to get more eyes on your posts without making any extra effort (other than inviting a collaborator).

Of course, more views and wider reach mean more opportunities for engagement. You share the likes, shares, and comments with your co-author and can track these engagements in your metrics dashboard.

Their followers might become your followers, and vice versa. This is the low-hanging fruit of audience growth for brands since your collab Instagram post gives you instant credibility with their audience.

With every new follower you earn from your Instagram collaboration, the more opportunities you have to engage these newcomers with future content. That’s a gift with a lasting impact.

The Meltwater Blog

Should Your Brand Be On Instagram Live?

Influencer Marketing Inspiration: Tuft & Needle

Leveraging a Media Database to Build a List of Journalists

How Does Meltwater Influencer Search Work?

How to Use Instagram Collab Posts to Increase Your Reach

How To Use WhatsApp for Business in 2025

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