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

15 Must-Have PR KPIs and How to Track Them

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

Introducing Verified YouTube Data in Meltwater Influencer Marketing

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

The Meltwater Blog

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

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

Facebook Blog | Meltwater

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

Instagram Blog | Meltwater

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

LinkedIn Blog | Meltwater

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

TikTok Blog | Meltwater

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

X / Twitter Blog | Meltwater

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

YouTube Blog | Meltwater

Every day billions of conversations take place on social media: tweets, posts, comments, blogs, reviews, podcasts, and much more.
Learn how to use social listening to make sense of all of that data.

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

Social Listening Blogs | Category

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

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

Reputation Management Blogs | Category

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

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

Brand Management Blogs | Category

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

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

Competitive Intelligence Blogs | Category

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

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

Customer Journey Blogs | Category

What Is Data Analytics? [Beginner’s Guide 2023]
How can I grow my business? 
How do customers interact with my newly launched product?
How do I increase the productivity of my employees?
How do I know if my marketing efforts are working?
We have just two words for you...Data analytics!

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

AI & Data Analytics Blogs | Category

Public relations and media relations can add impact to any marketing strategy. It’s an opportunity for brands to grow their reach beyond traditional sales messages. PR helps to shape the image you want people to have of your brand.
So, what is PR and how do you use it? This guide shows you everything you need to know to build a strong public relations foundation.

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

Public Relations (PR) Blogs | Category

We all know exactly what the roles of sales or accounting are in a company, right? We might even have a slight idea of what the IT guys are doing.
But there is another business discipline, that plays a crucial role in organizations, even more so during the pandemic – internal communications!
But what exactly do we mean by that, what purpose does it serve and what steps can you take to ensure you and your employees will communicate effectively?

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

Internal Communications Blogs | Category

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

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

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

Content Marketing Blogs | Category

The rise of the influencer marketing space – today a $10 billion industry, growing 50% per year – is one of the clearest examples of how social media is transforming traditional marketing. These days having a business website, presence on social, PR coverage, and your own content isn’t enough to compete.
We'll dive into the intricacies of influencer marketing to help ensure that you're equipped with the insights needed to be successful in this space.

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

Influencer Marketing Blogs | Category

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

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

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

Marketing Blogs | Category

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

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

Social Media Management Blogs | Category

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

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

Social Media Marketing Blogs | Category

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

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

Digital Marketing & PR Tools Blogs | Category

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

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

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Blog Collection | Meltwater

Co-branding is a common marketing strategy for brand extension in the field of brand management. A marketing partnership is made between two or more different companies to collaborate on a new product or offering.

What Are The Benefits of Co-Branding For Brands?

Things to Consider When Creating a Co-Branding Strategy

So, what is co-branding? One of many co-branding definitions is ‘a form of co-operation between two or more brands with significant consumer recognition, in which all the participants’ brand names are retained’ (Blackett & Russell, 1999).

As we'll see, co-branding can be an extremely beneficial strategy. Not to be confused with co-marketing, which, whilst similar, is two or more brands coming together to promote existing or mature products and services. The general rule is that if you’re collaborating on a new offering then you are co-branding.

This marketing tool is nothing new, in fact throughout history these brand collaborations have catapulted brand names into the hearts and minds of consumers otherwise out of their customer base. For example, in 1975 Dr Pepper teamed up with Bonne Belle (US make-up brand) to produce a Dr Pepper-flavoured lip balm, although considered a strange collaboration at the time, it was so successful that you can still buy the product today.

There are various co-branding types, but the most common ones are ingredient co-branding and composite co-branding. Let's take a closer look at those two forms of collaboration.

With this form of co-branding, advantages are created through partnering with companies whose products are used in your products. For example, Intel is the ingredient brand to Dell, a computer technology company that uses Intel’s core processors.

This involves a partnership between two or more companies to invent and produce a new product or service for their target audiences. For example, British Airways and Citibank partnered up to release a credit card that automatically registers members to the British Airways Executive Club.

If your small brand meets a popular, more well-known one, the audience is likely to trust you more due to the credibility of that bigger brand. It also raises your brand awareness which will help grow sales in the long-term as the audience will have you in mind if they look for a particular product or service category. 

Media monitoring tools can measure the sentiment of the buzz on social media and in news, giving insight into whether people trust the brand or not. We can dig deep into what people are saying about your brand, if they have positive associations or if they generally approve your marketing content.

If there is negative sentiment surrounding a particular brand, it would be better not to start a brand partnership as that negative buzz or press could reflect onto your brand. It also sets you apart from other competitors and makes you more memorable particularly if you are collaborating with another brand they already love!

A top benefit of co-branding is that there is more money available for marketing purposes. If both companies spend their usual marketing budget each on a joint campaign, then the campaign is likely to be much bigger and better than an independent campaign. However this is dependent on the agreement between the two businesses. Especially for new products or markets this cash injection can be rewarding strategy as you are able to unlock content seeding campaigns on a new scale.

Co-branding also increases reach. Two partnered brands advertise one product or service to both of their audiences, therefore increasing the number of people that the message is communicated to. It might be possible that you find completely new co-markets thanks to your strategic partner's outreach. In parallel, it's a great way to test out new markets and exposes you to these markets in an easier, faster way utilising the resources and assets of both companies. In any case, you should monitor your cooperation at anytime to spot potential growth for your branding as early as possible. 

Loyal consumers will be more engaged with the brand and excited to share new product updates particularly if the partnership is with another brand they love. A great example of this is Taco Bell teaming up with Doritos to create the Nacho Cheese Doritos Loco Taco, two powerful American institutions coming together to produce a product with worldwide acclaim, so much so it took YouTube by storm and even had its own fan pages.

There's more co-branding around than you would guess. We'll present two examples to point out the advantages of mutual branding.

The Apple Watch Nike is a good example of composite co-branding. Based on the Apple watch, Apple and Nike developed custom Nike-Apps that make the watch an exclusive gadget for athletes who want to track their exercising results. It's kind of rare that two world famous brands combine their corporate design to create something new. In this case, the partnership pays out. There are several types of Nike-designed wrist bands exclusively for the Apple Watch Nike and there are many more examples of how effective this co-branding of Apple's elegance and Nike's dedication to power and accomplishment is.

The fashion industry is especially famous for its co-branding partnerships. Usually it's about a branding between a well-known fast fashion company and an exclusive, luxury design brand. H&M kind of invented this strategy by introducing unique pieces of well-known designers in a limited store edition. Most customers bought them on the first day and emptied the stock immediately. This raises exclusiveness and brand awareness.

Large companies are better able to compete with small businesses as they can transfer their successful and popular brand names to their new products. However small businesses that haven’t fully established themselves in the market aren’t able to do this. Therefore it’s important for small businesses to partner with other small business, or focus on areas with little competition. We can use media monitoring tools for social listening to find which brand names of a particular product category are popular and have a positive buzz. If they’re being mentioned frequently and positively on social media and in the news, it gives us a good indication as to whether they’re recognised in the market and might be worth co-branding with.

2. As in real life, finding the right partner is tough

A customer will be put off buying if they are unaware of the company you’re partnered with. In order to create a product that will lift off, it is important to make sure that the two companies complement each other in terms of recognition, brand image, and values. Media monitoring tools such as Meltwater can be used to determine aspects such as the partner’s key messages, their brand perception, and if they are known in the geographic market where we want to set up shop. We can use this information to assess whether or not a partnership with that company would be advantageous.

Vague, undefined goals can cause conflict within a co-branding agreement. It is important to identify and define these from the beginning ensuring they suit both companies. Beware, this doesn’t happen overnight. It is also important to agree upon a resource split, not just budget but actual manpower, this is a great time to identify any skills gaps within either team or where marketing tools could help.

Media monitoring tools can support you throughout your co-branding journey, from measuring sentiment around your chosen brand partner, giving insight into whether people trust the brand or not. Also, measuring the impact of your co-branding marketing by digging deep into what people are saying about your brand collaboration gathering valuable feedback enables you to reflect on the success of your co-branding partnership. 

If you want more help, why not fill in the form below and let Meltwater help you discover your perfect co-branding partner. 

A Quick Dive into Co-Branding

External communication channels might take up most of your time, attention, and marketing resources. But it's important to find the best ways to share and engage with internal information too. In fact, good internal communication strategies are essential to your daily operations.

2020 Gallup research revealed that only 13% of employees strongly agree that the leadership of their organization communicates effectively with the rest of the organization.

That's a problem because good internal communication strategies promote better employee engagement. In turn, better employee engagement leads to stronger overall organizational performance.

Here’s how you can build an effective internal communications strategy.

What are Internal Communications for a Business?

How Do Internal Communications Differ from Customer-Facing Communications?

Why is Your Internal Communication Strategy So Important?

How to Build an Effective Internal Communications Strategy for your Business from Scratch

How to Improve an Existing Internal Communication Strategy

Internal communications for businesses are as they sound. They are the information you share with your employees and stakeholders about your business. That includes your communication with individual employees, teams, or the entire organization.

Communication goals are to keep employees connected to and engaged with your company.

Examples of common internal communications are:

Company announcements about mergers and acquisitions or new products or services

Announcements pertaining to company policies

HR communications such as information about benefits enrollment

Employee news such as new hire announcements

What are the Basic Methods of Communication for Businesses?

Outside of company walls, brands are using multiple channels to connect with their customers such as social media, email, direct mail, the company website, and telephony, to name a few. The idea is to meet with customers wherever they are and make it easy for them to connect.

As more companies focus on employee engagement, they’re taking advantage of many of these same communication methods for their internal communications.

The basic methods of communication for businesses include email, online employee portals, dedicated employee phone lines, blogs, and intranet web pages. Companies can also use onsite digital signage for visual communication.

More traditional methods of communication include print media such as posters, newsletters, and notices, as well as face-to-face communication.

Creating an internal communications plan depends on many variables. For example, if your objective is to share information quickly, then you might turn to digital channels. This doesn't give you the benefits of eye contact or seeing facial expressions and gestures, but it does help to get the word out quickly.

If you are thinking about creating a newsletter, check out these examples of internal newsletters. 

The Benefits of Different Communication Methods

Each of the communication methods businesses use offer different advantages. For example, email offers immediacy and cost-effectiveness, allows for direct responses from recipients, and provides a measure of access control. You can also track engagement such as open rates and click-throughs to see if your communication is effective.

Employee portals (or intranets) provide convenience and privacy, along with the ability to easily update messages. Companies can create specific campaigns and even personalized messages and updates for each employee.

Dedicated social media groups and purpose-built engagement platforms like Slack are growing in popularity. They’re streamlined and inexpensive, and messages can reach a lot of people in a short time span.

But arguably none are as beneficial as real-time face-to-face communication. Sharing a major company achievement or milestone, making an important announcement, or even breaking bad news through verbal communication gives the company a clear look at the impact of its messaging. You can see employees' body language and reactions. You gain the advantage of verbal and non-verbal employee feedback so you can transform your monologue into meaningful two-way conversations.

No matter which methods you include in your internal communication strategy, you may find that using multiple methods of communication is necessary to get the right message across in the right way.

Internal communications are different from customer-facing communications largely because of the purpose and audience.

You use internal communications to keep employees informed about changes, updates, and key developments in your company. Then, employees have all the information they need to do their jobs effectively.

External communications focus on your customers and stakeholders. These messages are usually branded to ensure recipients make the connection between your message and your company.  

Both internal and external communications depend on a strong communications strategy. Having a plan gives you a blueprint for effective communication so your message resonates with the right people.

Effective communication is key to employee engagement. Employees feel like valued team members when the company keeps in touch and opens the door for employee feedback. This is important because 90% of employees say they are more likely to stay with a company that takes and acts on feedback.

Employees are an extension of the brand message, values, and vision that you project to outside audiences. Infusing your values into your internal comms helps your company share and maintain its image.

Just as you communicate with customers, stakeholders, vendors, and potential new hires, your communication techniques should be clearly documented. This ensures that no matter who is sharing information with employees, it is done so in a consistent manner that matches your brand and culture.

Having a communications plan also helps you capitalize on the benefits of keeping employees informed. Good communication fosters a sense of trust and value and helps employees feel like they are an important part of the team.

That’s why best-in-class brands never leave internal communications up to chance. When you put effort into developing and maintaining a communications strategy, you can consistently receive the benefits it’s designed to provide.

If you don’t already have an internal communications strategy in place, there’s no time like the present to create one.

Every company's communication strategy will look and function a little differently because it should be unique to your organization. Here’s how to build an effective internal communication strategy from the ground up:

Deciding to implement a new internal comm strategy is a step forward. But consider what’s driving this decision.

For example, are you trying to increase employee engagement? Do you have a morale problem? Are you wanting to limit disinformation within the company? Do you want to strengthen your company culture?

A good strategy can help you achieve many goals. Deciding which goals are most important to your company can inform the way you build your plans.

As with any type of information campaign, you should analyze your internal communications for success. You want to make sure your messages are reaching the right people and making the right impact. Otherwise, why bother?

Think about the metrics that will help you see whether your internal comm strategy is working. Some examples might include:

Engagement metrics, such as opens, clicks, and usage rates of internal communication tools

Adoption rates for new apps, programs, or company-wide services

You might even look at things like social media engagement and sales. Employees who are informed are more likely to become advocates for the products or services the company sells, which can translate into a louder external buzz with your customers.

Just like with external audiences, internal messaging isn’t one-size-fits-all. Some items might be relevant to every employee, while others might only affect a small team or group.

Think about how you can share the right messages with the right target audience. This way, employees don’t suffer from information overload and start tuning out all communications.

To start, segment your company’s different audiences (e.g., by role, by department, by part-time or full-time status, etc.). Then, decide who needs to receive the different types of content you share.

You might even choose to repackage content for different segments. For example, your sales team might need granular insights into revenue and company goals, but your marketing team might prefer higher-level insights.

Sharing messages with your intended audience isn’t a one-size-fits-all activity, either. In fact, 70% of employees feel left out of the workplace, with more than half saying they miss out on important information.

Internal communication strategies benefit from having more than one channel to ensure all key stakeholders have access to information. Some options worth exploring include:

Communication apps (Slack, HipChat, etc.)

Internal social media platforms (Jostle, Igloo, Happeo, etc.)

Consider how to deliver Different messages that can be delivered in different ways. Sometimes, it makes sense to use more than one channel.

Before communications go out to employees, you should establish some form of approval process. This ensures messages convey company priorities, are error-free, and support the company brand and image.

All departments should be aware of how internal communications are handled. Even if other teams or departments are creating the message, it should go through an official vetting process before being shared.

Most often, this responsibility falls on the marketing and communications team. They typically have access to the most up-to-date documents, resources, and other information. They can also align the message with the audience and channel.

Once you establish your internal communication strategy, continue to tweak and refine it. Look for what’s working well and what’s not. Keep making improvements and tracking its success so you can see how beneficial these changes are to your company.

Get your employees and C-suite involved in this process. After all, internal communications are meant to support them, not give you extra work.

Do you feel informed about what’s happening within the company?

What are the best ways for the company to share important news and information with employees?

How can the company improve its internal communications?

What barriers prevent you from receiving internal information?

If you already have an internal communication strategy, it might be time to give it an upgrade. Knowing how to improve communication above and beyond what you’re already doing can help you increase employee engagement, satisfaction, and productivity.

First, take stock of your current strategy. How is it performing? Are you reaching the right people? What are the strategy’s strengths and weaknesses?

Next, think about the improvements you want to make. Do you need different tools or technology? Do you need to re-segment your audiences as people make vertical and horizontal career moves within the company? Any changes should put your internal communications in a better position.

Also, think about who needs to be involved in this process. What skills and resources do you need to make the necessary improvements? Get feedback from department leads, managers, and others to help you move forward.

Lastly, make sure you share any changes to your internal communications processes with the rest of the company. This will keep everyone in alignment with current messaging.

If you want more help crafting an internal newsletter or newsfeed to keep your executives, investors, or employees informed, get in touch today. Our newsletter and website newsfeeds allow you to curate a hand-selected feed of articles to share via branded email newsletters or a newsfeed that is distributed through the Meltwater platform but customized to your look and feel.

How to Build an Internal Communication Strategy for Your Businesses

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.

The Meltwater Blog

A Quick Dive into Co-Branding

How to Build an Internal Communication Strategy for Your Businesses

How Social Media is Impacting the Philippines Political Landscape

Guide To Leveraging the Marketing Funnel

How to Write a Communication Plan

The 6 Most Common Types of Customers & How To Approach Them

The Ultimate Guide to Referral Marketing

Celebrating Pride at Meltwater

How Much Does Media Monitoring Cost?

How To Identify & Satisfy The 10 Most Common Customer Needs

The Ultimate Guide to Community Management

Misinformation & Disinformation: What is it and how do you protect your brand against it?