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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

No matter how compelling your website content and your marketing materials, it's pretty common for customers to need assistance before and during a sale. While you could funnel them to a customer support call center or message link, what if you could anticipate their questions and immediately serve up friendly assistance without leaving the page? That's where conversational marketing comes in.

Conversational marketing is an approach that uses two-way dialogue (a conversation) between a company and its prospective customer. Using tools such as chatbots, live messengers, and real-time video to close a sale, conversational marketing takes a more personal approach than broadcast-message-style traditional marketing.

While it may not yet be as ubiquitous as email, Hubspot's State of Marketing report found that 45% of those businesses surveyed are using bots as part of their inbound marketing strategy. And it's not just consumer tech companies who are early adopters of this new approach to customer engagement. The Drift 2019 State of Conversational Marketing report found that this is not a niche marketing strategy, with a range of industries now putting chatbots to work:

How Conversational Marketing Fits into Your Marketing Strategy

While chatbots can't replace a live one-to-one conversation in all cases, the Drift report found consumers are willing to use chatbots in a wide range of situations:

Getting detailed answers or explanations: 29%

This provides several opportunities for marketing and communications professionals to put their institutional knowledge proactively to use. For example, rather than rely on salespeople exclusively to convey new product features or promotions, your chatbot can be programmed to provide as much detail about new offerings as a consumer desires—using the same on-brand messaging you so carefully crafted as part of your advertising and social media marketing strategy. 

In situations with high communications volumes, a quick response can be the difference between keeping a situation calm or escalating into a crisis. Chatbots can be a critical part of a strategic crisis response plan, giving all your audiences’ immediate access to information they need. 

These applications not only lead to satisfied customers, they can also significantly decrease corporate customer service costs. Autodesk’s customer service chatbot, using IBM’s Watson Conversation platform, has delivered significant ROI, including cutting the average response time for resolving issues from 38 hours to 5.4 minutes, with the chatbot answering over 30,000 queries per month. Customer service issues that previously cost $15-$20 each when manually processed are now handled by a virtual agent for $1 per query.  

The Importance of Tone and Voice in Conversational Marketing

Getting the tone and brand voice right is critical in all your content and communications, but it’s even more critical in conversational marketing. After all, its effectiveness hinges upon encouraging conversation. That means if your brand is typically formal and conservative in its marketing content, you’ll need to spend some time thinking about how to stay true to your brand while not making customers feel like they're talking to a protocol robot from a science fiction novel. 

An easy way to check if you’re conveying the right tone is by having your team use your bot and read aloud their queries, followed by the chatbot’s replies. If the communication sounds stilted when you hear it read by a human being, you need to refine it. Conversely, it is also important to ensure your chatbot can recognize a change in tone from the human it’s interacting with. If a person becomes upset, which can be indicated by specific language or an increase in typos or speed of their replies, for example, your chatbot should be programmed to hand the conversation off to a trained customer service person before things escalate.

Tip: Learn how to use chatbots to improve your sales

Three Tips for Getting Started with Conversational Marketing

While conversational marketing has the potential for significant improvement in customer experience and organizational cost-savings, it can also backfire. A customer who has a bad experience with your chatbot—or worse yet, never receives a response from your messaging tool, may not give your brand a second chance to make things right. With this in mind, here are three tips for getting your go-to-market plan off to a good start:

Start small. It’s fairly simple to add a chatbot to your Facebook page, for example, that can provide answers to questions that commonly come in through that channel, such as store hours, directions, and other simple queries. Take existing FAQ documents, and expand from there to add queries that come in that weren’t on your list. 

Always answer. If your chatbot gets a request it can’t answer, make sure the system has a way to let the person who submitted the query know it needs to refer the question, and provide a commitment to respond. Drift found 42% of chatbot users expect a response within 5 seconds, and 36% within 5 minutes or less. 

Provide an easy out. Sometimes, a chatbot misunderstands a query. Or a customer has such a specific question, it’s not possible you could have anticipated it. Make it easy for someone to click-to-call or live chat with someone directly from the chat window. You don’t want your customer to feel like they’re on an automated phone tree endlessly saying “operator” trying in vain to get someone somewhere to help.

Conversational Marketing Examples: 3 Brands Who Are Doing It Right

The best way to get a feel for how conversational marketing can transform your customer experience is to try it out for yourself first-hand. Check out these three brands that show the possibilities for creating a seamless multichannel experience, with conversational marketing.

With the Starbucks app, frequent sippers can order their usual cup to go using a voice command via Amazon Alexa or through the app’s built-in messaging. When your coffee is ready, the bot lets you know and allows you to pay for your order and even tip, allowing for an easy contactless ordering experience. The app makes it easy to regularly re-order multiple drinks, and learns your preferences over time, all leading to an improved customer experience.

Not all conversations need to involve words. When you use the Sephora app, you have the opportunity to upload a photo—or take a photo live—to use a bot that helps you find a lipstick shade that color matches its hue. No, it’s not going to have the same level of color matching as bringing that bridesmaid dress into the store with you. But getting to see a color on your lips (through augmented reality technology) at home and being given a few different brand and shade options does give you the confidence you are making a smart purchase.

While the app itself makes it easy to get to where you need to go, the integrated bots take it a step further. You can order a Lyft through a Slack or Facebook chatbot or by a voice command to your Alexa. Then, the app sends you updates on the status of your ride. It’s especially convenient for Apple Watch users who can receive a photo of the car’s license plate directly on their watch screen.

For a crash course on the technology trends that are starting to shape how customers interact with brands, watch our webinar with Greg Cress, a leading digital transformation expert from Accenture. 

Don't Miss Out On The Power Of Conversational Marketing

It’s difficult to say exactly when social media began, but you could argue that it really started with blogs in 1999 when LiveJournal was launched. So that means social is now 21 years old, the traditional coming of age milestone, which is oddly appropriate because this is the year it really had to grow up.

The year started dramatically, with some of the worst bushfires in history raging across Australia and apocalyptic images being shared with the world. The issue amplified discussions around man-made climate change, and social mentions of this topic peaked at nearly 1.3 million on January 5th.

On the other side of the world, the UK finally left the European Union on January 31st. This topic has dominated the country’s media agenda for the past four years, with social media serving as the battleground for the often bitter Brexit debate. When the day of departure finally arrived, social media mentions of Brexit peaked at 1.2 million.

Both of these events seemed huge at the time, especially in the countries where they occurred. But 2020 was just getting started.

Towards the end of January, the volume of online discussions about Coronavirus already exceeded those of Brexit and the bushfires combined, and that was just the beginning. On March 14th, mentions of Coronavirus topics reached a peak of 29 million, as the impact of the pandemic became clear.

Although the volume of Coronavirus discussions has steadily declined since that peak, even today, months later, it’s still a huge topic of conversation compared to those events at the beginning of the year. For most people the main consequence of the pandemic was global lockdown, with millions forced to remain in their homes and, since mid-March, that too has been a significant topic of discussion on social channels.

There was still more to come. Following a series of racially motivated murders, including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, protests broke out across America and other countries in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. It’s difficult to track the volume of discussions for all of the issues around this event, because there are so many different threads to the conversation, but our best analysis is that social media mentions of Black Lives Matter related issues peaked at 18.3 million on June 2nd. It’s probably higher.

To put the sheer size of all this into context, last year’s biggest news story was arguably Donald Trump’s impeachment, and on the day that occurred, December 18th, it was mentioned approximately 6.1 million times. This year’s Super Bowl got 6.3 million mentions. Both big events, but both also dwarfed by two separate stories in just the first half of 2020.

What does all this mean for social media? This isn’t just a story about big numbers, or Twitter and Facebook needing to buy more servers to cope with the extra workloads.

Lenin once said “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen” and 2020 has shown that sentiment to be true. Maybe social media is playing a part in that. The outrage felt in Minneapolis echoed across America and the world.

Within days protestors in the English city of Bristol were tearing down a statue of Edward Colston, a man whose wealth helped build the city 300 years ago, wealth which was largely made in the Atlantic slave trade. The protesters threw the statue into the same harbor that Colston’s ships sailed from.

Slave trader’s statue toppled in Bristol as thousands join anti-racism protests - BBC News

It wasn’t the first statue to fall this year, and it wasn’t the last. But the point is that a cry against injustice in Minneapolis created almost immediate action in a town halfway across the world. Could that have happened without the power of social media?

Many would argue that this reckoning has been a long time coming. Is it any coincidence that the generation which grew up with social media made it happen?

Social media is 21 years old. Anybody under the age of 30 has never really lived in a world without it, and many people older than have embraced it whole-heartedly. The ability to easily communicate, organize, educate, across national and cultural borders has had a huge impact on the current generation of young adults.

The proliferation of smartphones has had profound consequences that we are only just beginning to understand. A police officer kneeling on a man’s neck can’t be so easily ignored when every bystander has in their pocket a device that can record high definition video and instantly share that clip via social channels that will show it to the world.

The second thread of this story is Coronavirus and the global lockdown. For months many people around the world have been isolating themselves at home, cut off from all the usual day to day interactions with friends, family and colleagues. This was social’s time to shine.

Yes, investors in video-conferencing platforms must have been rubbing their hands with glee as the world sought out new ways of working, and socializing, in lockdown. But people have also turned to the likes of Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to maintain their social bonds. People who shied away from social platforms in the past now turned to them out of necessity, while those who were already old hands relied on them even more and found new ways to use them.

Without really noticing, we’ve been living in a world where social has always been part of the backdrop to our daily lives, but all of a sudden it’s important. Maybe that’s forcing us to ask equally important questions too, like: who owns and controls these channels, how are they regulated, how do we make sure they work well for us now that we really need them?

One of the comparatively low-profile news stories of this year has been that Twitter is now fact-checking and posting warnings on tweets posted by the President of the United States. The most powerful man in the world, famous for favoring Twitter as his preferred means of mass communication, is having his communication policed by that very platform. That’s as surprising as it is profound.

With everything that’s happening in the world, nobody could call this the year of social media, but we could certainly call it the year social media came of age.

2020: The Year Social Media Came of Age

While influencer marketing has become a mainstay for marketers, this doesn’t mean that marketers should start getting comfortable. As social apps start to integrate more creative functions to suit their users’ needs, an increasing number of users have started to become creators in their own right. 

Anyone with a smartphone can create content, but those that create unique, high-quality content have risen to join the ranks of top influencers. 

However, marketers often only consider partnering with ‘traditional’ influencers — influential tastemakers that usually have a large following. While these individuals may not necessarily create posts of high quality, their ability to leverage their fans makes them attractive to marketers seeking to promote their brand.

While creators can become influential and influencers do often create their own content, they aren’t one and the same. Marketers shouldn’t make the mistake of conflating them. Here’s why:

Influencers and content creators have different impacts on their audiences

Marketers increasingly understand the need to shift from ‘vanity’ metrics such as ‘likes’ towards engagement metrics such as ‘views’ and ‘impressions’. This also means that influencer marketing isn’t used just for the purpose of attracting eyeballs. Brands must engage the individuals that best suit their campaign objectives and KPIs. 

For example, a beauty brand looking to raise brand awareness might engage a beauty influencer to create a sponsored post, then track impressions on their posts, or audience growth on their social media. 

A YouTuber that uses the same products as part of a morning routine video or beauty challenge, on the other hand, can generate interest in your product that leads to greater click-throughs to your product page.  

The main difference is that influencers act as an amplification channel for your content or product, driving awareness through reach, which can generate sales with the right target group. 

Content creators, on the other hand, incorporate your product into their own content styles — be it beauty routines, funny challenges, or breathtaking photographs. These creators may not have a large following, but often have loyal audiences that are already interested in the form of content they produce. As such, they score greater points for relatability.

Think of influencer marketing as a form of brand partnership

Gone are the days when influencers are willing to plug your brand or product in exchange for free goods or cash. Influencers now hold greater accountability to their followers, meaning that it is imperative for them to be honest about sponsorships and create more authentic content. 

According to Campaign, some factors that determine if a user decides to follow an influencer include how “real” their content is, how well-intentioned their posts are, and whether or not the content or products they endorse are in keeping with their usual style. 

This means that influencers are likely to be more selective with the brands that they choose to work with. An influencer such as Liv Lo (@livlogolding), for example, builds her personal brand around her sustainable lifestyle and the use of environmentally-friendly, organic products. Liv Lo features cruelty-free skincare brands on her Instagram page and isn’t shy about criticising brands that aren’t as supportive of environmental initiatives.

@livlogolding suggests that she will stop supporting coffee brand Alfred due to their lack of sustainability efforts

Top influencers hold even greater prestige and control. Apart from being awarded ‘verified’ badges on platforms such as YouTube or Instagram that cement their status as top dog, high-profile influencers are being provided exclusive features that allow them to directly drive social commerce. 

Last year, Snapchat invited 5 top influencers to gain access to their in-app store function, allowing these influencers to sell their merchandise straight from the app. Instagram’s Creator profile, which was initially beta-tested on a small group of users, now allows influencers and creators to have more flexible profile controls, access to a dashboard of performance metrics, and the ability to create shoppable posts. 

Creators are also being recognised for their influence. Events like VidCon celebrate the unique achievements of video creators and educate brands on how they should navigate the changing influencer landscape. 

It’s clear that marketers can no longer expect to mould an influencer to their needs. Instead, marketers must learn to accept that influencers and creators are their own mini-brand. A successful partnership, therefore, depends on aligning the needs and values of both parties.

In order to find the right partners, use Meltwater’s Influencer Marketing Software or Klear's Influencer Discovery Platform. We help you to find influencers based on your audience’s demographic as well as your target market, industry, or topic. Their fans are already familiar with brands in your industry, ensuring that your content effectively targets the right audience. 

Just like celebrity endorsements, influencer partnerships work well in the long-term

Influencer marketing should not involve too many one-off partnerships. As consumers seek out relatable, authentic content, “momentary endorsements” become less attractive to most brands and influencers. After all, consumers place less trust in influencers who readily promote a variety of brands. 

Marketers should strive to create long-term partnerships with the influencers that they engage. While long-term partnerships generally reflect well on both the brand and its partner, these partnerships also help both parties solidify their fanbase. 

Influencers who work with brands on a longer-term basis can leverage a variety of posts that better reflect their relationship with the brand over time. For example, an influencer is likely to attend events hosted by the brand, speak about related social issues, and review the brand’s products. If an influencer praises the brand’s offerings, their fans are more likely to believe them.

@soniachew announces a year-long branded partnership with Acuvue Singapore

@soniachew attends Acuvue’s OASYS launch event

Brands that embark on long-term partnerships may also benefit from the influencer’s follower circles. These audiences are likely to relate the influencer with the brand and thus confer a sense of trust towards the products that they endorse. This also means that audiences are likely to feel a greater emotional connection with the brand, leading to more sticky customers.

Content creators, too, are valuable partners. Brands that make creators their partners can turn the artists’ style or content form into a part of their brand identity. This is especially true for organisations that manage recurring events. 

Arts House Limited, for example, manages the Aliwal Arts Centre, which organises the annual Aliwal Urban Arts Festival. While the lineup for each year differs, the Urban Arts Festival consistently showcases local street dance crews and musicians. The festival has become synonymous with local street culture, while the Arts Centre has become the go-to venue for local indie dance and theatre shows.

Dance duo @scrachmarcs consistently collaborates with the Aliwal Arts Centre for their annual Aliwal Urban Arts Festival

@scrachmarcs posts their original choreographies and videos of their classes on Instagram

Brands like Arts House Limited show a keen understanding of their own appeal and their audience’s interests. Likewise, brands that seek to effectively engage influencers as long-term partners must create campaigns that appeal to their key audiences.

Meltwater’s Audience Insight reports allow you to understand the communities that drive conversations on your social media channels. Our tool helps you to discover your audience’s consumption habits, analyse shifts in their demographic, and identify key influencers within these groups. You can then use these insights to determine the trends and topics that resonate with your audience. 

To move ahead, brands must shake off old conventions

Now that we’ve highlighted the reasons why marketers should understand the value of both traditional influencers and content creators, it’s imperative that they formulate an influencer marketing strategy that includes both facets.

As the social media landscape continues to change and include newer apps, functions, and trends that steal the headlines, social media marketers too must adapt to make sure that they stay ahead of the curve.

Why Your Idea of Influencer Marketing is Outdated

Social media engagement has changed. It used to be that just by posting great content, followers would engage. No longer.

Today, if you want your posts to be seen, you have to put some budget behind them. While this may be bad news for some, on the plus side, paid social media allows you to be extremely targeted, reaching the audience of your choosing.

“Attention is a key element many brands and organizations are going after on social, and in order to reach these audiences, you have to pay up,” says Karen Freberg, Associate Professor in Strategic Communication, University of Louisville. “With that being said, you have the ability to target, engage, and really pinpoint the exact members you want to reach, which will make your campaigns more effective and efficient.”

Even so, your paid social media ad strategy needs to be tied to your organic strategy, says Christina Garnett, Strategist, ICUC.

“Many see paid social as a short cut for followers, engagement, and link clicks,” says Garnett. “The fact is, putting money behind weak content won’t work. Your paid and organic strategy need to work hand in hand, understanding who you want to target and the content they need to see. Knowing who to target is crucial, but you also need to know what to provide within the ad. You never want your audience to wonder why they are seeing your ad.”

To make most of your paid social media promotion, here’s a brief overview of a few of the most popular platforms.

Facebook allows you to be extremely targeted when placing ads. “You can target audiences on Facebook with a dozen different ad formats and thousands of possible ad targeting parameters,” says Larry Kim.

Ads can be targeted based on location, demographic information, gender, languages, and interests. Facebook’s location-based targeting options include country, state, county, city, postal code, and an adjustable radius from a specific address.

Other options to target ads on Facebook under demographics include education, home, life events, whether they are parents, their political affiliation, and whether they are in a relationship. 

As for the most successful formatting strategy, conducting A/B testing of ads is recommended by many experts, including CMI.

“When crafting your ads, you need to consider who needs or wants this product or service,” says Garnett. “Remember their customer journey and determine how you want to connect with them at each point. How can you personalize your ads for specific personas? When thinking about who you want to target, you need to think about their online behaviors. Knowing they’re on Facebook isn’t enough. How do they behave once they’re there?” 

Because Facebook owns Instagram, you can use the Facebook Business Manager to manage your ads on Instagram, as well.

Instagram allows you to target ads based on location, age, gender, demographics, interests, behaviors, languages and connections.

Images are the priority when it comes to Instagram ads. “Technically, you can use up to 2,200 characters for most Instagram ads, but only two rows of text will display without being cut off,” says Hootsuite.

LinkedIn, the top B2B social media network, allows you to target ads based on company, demographics, education, job experience, and interests.

One strategy to leverage with LinkedIn ads is to see what content is working on other platforms and how you might tweak it for LinkedIn. As always, you can conduct tests to see which ad content and formats work best.

On Twitter, you can target your audience by gender, age, location, language, and technology.

Because it’s Twitter, the copy should be concise. Be sure to include a call to action. Another strategy is to keep an eye for major events you might play off of. One example is how Wendy’s used March Madness in 2019 to create a successful month-long campaign.

As with all social media advertising, test and analyze to see what works best.

Bottom Line with Social Media Advertising? Be Strategic.

“It’s better to be strategic in the investment of paid media rather than just put money behind it,” Freberg says. “Understanding the current practices, expectations, and tips on how to reach your audiences through paid media more effectively will become more important than ever.”

Targeting your social advertising is critical in growing reach and engagement—with the right audience. The next step is to measure results and map them to your business goals. Read our playbook on planning and measuring social media campaigns. Then, make sure you're presenting your results in the most convincing way.

How to Target Your Social Media Promotion

Over the past two months, the coronavirus pandemic has developed into what UN Secretary-General António Guterres described as the “greatest test”  the global community has faced since World War II. Indeed, news of the situation has largely been bleak: On Wednesday, April 15th, the total number of recorded Covid-19 cases has surpassed two million globally with over 130,000 deaths. Furthermore, recent statistics show that the virus has already spread to 210 states, while the UK, Brazil and Russia have become the latest countries facing major outbreaks.

Nevertheless, recent news also suggest glimmers of light at the end of the tunnel. Several countries that were hit hardest have now overcome the peak of the virus, while others show signs of success in ‘flattening the curve’ of new daily infections. In Asia, China and South Korea, and Taiwan have now been able to contain the spread of the virus and are getting busy restarting the economy. In Europe, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that the country would cautiously start lifting the lockdown measures, with Spain and Italy announcing similar steps of allowing a fraction of non-essential workers to return to work and small businesses to reopen. The USA, which has been hit hardest by the pandemic, is also showing signs that social distancing and other measures have been successful in reducing new infections.

With these positive developments in mind, businesses are naturally looking forward to the prospects of reopening and returning to ‘normalcy’. This hope in a quick V-shaped snapback or recovery, however, may be wrongly placed.  Just like World War II reshuffled the global power-deck and ushered in major social change, many experts have warned that the coronavirus pandemic will similarly bring about a ‘new normal’ in which governments and businesses alike will be challenged to adapt to an unprecedented post-pandemic reality. As such it is vital for businesses and organizations to understand how the business landscape will change and consider various strategies in overcoming these challenges. 

By tracking relevant news and analysing key trends on social media, we can shed some light on critical forecasts for the near and long-term future and uncover key strategies that can help businesses overcome this crisis and adapt to imminent change.

Until Vaccines Are Developed, COVID-19 is Here to Stay.

To plan for the near future, it is important to understand how long the coronavirus will continue to pose a threat to society. One possible answer to this question can be found in the article “How the Pandemic Will End” written by Ed Yong, a science journalist at The Atlantic. Since its publication on March 25th, the article has been shared over one million times on Twitter and Facebook and received widespread praise by several high profile people, including former US President Barack Obama, who holds the most followed account on Twitter (115 Million Followers). Yong provides an overview of the likely scenarios the world will be facing in the coming months and argues that the only viable endgame to the pandemic is to “play whack-a-mole with the coronavirus” suppressing it until a vaccine can be produced”. This process, he believes, would be long and complicated and could take up to 18-24 months, during which new waves of outbreaks are likely to arise. In his most recent article “Our Pandemic Summer” which is also gaining significant media traction (Over fifty thousand shares since April 15th), Yong highlights several challenges to restarting businesses in the near future, including that rushing to reopen without proper measures could lead to a false sense of security in employers. As such it is imperative that businesses approach the reopening of their operations in a steady and methodical way. 

With strict quarantine and stay-at-home orders enacted by governments around the world, many companies have adopted remote-work policies to keep operations running. This has been particularly apparent within social media coverage: With over 220,000  combined mentions since the beginning of March, the hashtags #workfromhome and #workingfromhome have surged and are some of the most used keywords during the pandemic. With the development of a viable vaccine still many months away, it is unlikely that many big businesses are able to have their employees back in the office at full capacity soon and without strict measures. In fact, many experts and professionals believe that working from from home could remain even after the crisis has passed as many companies were pleasantly surprised to find that online-only operations have worked well. Global Workplace Analytics predicted that 30 percent of people will work from home multiple days per week within a couple of years, while research and advisory firm Gartner noted that there has been a surge in demand by companies asking to put remote work solutions in place. As one Gartner analyst summarised it: “It’s an old-school mentality to think you have to have a presence in an office and [...] once people adjust to working from home, they actually do more work”.

Reading Tip: Does Working From Home Work for PR and Marketing Agencies?

If working from home is to become a stable part of operations for businesses, employers will be forced to think about adopting new and innovative processes and technologies to try and make up for benefits of working in a shared office space. Social media coverage suggests that this is already happening: With over 20,000 mentions between 1 March to 15 April, the hashtag #futureofwork has been trending during the pandemic, with viral posts showing that several tech companies have focused on the development of innovative tools to be used for work, including Holographic teleconferencing to make up for the loss of face-to-face interactions when working remotely. While these technologies are still in development, companies, for now, are increasingly turning to video call services such as Zoom, Skype, and Google Hangouts for internal communication. 

In particular, Zoom has had a remarkable boost in popularity during the crisis. Since the beginning of March, Zoom has been mentioned in over 630,000 posts on Twitter and Facebook, which is significantly higher than Skype’s 200,000 and Google Hangouts’ 25,000 mentions. With the top hashtags including #workfromhome, #wfh and #webinar, it suggests that Zoom has become a stable part of work for many employees’. This surge in popularity however didn’t come without criticism, spikes in coverage at the beginning of April showed that social media users had picked up on news revealing serious security and privacy issues as Zoom didn’t use end-to-end encryption for its video calls, which resulted in numerous incidents where hackers and trolls were able to disrupt private video calls. In response, governments from India, Taiwan and Singapore as well as major companies like Tesla, Google, and Siemens have recently banned its employees from using Zoom. While Zoom itself has promised to fix the issues and even hired the ex-security chief of Facebook to help, this story suggests that privacy has become of increased importance for businesses in their quest to create and incorporate new technologies into their operations.  

During a pandemic, strong measures around safety are, of course, key for businesses to restart operations. Naturally, implementing social distancing in the office, conducting routine temperature checks, and providing disinfectants and facemasks are essential to keeping employees safe. But these measures alone will not be sufficient to overcome the new challenges of the post-pandemic world and businesses with more traditional business models will be forced to make more structural changes to stay afloat. Creating a more agile business model through digitization or pursuing strategies to cater to emerging demands will be key for future survival.

Several experts have argued that those companies that are fast-tracking digital transformation will be the ones staying ahead of the competition. Many recent events, such as Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference going virtual, suggest that some companies are already moving in that direction. McDonald’s, for example, has been working on its digital transformation even before the Covid-19 Pandemic emerged. Its efforts to stay agile and integrate technology into daily business operations has paid off as it was particularly well prepared to weather and adapt to the coronavirus outbreak. During the height of the coronavirus outbreak in China, its food franchises have implemented no-contact delivery services to ensure the safety of both customers and employees. The installation of digital kiosks in its stores also helped to make ordering food more efficient and limit person-to-person interaction. It has also continued to develop and improve its mobile app to provide more customer-friendly services and is using big-data analysis to determine the peak business hours and learn customer habits.

2. Catering to New Demands - Uber’s move from ride-sharing to labour-sharing

The post-pandemic economy in many countries will likely look very different than before and certain industries will struggle and may not survive if they don’t cater their businesses model to new demands. Several studies are already predicting which sectors consumers will turn to. In Southeast Asia for example sectors expected to benefit from increased consumer spending are likely healthcare, pharmaceutical, consumer electronics, logistics, sports/body wellness and education. As such, brands may need to actively look how to tap into these sectors. 

A great example of a company catering to new demand has been Uber. With social distancing measures in place, sharing closed spaces such as cars with strangers is and will be avoided by many people around the world in the near and long-term future. Consequently, demand for ride-hailing companies like Uber has dived significantly, with reports showing that journeys managed by the Uber app in the US have fallen by 94%. However, the company has found a new way to adapt its operations to this new business environment. Earlier in April, it announced the launch of ‘Work Hub’, to help drivers find alternative gig work as demand for rides has plummeted. Through the Work Hub, Uber drivers can connect with three Uber platforms: Uber Eats (food deliveries), Uber Freight (trucking), and Uber Works (blue-collar temp shifts)”. Drivers are even allowed to respond to openings of several external companies looking to hire, including McDonald's, PepsiCo, UPS, and 7-Eleven. Forbes wrote that the move from ride-sharing to labour-sharing could mark the beginning of Uber’s long-term expansion into all kinds of work, which is likely to be in high demand in a post-COVID-19 economy: “By moving into general casual and temporary work with its Work Hub, Uber is signalling the direction that the rest of the gig economy is likely to travel in the medium- and long-term”. 

Looking ahead: Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.

The coronavirus pandemic has ushered in a time of unprecedented uncertainty. It is difficult to determine exactly what the future holds and how the world will look like when we come out of this. No doubt many businesses and economies will struggle, already we are seeing record new unemployment claims in the USA, while China has reported its first GDP decline in Q1 since 1992. Nevertheless, what the crisis has shown is that governments which acted quickly and decisively and used innovative solutions to confront the threat were able to prevent the loss of countless lives and stop their economies from spiraling into disaster. It is imperative that businesses do the same by continuing to look ahead, adapt to new realities, and keep a can-do attitude. 

The Road to Recovery: Strategies for the Post-COVID 19 Era

Instagram is more than just a social network for beautiful photos and influencers. With more than one billion monthly active users, Instagram is the perfect place for brands to showcase their products, generate leads, and build their business.

The very first thing a person sees when visiting your profile is your Instagram bio. Writing a compelling Instagram bio that grabs your audience's attention should be a main focus when creating or updating your profile.

If you're looking to increase Instagram engagement and exponentially grow your Instagram followers, this guide is for you. 

At a high level, writing a good Instagram bio consists of your adding your brand's name, username, profile photo, bio, and Instagram Stories highlights. Each of these elements should verbally and visually communicate a compelling brand message.

I'll assume you have the basics of creating an Instagram business profile down, such as adding your brand's name and username. The real fun begins with the all of the other features that Instagram offers, which we'll cover below. 

With a perfectly crafted bio, you can target your ideal audience so any new visitors will be able to quickly understand what your brand does, the product you sell, and what you stand for—all in 150 characters or less.

4 Steps to Writing the Perfect Instagram Bio (with Examples)

There are unlimited possibilities when it comes to writing the perfect bio for your Instagram profile. That's why I've picked a few of my favorite brands to demonstrate several proven strategies.

This is the go-to Instagram bio strategy for millions of brands for good reason. The 150 characters provided in the Bio section is a chance to tell the world why they should care. Your mission statement is the why and it doesn't have to be over-complicated or wordy.

Fashion brand @buckmason uses 3 simple words in their Instagram bio, but it immediately highlights the products and why people should care.

The financial platform @robinhoodapp, on the other hand, uses the bio to communicate important information about their business that might be pertinent to investors (i.e., their target market). 

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