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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

With 2022 on the horizon, the political landscape in the Philippines is gaining momentum. Communications teams are ramping up efforts to get their message across as the nation prepares to vote in a new president. This is a crucial time for key candidates because the people of the Philippines will begin to form opinions and evaluate them in the run-up to the polls next year.

Like other recent elections in other countries such as the United States or Singapore, social media is fast becoming the new public sphere for citizens to congregate and discuss the issues that matter to them. The political domain is a hot topic for any democratic nation and come elections, people will proactively search for information as well as express their opinions online.

Google searches on the upcoming presidential election are trending as Filipinos are actively searching for more information. This great appetite for politics can be seen in Metro Manila, Mindanao and Central Visayas region where candidates such as Rodrigo Duterte, Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso and Leni Robredo are strategising their campaigns to address the constituents in those locations. 

Apart from news coverage as well as physical outreach efforts (which are hampered by the current pandemic restrictions), it is important that candidates strategically increase their communication efforts through social media.

Undoubtedly, Filipinos are vested in the political landscape and social media is their platform to voice their opinions. In a recent study, 81% of Filipinos use social media. That is one of the most in the world and it would be remiss for political strategists to not consider the sentiment trends within the social media landscape.

Tip: Learn more about the Philippine media landscape today and take a look at our article with local social media statistics for the Philippines. We have also put together a list of the most-used social media platforms in the Phillippines.

This is why social media intelligence is fast becoming a new haven for strategists and communicators to seek audience insights as well as ground sentiments. From a certain perspective, social media can be viewed as a new form of feedback data that can be drawn almost instantaneously from your desktops.

Political Conversations in Philippine Social Media

The Threat of Troll Armies and Misinformation

Partnering Media Intelligence & Politics in the Philippines

The realm of politics is a vast one and many candidates have begun to use social media intelligence to bolster their campaign strategies. When voters are able to instantly engage with a candidate online, this increases the communicative relationship between the two sides of the political fence. Social media has boosted many political campaigns around the world including former US president Barack Obama while in Singapore candidates have been trying their best to make campaigning viral.

With the high rate of social media use in the Philippines, it makes sense for candidates to dive into the world of online discussions and threads. So far in 2021, there have been more than 24.7 million mentions of topics related to politics in social media. With the presidential election in 2022 a hot-button issue, Filipinos are jumping onto Facebook and forum threads to voice their opinions and concerns.

Conversations on Philippine politics by source

News outlets remain a great source of information and usually a point of reference for people to share, comment and voice their opinions on the latest political developments. The Facebook pages of GMA News, The Inquirer and Rappler are prime grounds for people to congregate on social media to debate on the latest politicking piece.

With Facebook pages of media outlets in focus, news is an integral part of elections. Narratives can be amplified by their reach and candidates will definitely use their platforms to send their messages to the voters. Looking at one of the articles with the highest Social Echo - Meltwater’s in-house metric that measures the coverage of a news article shared on social media - was The Inquirer's report on the lack of government funding to support the country's athletes. This issue was brought up in light of Hidilyn Diaz's win at the Olympics.

The article was shared more than 192,000 times and this shows that citizens are concerned with this issue of government support. This is why candidates as well as campaign teams need to keep an eye on media coverage because a minor issue has the potential to blow up in the social media space. This can be detrimental to a campaign’s plan and may derail the candidate’s positive momentum.

The data shows that Facebook remains the most popular platform for Filipinos to share their opinions on politics with almost 15 million mentions, with Twitter also being the platform of choice for political commentators contributing another 8.9 million mentions. There is also substantial social data of ground sentiments on other platforms such as blogs, Reddit and online forums. 

Sentiment Breakdown of political mentions by source

Knowing which sources these opinions come from is important to communication and political strategists. They need to have the widest breadth of media intelligence as well as coverage from every media platform that is available to them to make the most critical decisions. 

Most of the  mentions are neutral because people are mostly sharing news with their peers as well as generally commenting on the issue. On the other hand, as with all political domains, sentiments are usually negative because voters are usually critical of candidates and their proposed policies. This is a good thing because these negative sentiments give candidates the opportunity to address them before the elections come round.

However, to further beef up these analyses, strategists can extrapolate more from these sentiments by grading them into topical groups so as to understand why voters are upset or disgruntled.  Strategists can create various categories to grade specific sentiments and include a percentage index to see how well their candidates are doing. This is similar to presidential approval ratings but in this context, using contextual social media data.

Based on this in-depth analysis, strategists can better curate their next communication plan to garner support for their candidates. These insights can also be deployed as a measurement to benchmark the candidates. These can help navigate candidates to address issues which may benefit their campaigns.

One quick way to identify topics is to take a look at keyword clouds. Scanning the keyword clouds that are associated with the Philippines political landscape, an apparent issue that people are discussing is the ongoing battle with the COVID-19 pandemic. People are deeply troubled by the virus and ultimately, they look towards the government for a response that would calm them. 

Unsurprisingly, President Rodrigo Duterte is prominently featured in social media conversations but other political figures such as Leni Robredo, Antonio Carpio and Harry Roque also received attention from the public. Filipinos also mourned the passing of former president Benigno ‘Noynoy’ Aquino III. Filipinos also urged the government to reward the nation’s historic Olympic gold medal won by weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz.

Reddit is also fast becoming a platform for Filipinos to express their opinions on politics. Interestingly, a sub-Reddit thread on boxing speculated whether former boxing champion and current senator Manny ‘Pacman’ Pacquiao’s would be running for the presidential race next year. 

This means that people all over the world are talking about this on Reddit while at the same time, gaining coverage within social media and increasing the feel-good factor in his nomination. His announcement with Rappler on corruption was very well-received and recorded a high engagement rate with more than 422,000 interactions. With stronger numbers in social media, there is a sphere of positive influence spreading across the country.

They come in various names — troll armies, internet brigades, misinformation networks — but their aim remains the same. These groups aim to blur the lines between the facts and lies which would lead to people questioning the proposed plans of candidates standing for election. Opinions matter when a voter steps up to select their candidate and social media is arguably the first port-of-call these days to gather information.

Social media giants Facebook have also taken action against misinformation campaigns during elections. The most recent and prominent example is the 2020 US presidential election where the company removed thousands of fake profiles which produced content supporting Donald Trump’s policies and assertions. Experts believed that this misinformation campaign was what led to the insurrection of Capitol Hill.

A political candidate’s opinions matter to voters because this is where they can evaluate who they want to lead their nation as well as improve the lives of citizens. Political candidates are key opinion leaders (KOL) or  — more aptly in social media lingo — an influencer of the people. Their opinions carry influential weight on voters. 

If troll armies are allowed to thrive in social media, this indefinitely impacts the way voters think and eventually creates a wave of support for some candidates while affecting others who do not share the same views.

In the Philippines, several politicians have filed a report to investigate troll farms. The team claims that public funds were being used and that political misinformation was being amplified by KOLs and influencers. With the upcoming presidential election in 2022, public relations teams and campaign managers are racing to counter the stream of misinformation in a country which has one of the highest rates of social media use.

Partnering Media Intelligence & Politics in the Philippines  

There is no doubt that the social media domain plays an influential role in elections across the world. Candidates are aware of this decisive communication tool and have implemented detailed plans in their campaigns to spread their messages. Filipinos have taken up this mantle and embraced the use of social media to express their democratic voices. This is even more pressing now because of COVID restrictions and the reduction of in-person interaction. Social media has become the most effective and imperative way to address voters. 

With the help of social media, we have seen many examples of social activism and getting the attention of those who reside in political spheres. The struggle of Black Lives Matter, the rise of #MeToo, the fight for climate action, the Pride movement — the list goes on. Filipinos are making that change too, tapping on their screens, stringing words to form their opinions in the social media space.

Governments and policymakers need to notice this wave of change and there is a way — the way is through social media intelligence. These opinions and issues are what policies are made up of — to address the concerns of the people and how authorities can better their lives. 

And these days, social media intelligence is only a few clicks away on your screen. From media monitoring to social media analytics to finding influencers that can have a positive impact on your campaign, Meltwater can be the driving force in getting the best out of your campaigns and truly listen to the voice of the people. Fill up the form below and we will deliver to you the best platform for your media intelligence needs in the Philippine political landscape.

How Social Media is Impacting the Philippines Political Landscape

Your prospective customers come to you in different ways with different priorities. Some are ready to pull the trigger the moment they “meet” your products. Others need a little more convincing, whether it’s building trust in your brand or gaining confidence in your product. That’s why the marketing funnel is a quintessential tool in every interaction.

If you’ve spent any time on the analytical side of marketing, you’ve probably heard the term ‘marketing funnel’ at some point. This figurative funnel is a tool marketers use to turn the complex process of sales and marketing into an easy-to-digest concept.

The one thing each of your prospects shares is that they’re somewhere in your marketing funnel, on a buyer journey toward purchasing your product. Knowing where exactly in the funnel your prospects are can help you decide the best way to nurture them, connect with them, and ultimately generate more revenue.

But what exactly does a marketing funnel do? And more importantly, how do you use it? The best way to explain it is to step inside your customers’ shoes and gather consumer insights around their journey for yourself.

Strategies for Each Stage of the Marketing Funnel

A funnel is shaped like an inverted pyramid. There’s a large opening at the top, and it narrows as it gets closer to the bottom. But what is a funnel in a marketing sense?

By definition, a digital marketing funnel is a visualization of how your customers move along their journey, from awareness to purchase and every step in between.

Tip: No two customers are exactly alike, which is why you should understand the 6 most common types of customers.

Regardless of the exact stages, the purpose of a digital marketing funnel remains the same: to understand where your buyer is at all times during the buying process and anticipate the information they need to move to the bottom of the funnel.

For more information, download our guide to Optimizing Your Marketing Funnel at Every Stage.

What is a sales funnel, you might wonder? What is a click funnel, you say? Or, you might refer to a sales funnel as a conversion funnel, purchase funnel, or email funnel.

The reality is that there are different types of funnels. They each follow the same basic outline and purpose but are adapted for different channels or outlets.

Let’s look at some of the different types of funnels.

If you have a sales team responsible for speaking directly with customers and generating revenue, then you likely use a traditional sales funnel.

A sales funnel is the series of steps your salespeople take to turn prospects into paying customers. For sales teams that do cold outreach, your sales team is working all stages of the sales funnel. If your marketing team is handing over only sales-qualified leads, then your salespeople are mainly working in the consideration and decision stages.

A click funnel tracks a user’s clicks on content (e.g., an email list campaign) to guide the customer journey. Engagement helps the company to determine where the customer is in their journey. An email marketing campaign is an example of a lead nurturing click funnel.

The click funnel is a favorite among marketers because it can easily be automated. It's also a great way to get more mileage from your content marketing funnel.

For example, potential customers who opt for your newsletters or enter their email in exchange for free content can be transferred to a click funnel. You might send an automated welcome email, then follow up with a link to view another important piece of content. If the user clicks the link but doesn’t purchase, you might follow up with a discount code to push them closer to purchasing.

In a webinar funnel, you’re using the webinar content to generate leads. You can use their attendance and participation to qualify and score each lead, then follow up with them after the webinar.

Depending on your sales approach, you might use an automated email funnel to connect with leads before and after the webinar. Or, you might have a sales team reach out individually to learn more about each prospect.

The webinar can also be structured to lead your prospects toward the decision-making stage. It shortens the customer journey by presenting a problem and a solution all in the same content, then giving users a reason to act.

This is a great tactic to build urgency and close deals without having to chase down leads once the webinar is over.

And speaking of webinars, we ran a webinar on the marketing funnel recently. Why not watch it?

Similar to a webinar, marketers can use the visual power of video to generate leads and drive them down the funnel. The video or a series of videos should include all the content a user needs to become more aware of their problem and choose a solution.

You can also add lead capture forms and calls-to-action on the video to collect leads and follow up with them if they don’t convert on the spot.

Lead magnets take many forms, from downloadable checklists to free templates to free courses and more. The goal is to offer something of high value, something your target audience won’t be able to resist.

Users can receive the lead magnet in exchange for something small, like an email address. This gives you an opportunity to follow up with the lead to see how else you might be able to help them.

For example, a content marketing agency might offer a free content calendar template as a lead magnet. It’s an offer that only people interested in content marketing will want. This means that when you follow up, you’ll be speaking with a fairly qualified audience that might benefit from your content creation services.

A landing page is a web page dedicated to a specific product or promotion. Landing pages can be powerful advertising tools to drum up leads or even convert customers on the spot.  

Short landing pages may contain a video or lead form for users to learn more information. From there, marketers can continue nurturing those leads until they are ready to buy.

Long-form landing pages are designed to take prospects along the entire customer journey. They receive all the information they need to make a buying decision, including incentives and emotional connections that make them want to act immediately. In this case, the sales cycle is much shorter because there are fewer touchpoints.

Each of the above types of marketing funnels is divided into stages. The number and names of each stage depend on the funnel method you’re following.

A simple marketing funnel can be broken down into three layers: Awareness, Consideration, and Decision.

Some marketers expand the sales process to include five stages: Problem, Research, Evaluation, Purchase, and Post-Purchase.

Other marketers prefer the four-stage sales funnel that follows the AIDA approach: Awareness, Interest, Decision (or Desire), Action.

Knowing what happens in each of the marketing funnel stages can help you figure out what the customer needs to know to move to the next stage.

Let’s look at the three most common stages of a marketing funnel in more detail.

Awareness is the stage at the very top of the funnel. In marketing funnel stages, Awareness can mean two things: the moment the prospect becomes aware of their problem or the moment they become aware of your brand.

Some of the characteristics of the Awareness stage include:

The goal for marketers is to build trust and interest in your brand and product. There’s no selling involved here; it’s simply a matter of connection.

Prospects in the middle-of-the-funnel Consideration stage are actively interested in solving their problem. You’ve grabbed their attention and they know you might provide a viable solution for them. At this stage, they’re ready to learn more.

Characteristics of the Consideration stage include:

Customers in the Consideration stage will need more information to reach a decision. Maybe they’d like to see your product in action. Or, perhaps a buying guide with a list of things to consider could be helpful. At this point, it’s all about nurturing your lead with education.

At some point, leads will be ready to make a purchase decision. They might buy from you, or they might go with a competitor.

Some of the characteristics of the Decision stage include:

Now that you know how marketing funnels work, you can use them to create strategies and determine KPIs for each stage of the funnel to increase conversions.

Creating marketing funnel strategies means tailoring your approach to each stage of the customer journey. Social media marketing, email marketing, case studies, customer reviews, and customer testimonials all play a powerful role in moving your prospects further down the funnel.

Here are some best practices you can use in your funnel marketing strategies:

Social media marketing is a favorite way to boost brand visibility and create soft connections with prospects. For example, you might run a paid Facebook ad promoting a product or blog post to grow your audience.

You can also view your posts’ reach and social engagement. Consider anyone who engages or reaches out directly as a potential lead.

Our Best Practice: Maintain an active presence on your chosen social networks. The more consistent you are, the more people know what to expect from you and the more you stay top of mind.

Email marketing can support all stages of your marketing funnel strategies, from lead gen to closing the deal. Using email marketing at the top of the funnel, you can share a free piece of content in exchange for their email address.

Once they sign up, continue nurturing your lead with valuable content and questions that help you learn more about their needs.

Our Best Practice: As the user engages with your email marketing campaigns, pay attention to behaviors that might indicate they’re ready to buy. When you notice them looking at pricing, for example, you can reach out to set up a call with a sales rep or offer them a discount code to purchase on the spot.

Guide To Leveraging the Marketing Funnel

Communication is key to running a business. Full stop. The secret is to have a solid communication plan in place to keep all your teams and stakeholders aligned. But how do you write a communication plan and what exactly is it? In this blog, we’ll explore 10 key steps to writing a communication plan for easy reapplication across multiple channels.

What is the Difference Between an Internal Communication Plan & External Communication Plan?

What Should a Communication Plan Include?

A communication plan is a document and/or calendar that provides marketing & PR teams a cohesive structure for crafting their messages. It is designed so everyone has a clear understanding of which stakeholders should be contacted and when.

Your plan is the glue that helps your campaign from hitting any roadblocks and it’s a bible to refer to when marketers get stuck in a messaging rut (or rather, try too hard to get out of a well-established rut - not all ruts are bad when it comes to branding). 

When writing a communication plan, think of it as a template that you'll be able to use for all different communication efforts. Speaking of templates, we have a free communication plan template available just for you!

Communication from a marketing and PR perspective covers a lot of bases, and cohesion in planning across all teams is super important. 

An internal communications plan is the framework you use when communicating with all your employees. The types of communications in your plan can include company updates, product announcements, and other important business news. These internal updates will often be delivered by way of an internal newsletter. 

An external communication plan outlines how, when, why, and where you need to connect with your different audiences, such as social media followers and email subscribers, and other external stakeholders such as investors. 

Planning this communication, whether internal or external, requires having a clear strategy so you know who needs to be contacted first and what you want to accomplish when you deliver the message. Is the objective to encourage employee engagement around some exciting company news? Then you need to connect with your social media manager first. Is the objective to announce a new software update? Then you may want to connect with the product marketing team to anticipate some FAQs. 

The more specific you can be with times, dates, media contacts, goals, and objectives for each communique, the more useful your communication plan will be in keeping everyone aligned. 

An effective communications plan should include:

Who needs to be communicated with and when? Have a list of all possible stakeholders, both internal and external, who will be receiving communication from your company. 

For example, if you’re announcing a product update, will it include a press release? Does it need to be announced to investors first? How soon after the press release goes out will you send internal communications? 

Make sure you include the specific goals behind each type of communication from your company. Note that the goals should apply specifically to the communication method (such as social or email). We'll go into this more below.

What are the key messages you want to get across in your communication? This should be related to your goals. If your CEO is speaking at a conference, you make send him a communication plan that highlights key messages he/she must include in the presentation around your market share, your hiring expectations, or new markets you've recently entered.

These key messages should be tailored to the demographic you are trying to reach, and fit the medium you are using to communicate them through.

Tip: Remember to think about how your brand voice and personality when developing the key messages during your communications planning.

When crafting your plan, here are 10 steps that are important to keep in mind for effective communication with your key stakeholders. Your strategy will always evolve, and it's important to let it, however, the steps below provide a great starting point for building a template that can serve as a reference point for your organization:  

Start mapping out your communication plan based on the current status of your marketing strategy and the ROI you saw the previous year. Analyzing your social media reporting, or marketing reporting, in general, will be critical when it comes to informing the direction of your strategy. 

This way, you can design your plan more confidently, based on the data. It is important to not get too hung up on historic data, however, given that the subject of your upcoming communication will usually be different. But you can still analyze receptiveness based on time of year, time of day, news outlets that performed better, multimedia style (video vs still image for example), etc.

You can do this analysis yourself, but it can be a lengthy process. If you already have a media intelligence solution like Meltwater, you can use it to gain in-depth insights into how your current and past communication strategy is working, track industry developments, and keep tabs on competitors.

To get you started use the below metrics and look for patterns to optimize your plan:

Media exposure – tracks coverage (both editorial and social media) volume over time.

Top sources – breaks down social media buzz by channel or publication.

Google Analytics – provides a clearer picture of what types of posts generated website traffic.

Share of voice – compares coverage volume for two or more topics/ competitors.

Sentiment – assesses the tone of a brand’s coverage over time.

Trending themes – uncovers conversational patterns surrounding a topic.

Top locations – helps identify the top markets discussing a brand or event.

Top social posts – explains the social content with the highest social reach value within a given date range.

Clearly define the communication goals and objectives within your plan. Specificity is extremely helpful in this step - write down the details of who you plan to communicate with and why. Ensure that your strategy goes hand in hand with the various department’s business objectives. It’s a lot easier to get buy-in if you can prove how your plan contributes to the wider picture, illustrating how it benefits the company and drives bottom-line ROI.

A well-thought-out strategy is where you can nail down the actual action items and assign responsibilities to bring your communication plan to life. There are several models and templates marketers can use to map these internal and external influences including SWOT analysis, Porter's 5 Forces, and PESTEL.  

A SWOT analysis is a good place to start when analyzing internal and external insights. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. You can use this framework to benchmark the progress of your new communication activity to make sure your plan is as effective as it could be.  

Porter's 5 Forces model is widely used to assess external forces, along with a PESTEL analysis (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental and Legal). You can use this template when you'd like to determine if your plan needs to change based on competitor activity, large internal company shifts, or if you spot a potential crises brewing.

Your company probably already has a clear idea of who your target audience is and your various marketing personas. But it’s always a good idea to revisit these since trends can impact consumer behavior and this will affect how you communicate with them. Using a social listening and monitoring tool is a great place to start - allowing you to dip into the natural focus group of social media to gain a deeper understanding of your target audience. 

Remember that your communication plan needs to take into account a lot of different audiences - and the messaging tone and context will differ depending on who you are communicating to. For instance, how you communicate the same piece of news to an investor is vastly different than how you should deliver it to your social media followers.

What message are you trying to communicate? Messaging that worked last year isn't guaranteed to work in the current year; this is especially true if there have been industry changes or internal shifts at your company. For example, a competitor may have come into your space, causing you to no longer be the most innovative supplier. 

Your communication should then be amended to convey a more enticing value-prop, and you should work to refine the way you represent your product. As you make this change, consider how your communication strategy should look for letting your key stakeholders know about it.

Where will your messaging be taking place? Determine the communication channels that will be used, when you’ll use them, and whom each channel is intended for. Each communication method will accomplish different goals as well, so have a place to define what you’re hoping to achieve. 

For example, in a social media post, you may be looking for new followers, likes, or comments. Whereas for an email you’re probably looking for an increase in open rates or CTR.

Your communications should cover the many communication mediums you're using in your marketing strategy such as:

Social media - engage with new and potential customers, find influencers, track competitors, and address customer complaints

Email marketing - communicate with your subscribers to promote events, new blogs, and move them further down the marketing funnel

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