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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

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?
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

As far as social media channels go, TikTok has quietly become one of the biggest – and brands that don’t jump on the TikTok bandwagon risk being left behind. Globally, TikTok has over 1 billion monthly users. And it’s popular as a search engine too. TikTok is the fourth most-popular search engine, just behind YouTube, Bing and Google.

So we know that TikTok is popular globally. But the stats around TikTok use in South Africa are equally impressive.

The Global Digital 2024 report revealed that TikTok has 17.5 million South African users aged 18 and up. The gender split is fairly even, 52.0% of TikTok’s ad audience in South Africa is female and 48.0% is male. For brands, the potential ad reach is tantalising: TikTok ad reach in South Africa increased by a massive +10.6% in just 4 months between October 2023 and January 2024. This makes posting on TikTok (almost) a non-negotiable. The question is, when is the best time to post on TikTok in SA?


The Best Time to Post on TikTok in South Africa

Best Times to Post on TikTok in South Africa

Best Days to Post on TikTok in South Africa

How to Find the Best Time to Post on TikTok in South Africa for Your Brand

It’s important to clarify that there is no perfect time to post on TikTok for every brand in every province in South Africa. Part of it will depend on your industry, your audience, and what your brand objectives are on TikTok. For this reason, it’s important for brands to analyse their own TikTok data using a social media management tool to determine when to post.

Having said that, there are 3 top times worth testing based on general data:

Good news: there is no such thing as a wrong day to post on TikTok. But it does pay to look at user behaviour to pinpoint which times work best for each specific day. Posting throughout the week will allow you to find out which days and times are the most ideal for your content and your audience.

The best times to post on TikTok on Monday are in the early and mid-morning, as well as the late evening. People are active on TikTok both before and after the workday, breaking up the start to the week.

Believe it or not, TikTok is active extremely early in the morning on Tuesdays.

Like Mondays, the best times to post on TikTok on Wednesdays are before or after the workday.

The best times to post on TikTok on Thursday are 8 AM, noon, and 7 PM. Users tend to log on more frequently as the work week winds down.

Like Thursdays, TikTok is active around lunchtime on Fridays as people get ready for the weekend. Other popular time slots are 5 AM and 5 PM.

Late mornings and evenings are the best times to post on TikTok on Saturdays, with people sleeping in, and spending more of their free time on social media.

9 AM and 2 PM are the best times to post on TikTok on Sundays. The 2PM Sunday time slot is one of the most popular times to post throughout the entire week.

TikTok is one of the best platforms to experiment with, both in terms of post times and content. While brands should still follow their own brand guidelines, TikTok’s short-form videos allow brands to showcase fun and flexibility. South African audiences are, on the whole, receptive to humour, so don’t be afraid to test!

TikTok favours more content rather than less, so if you can post as often as every day, your audience will naturally see more and more of your content.

One way to find the best time to post on TikTok is to post, manage and analyse everything yourself. A much better way to achieve TikTok success is to make use of a social media management tool.

Create, schedule, manage, and track your TikTok content all in one place. With in-depth reporting and dynamic admin capabilities, equip yourself with everything you need to keep your TikTok performance tip top.

Where do you go for peer-to-peer recommendations about gadgets? As our social listening deep dive into the retail sector found, Reddit is the top social channel for consumer research into apparel and beauty items, but most of all for consumer electronics. We used our social listening solution to see what discussions about some of the world’s leading electronics brands on Reddit can show us about how tech consumers and enthusiasts are using the platform. 

The following analysis is based on relevant brand and keyword mentions on Reddit from January 1 to November 15, 2024. 

What is the most discussed electronics brand on Reddit?

Apple gets Redditors’ keyboards fired up more than any of the nine other electronics brands we analyzed, largely thanks to the release of the iPhone 16 earlier this year. The top destination for discussing the brand is r/Apple, which has 5.8 million members. Microsoft was the second most discussed brand, generating the most mentions in r/technology, a subreddit of 17 million members where discussion about the brand often focuses on breaking news about products, services, and company practices.

What comes up most when Redditors discuss consumer electronics brands?

The top keywords for all 10 brands we analyzed reveal the items and use cases Redditors most associate with each one, like “phone” for Apple, “laptop” for Lenovo, and “gaming” for ASUS. Secondary top keywords included “issue,” “money,” and “budget” highlighting just how many Redditors are using the platform for troubleshooting and bargain hunting.

Spikes in each discussion over the year also reveal the topics and occasions that generate the most buzz. For example, though ASUS is in the middle of the pack for volume of mentions, it generated the highest discussion spike of all the brands on February 20. That day, mentions jumped by 2,502% due to a post in a popular gaming subreddit doing a giveaway of an ASUS gaming graphics processing unit. The now-deleted post received 60,000 comments from gamers explaining why they deserved to win the specialized hardware as well as why they use ASUS gaming products. Along with increasing ASUS’s Reddit visibility, the comments boosted positive sentiment about the brand 190x higher than average.

Meanwhile, Sony generated the second highest spike on May 5, when mentions increased by 44%. That surge was due to discussion around Sony’s newly-implemented rule that PC players of the game Helldivers 2, which was released three months earlier for PlayStation 5 and Windows, would be required to have a PlayStation account.

Finally, Apple achieved the third highest spike in discussion on September 9 for the company’s special "It's Glowtime" event debuting its new products, including the iPhone 16 lineup. A “megathread” of discussion dedicated to the event generated more than 11,000 engagement actions and had an estimated reach of about 5.5 million.

What are the most discussed laptop brands on Reddit?

Narrowing our analysis down to focus on discussion of laptops specifically, Lenovo is the most discussed brand, followed by HP and Apple. Lenovo’s popularity in laptop talk was thanks in large part to the company’s debut of the world’s first transparent laptop at the 2024 Mobile World Congress on February 25. The unveiling drove discussion of Lenovo laptops to surge by about 200% on Reddit the following day.

While Redditors generally discussed Lenovo laptops more than the other brands we analyzed, Apple and HP generated the highest and second highest spikes in discussion, respectively. HP’s spike on April 22 was the result of an image post showing a single, slightly misaligned vent hole on an HP laptop.

The post went viral in a subreddit dedicated to interesting photos, generating about 13,600 engagement actions and spiking mentions of HP laptops by 975%. Similarly, Apple’s spike in mentions on August 13 was also due to a post in a general interest forum. This one, in a 39-million member subreddit dedicated to recently learned facts, discussed a 2010 class action lawsuit alleging a Pennsylvania high school spied on its students using school-issued MacBooks. Though the lawsuit was against the school, the discussion still made mentions of Apple MacBooks surge by 1,474%. 

From product reviews and product debuts to gaming and visual oddities, the consumer electronics discussion on Reddit is alive and well in three key ways:

As we highlighted in our retail consumer insights report, the platform is a top destination for social media users comparison shopping for electronics. 

As our brand analysis reveals, Reddit is also a go-to channel for techies to discuss and debate the latest updates in real-time. 

Along with having a thriving community of Apple enthusiasts, Reddit joins networks like Twitch and Discord as a hub for niche gaming communities. 

For electronics marketers, following what’s happening on Reddit is valuable for much more than just revealing consumers’ top purchase considerations. Monitoring the site can also highlight the activations driving excitement in your core audience, reveal opportunities to connect with new ones, and uncover new and resurfacing narratives. Simply put, if you’re a gadget or software marketer who is not keeping tabs on Reddit, you’re missing out! 

Learn more about digital shopping habits in our retail industry report. 

Consumer Electronics on Reddit: Key Topics, Brands, and Trends

Budgeting and saving are always hot discussion topics, but as the cost of living has risen globally in recent years — reaching crisis levels in many countries — that topic seems to have heated up. So, what are people saying? We used our social listening and analytics solution to see what a year of budget and savings conversations can tell us about the top messaging trends around this crucial subject.

Dive into even more consumer finance data in our banking and financial services industry report. 

Humor and relatability drive budget and saving conversations 

From October 16, 2023, to October 15, 2024, there were more than 2.6 million social media mentions of keywords and phrases related to budgeting and saving. Those conversations touched on everything from discussions about financial restraints to sharing advice on managing budgets effectively. 

Budgeting and saving mentions spiked highest on October 24, 2023 (17x higher than average) when a post on X joking about tight budgets went viral. Meanwhile, the second biggest day for budgeting and saving conversations was February 5, 2024, when mentions spiked 10x higher than average. That day another post on X joking about balancing saving money with enjoying life went viral, with one repost from an influencer reaching about 160,000 users that day alone.

This viral post from February has now been viewed about 9.7 million times.

Notably, the third-highest spike in conversation, 6x higher than average on July 23 this year, was driven by a Reddit post. The post in r/AskReddit asking “What’s your most money consuming hobby?” has generated about 19,000 replies from users revealing the sometimes surprising interests that break their budgets.

Responses to this Reddit post mention everything from watch collections to fancy cheeses to horse ownership.

While this post is not as straightforwardly funny as the other two that drove large spikes, it did include many funny responses. Rather, what seems to have driven the popularity of all three of these posts is relatability — almost all consumers can relate to living on a tight budget and giving in to the urge to spend money on something simply because it brings you joy. These posts are reassurance that other people are facing the same struggle.

Engagement with budget and saving content is seasonal

While the volume of conversation about budgeting and saving had several dramatic spikes throughout the year, spikes and growth in engagement with budgeting and saving content were much more isolated. First, engagement spiked significantly the day after Christmas and just before New Year’s Eve. Those days, several popular posts discussed personal finance and budgeting, including saving money and controlling expenses after the holidays. Some of the posts that generated the most engagement offered budget-friendly recipes and tips for saving money effectively.

After a dip in early June, engagement rose again from late July to early August. At this time, several posts mentioned budgeting for specific items, like wedding gifts and travel, likely reflecting the end-of-summer spending pressures many consumers face.

Finally, engagement has currently been rising since mid-September 2024, largely due to an increase in conversations about national budgets, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom. 

Overall, these trends suggest that transition periods — just after top spending occasions like holidays and vacation time, as well as elections and national budget talks — are when social media users are most concerned with budgeting and saving.

Money and personal finances can be sensitive topics, but humor and frankness get social media users buzzing about the topic. While funny posts give people catharsis from anxiety about their spending, posts about budget-friendly recipes and DIY hacks offer them some of the solutions they are hungry for. Still, social media users are looking for more detailed insight into how they can effectively save money. 

The hunt for insight into how to get by in today’s economic landscape is part of why money-focused subreddits like r/personalfinance, r/Money, and others are so popular in this conversation. 

Marketers, especially in the finance sector, have many untapped opportunities to bring consumers valuable budgeting and saving information. However, that information needs to draw attention with humor, creativity, relatability, and authentic insight into common financial pressures or risk being lost to the black hole of the internet.

Budgeting and Saving Buzz on Social Media

By: Chris Hackney, Meltwater’s Chief Product Officer 

For our second major product release of 2024, we’ve focused on adding enhancements that will make you feel like you’ve got superpowers! We’re doing that by giving you tools that empower you to achieve better results and save time. 

PR and marketing professionals face an ever-growing ocean of social, online, and legacy media data that could hold transformative insights for their businesses if only they could find a way to make sense of it all. Forrester estimates that 73% of all data within an enterprise is not used for analytics, which means there’s potentially a huge amount of intelligence and insight simply being left on the table by most businesses. 

At Meltwater, we think that by building tools that make it easier to analyze and surface insights that data holds, we can help our customers unlock greater potential for their businesses. 

For many of us, there never seem to be enough hours in the day to get everything done. We believe that saving time isn’t about cutting corners or compromising on the quality of your work but how thoughtful technology can help us get to our goals faster. 

In Meltwater’s Year-End Release, we’ve introduced product enhancements focused on saving you time. 

A key element of this is the new Platform Assistant, an AI tool that makes it easy to get all kinds of help simply by asking questions in natural language. Whether you want some details about your account (e.g., how to contact your Meltwater rep), you need help finding content or creating a pitch, or you have a question about your own activity within Meltwater, you just have to ask. 

Another example of time-saving enhancements is the AI Journalist Search we’ve added to our Media Relations solution. PR professionals can simply enter their campaign key messages, press releases, or pitch notes into the tool, and the AI will identify up to 200 media contacts best suited to your objectives. Instead of spending a lot of time searching and filtering lists of journalists manually, the whole task is completed in seconds.

We’ll soon launch a new Influencer Marketing AI Assistant to Klear, which allows you to interact with the platform in natural language, whether you’re trying to find new influencers, explore campaign performance metrics, or brainstorm ideas, the assistant is able to help whenever you need it. 

Social media managers can now view all of their posts on Meltwater Engage’s calendar, even if those posts were posted natively through the platforms, so you have a complete view of your content across all social channels. We’ve also added a new multi-tier approvals feature to Engage, making it much easier to ensure content is checked and signed off ahead of posting while avoiding any bottlenecks in the process. 

These are just a few examples of how we’re aiming to save you time with this release. 

Insight is at the very heart of Meltwater's mission. We strive to help our customers decipher the patterns and trends buried in the world’s data and use that insight for business advantage. 

But insights mean little if they only exist in reports or dashboards, and never inspire action. So another of the big themes we focused on for this release was how we can make it easier for you to put insights into action. 

One of the biggest new features is the Brand Analytics Tab, which automatically collates all of the key metrics around your brand performance alongside AI-generated summaries of relevant news and social media narratives. This provides an easy-to-digest real-time snapshot of your brand health, always up-to-date, and created automatically in moments.

We’ve also introduced a new feature that makes sharing Meltwater insights much more engaging and powerful. Instead of exporting reports and dashboards as static PDF files, you can now share interactive reports with stakeholders so that they can explore the data and drill down into details, even without their own Meltwater login. 

A big part of this is our continued investment in high-quality data, which makes it easier to uncover insights and adds credibility to your reports when you share them with stakeholders. An example of this is our  Renewed partnership with Reddit, securing long-term access to the platform’s full firehose of authentic, unfiltered consumer discussions for our customers. 

Whether it’s with customers, influencers, journalists, or internal stakeholders, the ability to forge strong relationships helps us to achieve our objectives more easily. So, the third major goal of this product release has been to give you the tools to nurture the relationships that matter to your business. 

In Klear, we’ve made a simple but powerful improvement that shows you the full conversation history between your business and any influencer through the unified inbox. This means you instantly have access to the complete background context whenever you need to interact with that person, allowing for more authentic conversations based on their prior interactions with your brand instead of simply sending them a generic outreach email. 

For PR, you now have the option to receive alerts when a media contact’s profile is updated with new details, such as when they change jobs, for example. This makes it easy to keep up to date with what’s happening with your target media, helping you to engage with them more effectively. 

It’s also now possible to view the open rates of your outreach email campaigns, down to the granular level of individual contacts, whereas before, it was only possible to view the rates of an entire media list. So now you can easily identify which journalists are most engaged with your campaign and focus on them, as well as adjust your messaging for those who are not yet engaged. 

In this post I’ve given you a taste of the biggest improvements in the 2024 Year-End Release, and explained our strategy behind this update. To get a more detailed view of what’s been added, visit the product update page.

There’s plenty more to come. This is an exciting period of development for Meltwater as we continue to harness the power of AI in our platform, and build on our industry-leading partnership with Microsoft Copilot.

Unlock a More Powerful You, with Meltwater’s 2024 Year-End Release

For government agencies, social media is an all-too-often untapped avenue for public outreach. Though this sector faces high-stakes responsibilities — like aligning to official regulations, platform bans, and public spending accountability — it also has huge opportunities in social media for sharing important information.

Primed to seek out information on social media, too many internet users search for facts only to find misinformation from less-than-trusted sources. More government agencies could use social platforms and networks to give constituents accurate, official information straight from the source. This is particularly true during election season as the general public looks for information about voting.

Though many government agencies are still in the early stages of building their online presence, some are already experimenting and creating best practices with smaller audiences and local reach. Here are a few government social media accounts effectively building awareness and engagement around the upcoming 2024 U.S. Elections. 

The Boone County, Missouri Clerk’s Office uses trendjacking to prepare residents to cast their ballots. Using trending sounds and formats, the office slips voter registration information into the social media conversation.

This TikTok from August hopped on the “demure” trend to walk viewers through checking their voter registration, applying for an absentee ballot, and applying to be a poll worker. 

This TikTok generated a relatively high proportion of saves and shares, showing how trendjacking can prompt social media users to share and reference important information.

Beyond sharing information, the office also uses trends to build excitement. It uses popular sounds to countdown to ballot, absentee voting, and other election deadlines.

This TikTok used a popular sound from a Broadway show to share information about ballot deadlines.

Using trending formats and sounds on TikTok is an efficient and effective way to step into the platform’s language. Seek out creative ways to translate your information or call to action into the trend, but timing is everything. Consistently staying on top of viral trends is essential for picking and choosing the right ones for your organization or agency’s “brand”.

Discover the ins and outs of this social media strategy with our Ultimate Guide to Trendjacking.

On Instagram, eye-catching infographics are an effective way to get your messaging out into the world, even with limited resources. With graphics that are straightforward, informative, and easy to share via Stories, users have a quick way to stay civically engaged and share information with their networks. 

For example, the Dallas County Elections Department kept things short and sweet for its National Voter Registration Day post. 

Dallas County Elections switched up its image post with sleek gifs about how to register to vote.

The government agency also collected likes by formatting critical voter registration dates like an editorial-looking data graphic. 

This post from July is the Dallas County Elections Department’s most-liked Instagram of 2024 so far. 

When it comes to sharing more complex information, eye-catching images can be paired with longer captions, as Dallas County Elections Department did with this press release correcting spreading misinformation about voting rights.

This cryptic graphic makes viewers want to run to the caption to see what it means. This strategy helped make this the second most-liked Instagram post from Dallas County Elections Department in 2024 so far.

Bold, text-based infographics are a cost-effective way to educate the public while conveying authority on Instagram. Clear, valuable information presented in an eye-catching way not only grabs your followers’ attention, it encourages them to share the post and amplify your message.

The Maricopa County Elections Department in Arizona uses its mascot Phil the Ballot (get it?) to drum up voter participation. For example, Phil pops up in this much-liked, bi-lingual Instagram post to remind a couple of “yappers” to make sure they’re registered to vote.

This Instagram post generated likes using a viral sound and an IRL cameo from Phil the Ballot.

Phil does double duty as a graphic mascot, lending some personality and organizational recognition to this highly engaged infographic on X.

This X post from August was viewed more than 3,500 hundred times, generating 29 reposts and one quote post along the way.

And he, too, got in on the demure trend with great results.

The Maricopa County Elections Instagram joined forces with the County’s official account to drum up excitement around voter registration. 

Even though Maricopa County Elections has an ally in Phil, it doesn’t use him as a crutch. The Instagram account’s second most-liked post of this year was this one, which uses exciting camera work to deliver a simple message.

This Reel was the account’s second most-liked Instagram post of this year so far.

For Maricopa County Elections, consistency on social media has paid off in multiple hits for its voter registration and turnout campaigns this year. It posts almost daily, slowly but surely building a following and establishing itself as a trusted source for voting information on social media. While there’s no certainty as to how much social campaigns can boost civic engagement, this government agency is putting forth an admirable effort with creative and informative content.

The Contra Costa County Elections Department in California takes a multi-platform approach to building trust with the over 1.1 million residents it serves. On TikTok, the department uses trending formats to jump into the digital conversation. It joined the platform’s wave of trivia game videos to counter misinformation.

Using a popular TikTok format, the Contra Costa County Elections Department addressed some of its constituents’ most pressing questions about voter fraud.

Over on YouTube, the department used a short but sweet video to invite viewers to learn more about how ballots are secured and verified.

Election Security: 2-Step Verification? Try 48 Steps!

Though it has 80 subscribers, the Contra Costa County Clerk-Recorder-Elections Offices generated more than 277,000 views on this 30-second video.

Meanwhile, on Instagram, the department went the simple route to create a helpful, and shareable, voters’ resource.

This post was one of the Contra Costa County Clerk Recorder Elections most-liked Instagram posts of the year so far. 

Spread your strategy and messaging across multiple social platforms to reach different segments of your community. While Instagram and TikTok content are great ways to engage with younger audiences, don’t overlook YouTube and other channels when sharing informative, evergreen resources.

The United States Postal Service doesn’t exclusively deal with elections, but it does play a crucial role. About 31% of voters cast their ballots by mail in the midterm elections in 2022, while 43% did in the general elections in 2020. Throughout the year, the USPS’s social media accounts share informational content just as much as they do entertaining content. Take, for example, this Instagram account satirizing social media microtrends.

Clever trendjacking helped this Instagram post generate 2,100 likes since August 6, 2024.

Or this post on X referencing breakout pop star Chappell Roan.

This post generated about 83,000 views and 1,600 likes.

But when it comes to drawing periodic attention to important voting information, USPS opts for eye-catching consistency.

The USPS uses the same graphic of a white Official Elections Mail envelope against a blue background for posts with information about voting by mail.

Using the same simple image alerts followers instantly to voting information and links to more resources. And though USPS uses the same image repeatedly, it doesn’t sacrifice engagement.

This September 16, 2024 post was one of the USPS Instagram account’s more successful ones with 653 likes. 

Consider visual branding when creating a campaign about a subject outside of your regular content. On social media, attention-grabbing consistency is a great way to alert viewers to must-know information.

Government social media campaigns succeed with creativity

Government communications can often be impersonal and dry, but as these agencies prove, they don’t have to be. Agencies can use the language and culture of social media platforms to meet their communities where they are, scrolling on their digital devices. Whether looking to share information, combat misinformation, or inspire civic engagement, government entities have much to gain from developing and implementing social media strategies.

Our look at how U.S. government agencies engage with potential voters ahead of the 2024 general election reveals these important points for any official organization looking to build a social media presence:

Make your strategies platform-specific: While bold, shareable infographics do well on Instagram stories and feeds, trendjacking is more effective for generating engagement via Reels and TikTok.

Stay on top of the conversation: Being in the know of the latest social trends is the best way to identify new content opportunities.

Be consistent: Whether your organization posts monthly or weekly, set a cadence your followers can predict. That way they’ll know when to expect information, especially around cyclical processes like elections.  

Highlight local: It’s easy to believe that social media users don’t want to hear from government agencies, but you’d be surprised just how many are hungry for official, accurate information about their communities. For engagement-driving content, tap into that community spirit with regional references and cameos from local figures.

Looking for more examples of how government agencies can use social media for the public good? Check out our customer story with Tripepi Smith. The agency used Meltwater to help its public affairs client maintain good relations with residents during a large-scale public works project.

Transforming Election Season: How Government Agencies Are Innovating on Social Media

If you want to stand out on Instagram, a strong bio will help you catch people’s attention. But how do you write a bio that makes people want to stop scrolling and find out more about you? 

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