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Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Guide

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is transforming how brands show up in AI-powered search. Explore insights, strategies, and best practices to help your content rank and resonate across conversational engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot.

Explore insights and strategies for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) to help your brand stay visible and discoverable in AI-powered search.

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Blog Collection | Meltwater

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

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

Media Monitoring: Guides, Best Practices & Industry Insights

Every day billions of conversations take place on social media: tweets, posts, comments, blogs, reviews, podcasts, and much more.

Learn how to use social listening to make sense of all of that data.

On our social listening category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around social listening and social media monitoring. Read more.

Social Listening Blogs | Category

Business Reputation Management: What does it take to add reputation management to your marketing strategy? More importantly, how do you keep your reputation sparkly and shiny? Here’s your all-access guide to online reputation management for the long term.

On our reputation management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around business reputation management. Read more.

Reputation Management Blogs | Category

From your brand's logo to your website, your social media presence to your customer support—these elements combined are what constitutes a brand in the minds of customers. But, there are thousands of other businesses that have a logo, website, social media presence, and website. So, how can you position your business on the market and make it stand out from the competition?

The key to success is branding & brand management!

On our brand management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around brand management. Build your strategy and reach your goals!

Brand Management Blogs | Category

Competitive intelligence and the act of collecting competitive data can be seen as growth drivers for a company. Our guide will help you understand the concept of competitive intelligence (CI) by answering questions such as: What is the definition of competitive intelligence? How is competitive intelligence useful to organizations? What is the goal of competitive intelligence? And more.

On our competitive intelligence category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around competitive intelligence. Learn how to stay ahead.

Competitive Intelligence Blogs | Category

Let’s dive into the customer journey framework and how to optimize the process by creating a customer journey map and using metrics that matter when analyzing the customer journey.

On our customer journey category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Customer Journey Blogs | Category

How do customers interact with my newly launched product?

How do I increase the productivity of my employees?

How do I know if my marketing efforts are working?

We have just two words for you...Data analytics!

On our data analytics category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around AI and data analytics. Technical and still easy to understand.

AI & Data Analytics Blogs | Category

Public relations and media relations can add impact to any marketing strategy. It’s an opportunity for brands to grow their reach beyond traditional sales messages. PR helps to shape the image you want people to have of your brand.

So, what is PR and how do you use it? This guide shows you everything you need to know to build a strong public relations foundation.

On our public relations (PR) category page, you find all our blogs covering public relations and communications topics. Step up your PR game.

Public Relations (PR) Blogs | Category

We all know exactly what the roles of sales or accounting are in a company, right? We might even have a slight idea of what the IT guys are doing.

But there is another business discipline, that plays a crucial role in organizations, even more so during the pandemic – internal communications!

But what exactly do we mean by that, what purpose does it serve and what steps can you take to ensure you and your employees will communicate effectively?

On our internal communications category page, you find all our blogs about internal comms topics. Learn about the intranet, internal newsletters, and more.

Internal Communications Blogs | Category

As the internet has taken root in more areas of our lives — everything from entertainment to shopping to paying bills and more — traditional marketing is becoming less impactful. As any marketer knows, you need to focus on where your audience is if you want to reach them. Since the average person spends about seven hours a day online, it’s no surprise that content has maintained its hold on marketers.

Here's a closer look at what content marketing is and why it matters more than ever in our digital-first economy.

On our content marketing category page, you find blogs about content marketing topics. Learn about strategies, KPIs, tips, and more. Make your content king!

Content Marketing Blogs | Category

The rise of the influencer marketing space – today a $10 billion industry, growing 50% per year – is one of the clearest examples of how social media is transforming traditional marketing. These days having a business website, presence on social, PR coverage, and your own content isn’t enough to compete.

We'll dive into the intricacies of influencer marketing to help ensure that you're equipped with the insights needed to be successful in this space.

On our influencer marketing category page, you find blogs about influencer marketing topics. Build your strategy, find influencers, and measure results.

Influencer Marketing Blogs | Category

Have you just launched a new product or service that you want to get the word out about? Maybe you want to share with consumers why it is awesome and how it is so much better than the one your competitors offer.

Well, then, there is one thing you can't do without...Marketing!

On our marketing category page, you find blogs about marketing topics. Learn about all the different angles and types of marketing and improve your results.

Marketing Blogs | Category

In this guide, we want to give you a peek into the definition of social media management, the daily schedule of a social media manager, social media platforms to promote your business, and the do’s & don’ts of social media management.

Are you ready to begin the journey of becoming a social media superstar?

On our social media management category page, you find blogs about social media management topics. Build and manage your online community.

Social Media Management Blogs | Category

Building a following and using social media platforms to reach a wider audience requires a well-planned social media marketing strategy. In this guide, we’ll be looking at why social media marketing is so essential and how you can make it work for your business.

On our social media marketing category page, you find blogs about social media marketing topics. Learn how to get the highest paid social ROI!

Social Media Marketing Blogs | Category

In the fast-evolving realm of digital marketing and public relations, utilizing the right tools is crucial for success. Our interdisciplinary category showcases all the pertinent tools for digital marketing & PR. These tools help in enhancing your online presence and effectively reaching target groups, whether through reputation management, influencer marketing, or social media management.

On our digital marketing and PR tools category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Digital Marketing & PR Tools Blogs | Category

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

Your Best Context is Already in the Room

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

15 Must-Have PR KPIs and How to Track Them

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

The Meltwater Blog

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

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

Facebook Blog | Meltwater

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

Instagram Blog | Meltwater

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

LinkedIn Blog | Meltwater

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

TikTok Blog | Meltwater

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

X / Twitter Blog | Meltwater

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

YouTube Blog | Meltwater

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

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.

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!

What Is Data Analytics?
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!

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.

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?

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.

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.

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!

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?

The great thing about influencer content is that it can be used as organic content or a paid post. In fact, content that your influencer’s post on Instagram can be boosted and turned into an ad. This is an opportunity many marketers forget about. Once your influencers have posted content, you have an opportunity to see which content is organically successful and can translate to paid success.

In this post, we'll explain the following use cases to you:

How to Authorize Influencers To Tag Your Business on Instagram

How Influencers Authorize Brands To Use IG Posts As An Ad

How Influencers Authorize Brands To Use Stories As An Ad

How To Promote Branded Content Using the Facebook Ads Manager

Read on to boost your influencer marketing efforts!

Why Should You Promote Influencer Content?

Influencer content is a wonderful way to authentically promote your brand. With a targeted audience, loyal followers, and a crafted voice, influencers are one of the purest marketing channels. And, while authentic and targeted marketing is a huge advantage of influencers, it is also important to recognize the quality content these creators produce.

Promoting your influencer content as an Ad is a great way to share your collaborations with an even larger audience. Your influencer content will organically generate great engagements, and boosting content with strong engagements shows others all the love your brand gets.

When you’re influencer tag your business on Instagram it not only makes it easier to discover and monitor all your influencer content, but it also exposes your brand to a wider network of users. When an influencer tags your brand and indicates that they are involved in a paid partnership, it establishes transparency between your brand and users. This transparency often converts to trust, which is an important value for many prospective clients.

In order for partners to tag your brand on Instagram, you must allow specific permissions.

Don't have an Instagram Business Account yet? Learn how to use Instagram for business, get inspired by the best B2B Instagram profiles, learn how to be successful with Instagram marketing, and learn how to get verified on Instagram.

Open your Instagram app and go to Settings → Business.

By selecting Required Approval, you have the power to approve all influencers who tag your business.

Approved Accounts is where you will manually approve influencers who have tagged your brand.

Next, search for your influencer’s Instagram handle.

Finally, make sure you select the influencer, which will enable them to tag your business.

There are many ways for influencers to disclose a paid partnership on Instagram and ensure FTC compliance.

However, if you are considering converting influencer Instagram stories into a paid advertisement, then it is important that your influencer tag your brand as a Business Partner. Additionally, during this step, your influencer grants your brand permission to use their content as an ad.

While uploading a photo, the influencer should select Advanced Settings.

Select Tag a Business Partner, in order to add a branded content tag to their post.

Step 3: Search for the Brand's Business Account

The influencer must search for the brand’s business account. Once the account is selected, the tag will appear on their post as a Business Partnership.

The influencer will receive a pop-up informing them that their post can be turned into an ad.

Step 5: Allow Business Partners to Promote

Select Allow Business Partners to Promote, which grants the brand access to promote tagged content.

Publish the post with Business Partner tag.

Similar to when creating an Instagram post, Stories can also be converted into an ad. In order to do so, the influencer must ensure that your brand is tagged as a Business Partner and authorize permission for the story to be used as an ad.

When uploading a story click the link icon.

Search for the correct brand handle to add as a partner.

Select Allow, so the business partner can promote branded content in their Instagram stories.

View your Business Partners to see which partners are authorized to promote branded content.

Share the Story with a Business Partnership tag.

Once you have enabled permissions and your influencers have posted their content and tagged your brand, it is time to boost your branded content on Facebook.

Tip: Learn how to use Facebook lead generation ads and how to boost Facebook reach.

Step 2: Select Where You'd Like To Promote the Content

In Placements select where you would like to promote the content as an ad (Instagram free, Stories, etc).

Under Ad-Level, select Use Existing Post.

In the Creativity section, click Select Post.

Step 5: Select Branded Content To Promote

Under the Branded Content Tab, select the branded content which you wish to promote.

Review your Ad preview, and then publish the Campaign!

Congratulations, you’ve successfully promoted branded content on Facebook. You’re on your way to reaching an even bigger audience with your influencer content.

If you’d like to learn more ways to use influencer marketing to support your brand goals, schedule a call with one of Meltwater's influencer marketing experts:

How To Promote Branded Influencer Content As Ads

When is the best time to post on social media?

Every social media manager wants an answer to this question! Social media posting times can influence who sees your post and the engagement rate on your social posts, so knowing when to post plays a part in the success of any social media management strategy.

So, what is the right publishing time to ensure maximum visibility and impact on your followers?

The answer isn't as simple as 6:00 p.m. on Sunday (despite what people may think!). The best times to post on Facebook, LinkedIn & Co. will depend on when your followers are online and when they use specific social channels. That might not be the answer you were looking for, but there are ways to figure out social media peak times—the time and days when your audience is online and engaging with your content. 

We'll show you how to determine them—plus share a few of the social media posting times that studies suggest as optimal times to post.

This infographic includes some quick tips that can help you organize your content calendar in order for your posts to get more exposure. 

https://meltwater-experience.pages.dev/experience-social-media-infographics/

When Is the Best Time to Post on Social Media?*

What Is the Best Time to Post on Facebook for Maximum Exposure?

What Is the Best Time to Post on Instagram?

What Is the Best Time to Post on Twitter / X?

What Is the Best Time to Post on LinkedIn?

What Is the Best Time to Release a YouTube Video?

How to Find the Best Times to Post on Social Media for Your Brand

Best Times to Post on Social Media are Impacted by Time Zones

While peak times vary across the different social media platforms, the afternoon appears to be a popular time to post to social media. Content shared on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays also seems to outperform content shared on other days of the week.

Best time to post on Facebook: Tuesday-Friday from 9 a.m. - 1 p.m.

Best time to post on Instagram: Wednesday & Thursday from 5 a.m., 11 a.m., and 2 p.m. - 3 p.m.

Best time to post on Twitter: Wednesday and Friday from 8 a.m. - 10 a.m.

Best time to post on LinkedIn: Wednesday and Thursday from 7 a.m.–8 a.m., 12 p.m., and 5 p.m.-6 p.m.

Best time to post on YouTube: Thursday & Friday from 12 p.m.-3 p.m.

Best time to post on TikTok: Tuesday & Thursday from 9 a.m.-12 a.m.

*These posting times will vary based on your specific audience.

The best time to post on Facebook: 9 a.m. - 1 p.m.

The best day of the week to post on Facebook: Wednesday

If you want to find out when you should be scheduling your content, Facebook now provides easy-to-use analytics tools. These tools allow you to track the behavior of our page’s visitors to determine the Facebook peak times based on your specific audience.

When scheduling your content, you'll want to test out different times. These times could vary based on who you are trying to reach. Your Facebook marketing strategy may need to go through a few rounds of trial and error before you feel like you’re synching up with your audience and optimizing your posts. Here are some things to try:

Test #1: For one week, share Facebook content only on your top two or three most visited days. Then compare the engagement rates with your historical records. Does it help to share content only on these high-audience days? If not, try again.

As a follow-up, you could then experiment by posting the day before one of these peak days, as Facebook posts tend to generate engagement anywhere between a few hours to a day later. Again, compare results and make adjustments.

The next step is to test out the best time of the day to post to Facebook. 

Test #2: Test publishing your content during Facebook peak times. Then, test publishing a few hours before the peak. Compare results.

Remember that these times are unique to your specific fan base and will probably fluctuate. They may even change from month to month—so check back often, test, and keep optimizing. 

Within Facebook, below “When Your Fans Are Online,” under the heading “All Posts Published,” you’ll find posts from the past three months listed in chronological order. You can click on the inverted arrow to the very right above the chart to view these by various metrics.

Post Clicks/Likes, Comments, and Shares: This allows you to see which content received the most overall interaction. This ranking includes “visible” forms of interaction that your audience can also keep track of (likes, comments, shares) because Facebook shows them next to each post. It also includes “behind the scenes” forms of engagement, such as clicking on links, hashtags, and photos embedded in your post.

Likes, Comments & Shares: Remove “Post clicks” to see “visible” engagement.

Post Hides, Hides of All Posts, Reports of Spam, and Unlikes of Page: See what content led to negative interactions, or actions that caused you to lose audience members and brand visibility.

Engagement Rate: Rank content by the percentage of people who saw a post and liked, shared, clicked or commented on it. Keep an eye out for content that reached fewer people but had a high level of audience engagement. You may want to promote similar posts in the future to a wider audience.

By analyzing these metrics, you will be able to maximize your Facebook presence and deliver content that your audience wants to see. Coupled with what you've discovered about the best times to post on Facebook, you can now ensure that you're giving your audience what they want when they want it.

The best time to post on Instagram: 5 a.m., 11 a.m., and 2 p.m.-3 p.m.

The best day of the week to post on Instagram: Thursday

As one of the platforms that has more than 1 billion users, Instagram peak times are similar to Facebook. Active Instagram followers tend to check in on platforms in the morning during the week, while midday provides the perfect moment to check in again during lunch hour. By the late afternoon, when energy levels are low, Instagram can provide a great break before followers call it a day. 

While the times and days suggested above only provide a starting point for small businesses new to social networks, establishing a 1 will be crucial to targeting your followers with the content that they want to see. 

Tip: Are you posting from Australia? Check out the best times to post on Instagram in Australia. If you are posting from South Africa, take a look at the best time to post on Instagram in South Africa.

Consider How the Instagram Algorithm Influences Post Reach

The best time to post on Instagram matters, but so does the Instagram algorithm which will affect what your followers will see on their feeds. Because Instagram's algorithm will evaluate your content's engagement levels to determine whether or not it should be shown to your followers, you'll need to make sure the content you are posting is like-worthy.

Instagram's algorithm prioritizes content from accounts you've previously engaged with, so even if you are posting new content all of the time, your followers may not see any of it, if they haven't engaged with you previously.

The best time to post on Twitter / X: 9 a.m.

The best day of the week to post on Twitter / X: Wednesday and Friday from 9 a.m.

If you're looking to engage and connect with your audience directly, X, formerly known as Twitter, will be your social network of choice. But you'll want to ensure that you're publishing posts according to Twitter peak hours to maximize engagement and get your follower's attention. As one of the few platforms that still show content to users in chronological order, timeliness is critical on Twitter if you don't want your content to get lost in the noise. 

Publishing at Twitter peak hours increases the chances of your followers seeing your post as well as other people in your target audience, even if they don't follow you. You'll achieve this additional reach if people retweet, comment or like your post because then that post will be shown to their followers. 

You'll also boost your audience reach if you include hashtags in your post, but be sure to include no more than two hashtags.

Staying on top of your conversations on X, formerly known as Twitter, is much easier when you have a social listening tool to engage your followers authentically.

The best time to post on LinkedIn: 7 a.m. –8 a.m., 12 p.m. then 5 p.m.-6 p.m.

The best day of the week to post on LinkedIn: Wednesday & Thursday

LinkedIn works a little differently than the rest, mainly because of the niche audience that it attracts. For the most part, LinkedIn has a fan base of professionals seeking networking opportunities within their own industry and guidance on career growth. Therefore, based on several studies, users tend to be on the platform the most during working hours.

The good news for social media managers is that posting times matter considerably less on LinkedIn. The LinkedIn algorithm emphasizes content that drives engagement, which is why it's not uncommon to see a post from several weeks ago at the top of your news feed. However, that does put a little more pressure on the content marketers reading this to create more high-quality content that attracts a B2B audience.

For B2B companies, LinkedIn presents itself as an ideal channel if you are looking to attract leads through organic posts. Using B2B marketing on LinkedIn means thinking outside of the box and tailoring your content to center around thought leadership pieces. 

The best time to post on YouTube: 12 p.m.-3 p.m.

The best day of the week to post on YouTube: Thursday & Friday

Given YouTube's reach and the heightened demand for video content, YouTube should be a part of any marketing strategy.

When you post on this platform, the time you post isn't as important as the discoverability of the content. Unless you have a number of subscribers to your branded channel, users of the platform are unlikely to know when you've uploaded new content. So, make sure your viewers "smash the subscribe button below" when they watch your content.

The best time to post to YouTube is towards the weekend (especially Thursdays and Fridays) as subscribers are more likely to watch videos throughout the weekend.

While publishing a YouTube video on a certain day will impact views, having your ads shown on certain days will also impact when subscribers see your ads.

The best time to post on TikTok:  9 a.m. - 12 a.m.

The Meltwater Blog

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