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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

Pride Month 2022 is upon us, and the only things more ubiquitous than rainbows are discussions of the meaning and power behind the month-long holiday. Beginning with the first Gay Pride march in New York City in 1970, an explicitly political event commemorating the Stonewall Riots a year earlier, Pride Month has since become a global celebration of LGBTQ+ communities, culture, and history. 

As the holiday has grown, more businesses and corporations have come to mark it with special marketing campaigns, limited-edition product lines, and representation in local Pride marches. But these efforts haven’t always appropriately honored the social and political gravity of the celebration. Every year, a large subset of Pride marketing's target audiences — lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people and their allies — speak out against its corporatization.

Brands, companies, and corporations have much to learn from their audiences and customers when it comes to how to approach Pride with self-awareness and tact. We analyzed thousands of online conversations and content about Pride marketing for insight on what brands should consider for this Pride Month and the ones to come.

1. Consumers anticipate Pride Month marketing

2. Many are also wary of Pride month marketing

3. LGBTQ+ audiences care about real-life issues

4. Pride is an opportunity to pass the mic

5. Pride is an opportunity for transparency

6. Businesses observing Pride Month is still significant

When Millennials were kids (and Gen-Z was non-existent), companies and brands generally didn’t observe Pride Month to the extent they do today. A turning point came in 1994. That year, IKEA debuted the first American TV commercial to feature a gay couple and a major consumer attitudes study highlighted the gay and lesbian consumer base for the first time.

Fast forward to today, consumers are more than just used to Pride Month marketing. They hotly anticipate it. Across channels, mentions of Pride and mentions of brands, companies, and corporations started to soar on May 31. 

As talk of Pride marketing rose, so did mentions of rainbow-washing, a term used to describe the hollow and sometimes outright hypocritical ways companies market to LGBTQ+ consumers in June.

This reflects audiences’ familiarity with Pride marketing and their frustrations with how consumerism has come to dominate the commemorative month.

Reading Tip: 5 of the Most-Shared Pro-LGBTQ+ Articles of 2023 So Far

In the last week of May, one of the most retweeted tweets about brands and Pride poked fun at the idea that the month has become more about marketing than honoring the 1969 Stonewall riots. It reached 454,000 people in one day.

Meanwhile, the piece of content that garnered the most engagement in that period was a TikTok explaining what rainbow-washing is. 

Don’t let 🏳️‍🌈washing distract you & make you complacent to the very real issues that still exist. #pridemonth #rainbowwashing #lbgtq #ally

As this Twitter keyword cloud shows — with the words corporations, rainbow capitalism, and logos looming large alongside legislation, crowdfunding goals, and community — consumers are discussing the disconnect between Pride marketing and their values. 

Does this mean you should trash your rainbow logo? No! But as conversations about Pride marketing continue throughout the month, pay attention. These comments, posts, and tweets offer clues to what your audience values most. 

Speaking of what your audience values most, let’s look at popular hashtags. The last week of May, #pride and #pridemonth were understandably the two most popular Pride- and brands-related hashtag on Twitter. But, not far behind in third place was #dontsaygay, which beat out both #pride2022 and #pridemonth2022.

This year, many are using the month-long celebration of LGBTQ+ resistance and resilience to rally support against anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, including Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill and many others like it in the United States. 

Not every brand needs to, or should, position itself as an authority on LGBTQ+ issues during Pride month. But any doing Pride-specific marketing owes it to its audience to be knowledgeable about the civil rights threats LGBTQ+ communities face today.

On Twitter, the most blistering criticism comes in the form of jokes and memes. On June 1, one joke format in particular became the go-to for critiques of Pride marketing. 

Skewering ad campaigns of Prides past with the phrase “that’s why this Pride month, I’m partnering with,” these tweets highlight corporate attempts to shoehorn brand ambassadors’ lived experiences of marginalization and oppression into marketing content. The below tweet reached more than 24,000 people in one day and helped inspire numerous other twists on the joke.

Beneath the punchlines is very real exasperation with how companies position lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual people and their traumas in pride campaigns. At the same time, audiences want brands that engage in Pride marketing to also engage in efforts that benefit LGBTQ+ communities. 

Other than cash donations, the best thing brands can offer LGBTQ+ activists, change-makers, and leaders are their platforms and resources. Hiring LGBTQ+ creators and shining a spotlight on community events and organizations is one way to start. Most importantly, let whomever you collaborate with lead the direction of the campaign and compensate them fairly. Otherwise, you might find yourself being the central focus of a viral meme next year.

Along with marketing, audiences also spent the first day of Pride discussing how to wield collective effort and consumer power for change. 

Many people in the target audiences for Pride marketing are eager to support small businesses and organizations led by members of the LGBTQ+ community. If that doesn’t include you, this is a great time to help someone else shine.

Is the company behind your brand a safe place for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual people? Does it put its money and resources behind the values it markets during Pride Month? In many ways, June is an opportunity for LGBTQ+ communities to look back on their legacies of resistance and take stock of where they are today. The same can be true for institutions, organizations, and businesses. What strides can you celebrate and in what ways are you not doing enough?

On the flipside, if your Pride Month marketing has nothing to back it up, don’t be surprised if people start asking questions online. As eager as consumers are for information on where to spend their money, they are also eager to learn where not to. Another much-retweeted statement came from left-wing think tank Data for Progress promoting its report on the companies that fund anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in the United States. Two May 26 tweets reached more than 156,000 people in less than a week.

As we've covered, the week of June 1 featured thousands of prominent and far-reaching conversations and pieces of content with funny, thoughtful, critical, and positive statements and observations about Pride Month marketing. And like the below TikTok, which garnered the most engagement across channels in that time period, they are generally pro-LGBTQ+ rights and representation. 

happy pride month! 🏳️‍🌈 #pride #pridemonth #canada #banks #corporations #funny #satire

At the same time, one of the pieces of content that received the most engagement across channels was a homophobic and transphobic call for people to stop supporting businesses that celebrate Pride. Some of the more than 46,900 people who engaged with the tweet were critical of its message, but the vast majority liked and/or retweeted it without comment. 

In the United States, the number of major businesses that publicly oppose anti-LGBTQ+ legislation has grown steadily over the past few years. Still, proposed laws attacking protecting access to healthcare and freedom from discrimination at work, in school, and in public continue to gain ground.

What’s clear is audiences aren’t passively consuming feel-good Pride content. As they’ve gotten used to branded shows of support for LGBTQ+ communities, they’ve also become more critical and thoughtful of the impact that marketing can have. As a general rule, whatever Pride initiatives your organization takes, start from a place of intentionality, informedness, and community-mindedness. Your efforts and outputs have more potential for positive, or negative, impact than you may think!

6 Points for Brands to Remember during Pride Month

Earlier this year, Meltwater Engineering Director Sebastian Spier sat in on a Zoom presentation that gave him a new perspective on how curiosity and passion can make way for innovation. As he sat in his Berlin home, a colleague hundreds of miles away gave him and several other participants the lowdown on how he saved his team thousands of dollars by optimizing a software cluster on the Meltwater platform in his spare time. 

“It was about how an engineer [on a team where] they have a day where they can work on a problem that has been itching them for a while,” Sebastian says. “It was a great story of how giving people liberty in what they work on yields great ROI.” The presentation, “120 to 24 Nodes,” by Meltwater engineer Alexander Gunnarsson, was one of many sessions that took place during the 12th official Devopsicon. But don’t confuse Meltwater’s twice-a-year, company-wide, knowledge- and skill-share spectacular with any old professional conference.

In the simplest terms, Devopsicon is an “unconference”, meaning it has no agenda set ahead of time. Rather, attendees propose and facilitate their own sessions, with the ability to come up and host new ones on the spot. The result is an event whose success is directly in each attendee’s hands. “I think that's one really cool thing about the event,” says Sebastian. “It puts everybody in charge.”

Devopsicon unofficially started at Meltwater in 2015 as a collaborative effort between the Gothenburg, Sweden, and Berlin engineering departments. Initially, they came together to discuss and plan how to update Meltwater’s processes with a DevOps mindset. After a few iterations, the departments went to Agile Coach Jeff Campbell for guidance on how to structure the growing event. He introduced them to the unconference structure and the official Devopsicon was born.

“The way a regular conference is structured, you get really excited by the keynote. And then the conference goes on for two or three more days, during which time you're just absorbing more and more content but not actually able to do anything about any of the content you've gotten until you get back to your job,” Jeff explains. “With the unconference format, if you hear about something in the morning that you think is really interesting, you can basically be doing something about it, come the afternoon.” 

Meltwater’s unconference is a place where people from all over the company meet, discuss, learn, and solve real problems that they face in their daily work.

It’s something we do a few times a year and is attended by about 80 people and lasts 5 days. It is a mix of conference talks, discussion groups, and working sessions. We use an unconference approach to allow flexibility in the schedule and for the programme to emerge as the week progresses.

An unconference itself is a conference with no pre-set agenda. Rather, the agenda is set by by the attendees daily, and is continually revised throughout the event.

This might sound chaotic to you, and if you’re not practiced in running them, it can be. However, with a bit of structure and the right preparation, it allows a group of people to continually respond to changing situations and new information.

https://underthehood.meltwater.com/blog/2018/01/16/how-to-organise-an-unconference/

DevOpsiCon (Meltwater's Un-Conference)

Sessions generally take one of a handful of formats: standard presentations with closing Q&As, quick presentations called “lightning talks”, discussion groups, and “get shit done” sessions where participants come together to actively work through a problem.

And while most sessions were DevOps-related in the early years, these days topics reach far beyond the software development and operations framework that gave it its name. Sessions can be as closely or loosely tied to technical work as desired.

“When I first heard of this idea of an unconference, I wondered how the heck that was gonna work. But people always come up with all kinds of creative ideas and we end up keeping the conference overflowing with sessions and options,” says Christina Arsenault, Meltwater’s Senior Director of Global Support who also helps with logistics, recruiting, and support for the event. 

After attending her first Devopsicon in Gothenburg in 2016, she joined the planning group. “I was amazed at how it could bring so many different areas of the company together that, even with your best efforts, can get siloed,” she says. “People might have assumptions about an area of the company they never dealt directly with. And all of the sudden they have a good acquaintance that they've made that now they can reach out to when they have ideas. You would see so many things after every Devopsicon that came about because people made that connection. I think that is just priceless.”

Like most events before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Devopsicon used to take place in person, alternating between Meltwater’s large Engineering offices. (Read more about how Meltwater handled the nuts and bolts of Devopiscon here.) Present-day, pandemic-safe Devopsicons take place remotely. Events like a virtual “after party” help make up for the spur-of-the-moment social encounters and brainstorms that made the in-person event so special. 

The new format has made the event more accessible than ever, as people who normally could not travel for the event can now hop in from wherever they are. Plus, the wonders of video conferencing can, in some cases, allow for a different level of intimacy. As Sebastian points out, the format let facilitators bring participants right into their kitchens for a latte session and a popular cake decorating session. That would have been impossible in the earlier days of the event.

Devopsicon 12, which took place from April 26 to April 29, had more than 250 proposed topics. In the end, about 250 participants took part in five sessions occurring simultaneously for 14 hours a day, for four days straight. Like previous virtual Devopsicons, the recordings of the sessions immediately result in a sizeable knowledge bank.

It kicked off with "Technical Coaching: A Way to Spread Skills and Build Culture," a keynote presentation by Technical Agile Coach and software developer Emily Bache. Topics of the many subsequent sessions spanned an inspiring range. From using Meltwater data to drive sustainability for the company and clients to a how-to presentation about the features of design software Figma. From a live hacking JavaScript session to a presentation on how brain chemicals can be leveraged to strengthen teams. From a meeting among 3D printing and modeling enthusiasts to a “lightning talk” about terraforming GitHub to a discussion of how to improve the onboarding process for new hires. 

(Read more about what Meltwater engineers are up to in their official blog Under the Hood.)

“I think for new hires, or if Meltwater buys a company and then we bring their engineers to Devopsicon, they will have a sense of what type of crowd Meltwater is immediately,” says Sebastian. “It will tell you that it's serious, but not to a fault. There are so many subtleties that wouldn't happen in a formal onboarding process that will happen in an event like this. It's one of the signature events for product and engineering, for sure.”

Today, Sebastian starts each day with a cappuccino he made himself using skills he learned straight from the coworker thousands of miles away who held a barista tutorial session at Devopsicon 12. It’s just one result of the untold number of connections and sparks born every six months at Meltwater’s favorite collaborative event.

Devopsicon 12, Meltwater's Beloved Unconference

Writing a press release is only half the battle. Success with press release distribution in Australia relies on your knowledge of the media landscape. If you don’t have your own contacts, a media database for Australia is a good place to begin your research for how to get the best media coverage.

If you want to maximise your next Australian press release, your communications team can come out on top of the PR cycle by using a press release distribution service. Here’s all you need to know about finding a press release service in Australia.

Press release distribution services Australia

If don't have a PR agency, learning the basics of public relations helps you beat the competition when it comes to getting attention for your brand. Knowing the best places to distribute your release is essential.

Here’s a short list of the top Australian press release companies every marketing team should know:

Meltwater Australia’s press release distribution service includes:

Newswire integration to over 100 services for local, national and global audiences and a strong presence in Asia-Pacific

Pitching to Australian social media influencers

Product Overview: ICM + DE subtitles

Notable clients for Meltwater Australia include:

General Information about Meltwater Australia

Meltwater Australia website: www.meltwater.com

NewsMaker is a self-service, digital media release website that lets you:

NewsMaker does not reveal the names of their clients.

OzMedia operates as a media centre to send your content via:

OzMedia does not reveal the names of their clients

Get The Word Out is a small distribution service that allows you to upload a press release and send it to a small group of journalists.

General Information about Get The Word Out

PRWire is a PR wire service providing free distribution of your press releases. It’s part of the Influencing network.

PRWire does not reveal the names of their clients.

Best Press Release Distribution Companies in Australia

Data has become the currency of marketing. And thanks to modern technology, marketers have more data-driven insights than ever when it comes to learning about audiences, buying behaviors, and the impacts of their campaigns. However, only data that is normalized can go beyond the database to provide those insights. 

Database normalization adds context and structure to your data. Rather than having bits of information stashed here and there, data is arranged in a logical, usable format. Users can more quickly find information within the database without it feeling like a game of hide-and-seek. And when data can be more easily found, it can also be put to better use.

How can you transform database normalization from a problem into a top priority? Use this guide to get started.

Let’s get some clarity on database normalization: What exactly is it?

<div style="background-color: #c4f4f4; padding: 20px;">Data normalization is the systematic process of inputting and organizing a data set. It uses Structured Query Language (SQL), which is a standard for accessing and altering database information.</div>

Unlike the Marie Kondo approach, where you only keep what brings you joy, this type of organization focuses on arranging data in a logical manner. 

Normalizing data is the next logical step after creating a database. It is where you remove any potential anomaly, error, or redundancy, set up a rule to link certain data together, and test your rules to make sure they work.

The end results are simplicity and power. When you add structure and logic to your data, you can maintain a smaller database that’s accurate and easier to use. If that’s the case, you’re inherently able to do more with your data.

Normalized data has become increasingly important as marketing data proliferates. Marketers are collecting information from more sources than ever, including email, social media, search engines, and market research. If you’re using multiple Software-as-a-Service tools, those apps may not always support each other.

By normalizing how all of your data is stored and accessed, you can expect multiple benefits:

Normalizing data is also an opportunity to address anomalies that might cloud your analysis. For instance, anomalies might appear over time due to data insertion, deletion, or alteration. Once you find these anomalies and discover how to fix them, your data will ultimately do more for you.

The key thing to remember is that the ultimate benefit isn’t data normalization itself. Rather, companies need to focus on the benefits that lie behind the action. Without going through this process, a lot of the valuable data you collect will never get used — at least not to its full potential. Normalizing data is a great way to get rid of unnecessary or inaccurate data that affects big picture insights. 

Normalization has many faces, depending on the database. What are the data normalization types? Let’s look at some examples:

First Normal Form: The first normal form (abbreviated as 1NF) is the simplest and most basic form of normalization. This process focuses on removing redundant data and separating related data into their own tables.

Second Normal Form: An extension of 1NF, the second normal form (2NF) eliminates subgroups of data that are displayed in multiple rows on a table. New tables are created and connections between them are added.

Third Normal Form: The third normal form (3NF) satisfies all the rules from 2NF and then some. It eliminates columns that have no intra-table dependencies on the main key value.

Fourth Normal Form and Fifth Normal Form: The most complex normal form is the fifth normal form (5NF), with the fourth normal form (4NF) following closely behind. These are rarely used, as the first three normal form types are most common.

Boyce-Codd Normal Form: The Boyce-Codd normal form (abbreviated as BCNF) is a happy medium between 3NF and 4NF (call it a 3.5NF). After meeting 3NF guidelines, BCNF can determine a superkey value if all other values are functionally dependent on it.

With each increase in the level of normalization, data receive a more technical makeover. For example, in 4NF, all dependencies between multiple values are deleted. However, technical and complex processes are not to be confused with “better” processes. A lower level of technicality can work just fine. In some cases, you might choose a combination of rules from different normalization types.

Now for the big question: How do you normalize data with all of the above information?

Normalization is a process, one that’s best broken down into phases. In a typical normalization project, you’ll need to do the following:

Let’s do a real-world sample project together.

Let’s say that you want to create a relational database for your marketing agency. You offer multiple marketing services for a variety of industries. So far, your relational database only has tables for campaigns, employees assigned to the campaigns, and projects within the campaign.

But you’d like to learn more. That’s why, after your initial database design, you’d like to add more details to your database. This will usually require normalization, since adding new values that weren’t part of the existing schema may not be properly connected to the other values. 

The first step is to make sure your table schema supports all of your values. It helps to start by creating a map of all the relational data you need to collect.

In the above use case, you’d have one table for listing your marketing services, one for employees, and one for projects.

Now, let’s say you’d like to add a customer table to add an extra layer of visibility. This new table will contain key customer details, such as company names, contact person, industry, phone number, address, and ZIP code.

Your table should be broken down into the simplest information possible. For example, you would not want to combine your contact person and job title into the same table column. Assign only one value for each column and row. Here’s a basic example:

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th style="text-align:center;">ProjectID</th>
<th style="text-align:center;">Company Name</th>
<th style="text-align:center;">Industry</th>
<th style="text-align:center;">Contact Name</th>
<th style="text-align:center;">Contact Role</th>
<th style="text-align:center;">Contact Phone</th>
<th style="text-align:center;">Address</th>
<th style="text-align:center;">City</th>
<th style="text-align:center;">State</th>
<th style="text-align:center;">ZIP Code</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="text-align:center;">...</td>
<td style="text-align:center;">...</td>
  <td style="text-align:center;">...</td>
  <td style="text-align:center;">...</td>
  <td style="text-align:center;">...</td>
  <td style="text-align:center;">...</td>
  <td style="text-align:center;">...</td>
  <td style="text-align:center;">...</td>
  <td style="text-align:center;">...</td>
   <td style="text-align:center;">...</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

You also need to give the table a primary key (also called a candidate key). The primary key is how users can identify unique data that is not the same as anything else. In this use case, we could assign project IDs as the primary key, which requires a separate column.

Also, make sure there is no repeating information in the table. For example, if you have multiple columns for project ratings to account for multiple projects for the same client, you should move these into a new table. This reduces the complexity of the customers table without getting rid of important feedback. From there, you can link the project ratings table to the customers table and projects table (which comes into play in the next phase).

Doing this should satisfy all 1NF requirements.

You could stop right here and consider your database normalized. But going the extra mile to finish 2NF doesn’t require much extra work. Plus, it can help you gain better control of your data.

In this phase, you need to make sure that all the columns in the table relate to the primary key. Those that don’t directly relate to the primary key should branch off into another table.

In our sample use case, we created a column for project IDs and made it our primary key. This unique identifier helps us see which projects belong to each client.

However, we wouldn’t be able to relate the contact person, job title, or phone number values to the primary key because this information might change. This adds some risk to your database accuracy: What if a new employee of that company becomes your new contact person? That might mean the phone number and job title values will also change. That’s a lot of extra fields to update when a point of contact changes.

So, since these values can’t relate to the primary key, we need to shift them to their own table. This new table will hold all the data related to the contact person. Then, we can connect the table to the customers table by using a contact person ID as the primary key. The new tables might look something like this:

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th style="text-align:center;">ProjectID</th>
<th style="text-align:center;">CompanyName</th>
<th style="text-align:center;">Industry</th>
<th style="text-align:center;">ContactPersonID</th>
<th style="text-align:center;">Address</th>
<th style="text-align:center;">City</th>
<th style="text-align:center;">State</th>
<th style="text-align:center;">ZIP Code</th>
  </tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="text-align:center;">...</td>
<td style="text-align:center;">...</td>
  <td style="text-align:center;">...</td>
  <td style="text-align:center;">...</td>
  <td style="text-align:center;">...</td>
  <td style="text-align:center;">...</td>
  <td style="text-align:center;">...</td>
    <td style="text-align:center;">...</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th style="text-align:center;">ContactPersonID</th>
<th style="text-align:center;">ContactName</th>
<th style="text-align:center;">ContactRole</th>
<th style="text-align:center;">ContactPhone</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="text-align:center;">...</td>
<td style="text-align:center;">...</td>
  <td style="text-align:center;">...</td>
  <td style="text-align:center;">...</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Now, when you get a new contact person for a client, you can simply update the "Contact Person ID" in the customers table. Looking at this ID will pull up all details for the current point of contact.

If the contact person changes, simply create a new record in the contact person table.

Rinse and repeat to ensure all columns in a table are assigned to a primary key and consider 2NF complete.

Phase Three: Connect Main Keys with Non-Key Values

To satisfy 3NF, we need to make sure that the columns only rely on the primary key and no other columns. Having functional dependency on more than one column in a table can impact data accuracy as values change over time.

Using our example customers table above, we see functional dependency at work in the city, state, and ZIP code columns. These not only relate to the customer’s primary key, but also to each other. For instance, if a company were to change locations, updating the city would most certainly affect the ZIP code.

Why doesn’t this apply to address or state, you might wonder? That’s because these values only affect each other some of the time. If a company moved down the street, it likely wouldn’t affect the city, state, or ZIP. Changing an address may or may not change the state. But changing cities or states will always affect the ZIP code.  

We can align with 3NF by (you guessed it) making a separate table. This table should contain the city, state, and ZIP code(s) associated with each client. You can link it to the customers table by creating a foreign key. In this case, it’s the "ZIPCodeID".

Our new tables will look something like this:

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th style="text-align:center;">ProjectID</th>
<th style="text-align:center;">CompanyName</th>
<th style="text-align:center;">Industry</th>
<th style="text-align:center;">ContactPersonID</th>
<th style="text-align:center;">Address</th>
<th style="text-align:center;">ZIPCodeID</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="text-align:center;">...</td>
<td style="text-align:center;">...</td>
  <td style="text-align:center;">...</td>
  <td style="text-align:center;">...</td>
  <td style="text-align:center;">...</td>
  <td style="text-align:center;">...</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th style="text-align:center;">ZIPCodeID</th>
<th style="text-align:center;">City</th>
<th style="text-align:center;">State</th>
<th style="text-align:center;">ZIP Code</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="text-align:center;">...</td>
<td style="text-align:center;">...</td>
<td style="text-align:center;">...</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

When your customer changes their address, you can create a new record in the ZIP codes table to update the city, state, and ZIP, then update the address in the customers table.

Turning your big data into a normalized database can be quite the undertaking, but it also helps you get the most from data science practices. If machine learning, data model automation, or data mining for deep learning is on your radar in the future, you need to standardize your dataset organization. Good database management will only help you.

To learn how Meltwater uses database normalization on your behalf, contact us today.

An Introduction to Database Normalization

Social media users aren’t shy about sharing their thoughts and feelings. Thankfully, their comments on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Pinterest, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, and other platforms are valuable tools for brands. When a user comments on your brand’s content, don't take it lightly. That engagement can help you get to know your customers more than ever.

Reading user comments is just the beginning, though. Your audience also wants you to reply. Research shows that 83% of users expect a reply within a day or less. As for how to reply, you’re going to need more than a Like button or cool emoji.

We’ve got you covered with this important yet delicate process. Here’s how to respond to both positive and negative comments on social media, plus some tips for responding to your Instagram audience.

What Types of Social Media Comments Are There?

When to Respond to Comments on Social Media

When we say social comments, we’re referring to the responses that users leave on your social media content. For instance, if you post an image or video to Instagram, users can leave comments that appear beneath your post.

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