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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

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

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

The world of social media and influencer marketing has proven to become an important part of any marketer's online strategy. There has been an increase in the consumption of digital media during lockdown, especially content types such as videos. 

According to a recent YouGov survey, KSA residents reported an increase in online activity during COVID-19, especially during the holy month of Ramadan. These activities included socialising online, browsing on social media, and watching online content. But where does influencer marketing come into play?

Influencers have taken a great hold of this increased demand in digital media, and we have witnessed the boom of TikTok and Instagram Reels. If your brand isn't doing the same, you will get left behind. 

So, to understand why influencer marketing has become so popular in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, let's first unpack what influencer marketing is and what it looks like within these two regions. 

Tip: Learn more about media in Saudi Arabia and media in the UAE.

The word ‘influencer’ has become increasingly commonplace in today's digital landscape and marketers should understand how they can be valuable to your business before running your next campaign. 

What was once limited to celebrities and well-known bloggers and content creators, social media 'influencers' have been on the rise as people started to listen to these individuals, who are considered as experts within their particular niche. 

Influencer marketing works and is highly successful because of the amount of trust that these social media influencers have built up with their following and community. The recommendations and advice from them are seen as a form of social proof to your brand’s potential customers.

Google searches for 'influencer marketing' have grown over 1500% in the last 3 years, with no sign of slowing down. To get a better sense of influencer marketing, and the value it can provide for your brand, download our ultimate guide to influencer marketing to get everything there is to know about influencer marketing.

A Quick Look at Influencers in the UAE and Saudi Arabia

In the Middle East, there have already been just over 1 400 news articles that mention 'influencer' and over 1 500 social media mentions on 'influencer' in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia alone in 2020, a 34% increase as compared to 2019. In essence, more people in these two regions are talking about influencers and their emergence over this year. 

But how do people feel about influencers in the UAE and Saudi Arabia? Throughout the year, there have been mixed emotions from online users in the region.  

In March 2020, a Dubai-based influencer told their 42 000 follower base to ignore self-isolation regulations from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and to simply go outside. This was not received well, and contributed to the negative feelings that people had towards influencers and how they use their influence on social media. 

As reported by Arab News, a Dubai fitness influencer had their connection with Reebok suspended over comments the influencer made regarding the global pandemic. 

But it hasn't been all bad for influencers. In June 2020, the need for influencers was becoming more apparent to online users, as digital transformation and online pivoting of marketing strategies became necessary to adjust to the effects of the pandemic. 

From consuming more content to forecasting influencer marketing trends, many online users have seen the value of social influencers - and brands need to do the same. 

The Success of Influencer Marketing in the UAE and Saudi Arabia

Social media influencers exist on a number of online platforms - Instagram, Facebook, Twitter; TikTok and more. But how does the presence of influencers look like in the UAE and Saudi Arabia?

According to a survey conducted by the BPG Group and YouGov, 85% of millennials in the UAE and Saudi Arabia follow at least one social media influencer, and “entertainment” is ranked as the most followed category on these platforms. When it comes to the trending themes surrounding 'influencers', these include:

'influencer marketing' which refers to online conversations that have taken place throughout the year to discuss influencer marketing in the region

'advice from influencers' which refers to how online users favour taking advice from an influencer over a brand

'campaign' which refers to Swarovski celebrating Ramadan for a campaign, as well as a Dubai-based influencer garnering negative attention after being disingenuous towards the UAE's  "stay-at-home" campaign 

But as the data shows, influencer marketing has quite the presence on social media, and can be effective when executed right as consumers and users tend to trust influencers more than traditional advertising.

Social media mentions of influencers in the UAE and Saudi Arabia have been predominant on Twitter, with 'influencer' have a consistent social reach on the platform of over 100 000. In April, 'influencer' had a total social reach of just over 4 Million, as online conversations in the two countries centered around the new challenges that influencers and influencer marketing were facing in light of the global pandemic., as mentioned by Arab News. 

According to the social media influencers survey by BPG Group and YouGov, 73% of consumers in Saudi Arabia and the UAE have purchased from a brand or tried a service mentioned by an influencer. The success of influencer marketing is there for the taking!

How to Find the Right Influencers in the UAE and Saudi Arabia

The social media influencer industry is about brands wanting to relay a message to their target audience by using a selection of influencers who fit within a particular niche. These influencers promote your brand to their community, creating a quick way to reach wider audiences and potential new customers. In return, influencers are compensated either monetarily or with free products and other benefits from the brand.

To find the right influencers for your brand, you need to evaluate social influencer marketing tools and influencer management platforms - for example, Klear's Social Influencer Software - to search for and start narrowing down your options based on the answers you get from the criteria you're looking to meet (such as target audience, niche and influencer following).  From here, you want to contact these influencers to ask for their media kits and rate cards, as a way of helping you gather more data and information about their followers’ demographic and the budget required to work with them. 

Once you have found the right influencers that you want to work with, make sure that you check analytics before, during, and after any social media influencer marketing campaign. Using a social listening tool, you can measure the performance of your campaign based on the number of mentions, engagement rate, potential social reach, and other social media metrics. 

From here, you can assess and analyse which aspects of your campaign worked well and which ones didn’t, in order to better optimise your influencer marketing campaigns in the future.

Here you can find more information about our Media Monitoring Solution in Arabic.

Want to learn more about how you can use influencers to take your brand to the next level? Request a free demo of Meltwater's Social Influencer Tool today!

Did you know? Meltwater's interface is now available in Arabic!

The Rise of Influencer Marketing in the UAE and Saudi Arabia

While 2020 shook many industries to the core, the event sector was one of few that felt the impact of Covid-19 most abruptly. Event marketing was pretty much put on ice for the first few months of the global lockdown while organizers disrupted, digitalized and adapted their strategy to keep the sector alive.

93% of event professionals plan to invest in virtual events moving forward, meaning that event marketing will look starkly different from what it did in the past. However, that’s not to say it’ll be any less valuable in helping marketers establish relationships, get feedback from their audience, promote new products and increase brand awareness. And, with the right planning and strategy, you’ll continue to see ROI from your event-based marketing efforts in 2021. 

During this post, we’ll walk through event marketing tips to ensure you have the knowledge required to optimize your event promotion efforts, increase visibility amongst your target market and win more event-based marketing budget for next year.

Consider How You Want to Execute Your Event-based Marketing Strategy

3 Ways to Use PR & Content Marketing for Events

Before you decide on event marketing tactics, you’ll first need to establish event marketing goals. Your goals should be linked to your organization's overall business objectives, so there’s no one size fits all approach here. That being said, 55% of event marketing pros cite the following as the most common goals for their events:

Having clear event marketing goals doesn’t just guide your marketing tactics, your goals also help determine the type of event you should attend. As Bizzabo explains, “Intimate VIP events may help to win new customers, while thought leadership and networking events may help to increase brand awareness, and awards ceremonies may help to generate revenue from ticket sales and sponsors.” So, the type of event you organize will depend on the objective you are hoping to achieve.

Investing in the right event marketing access that also aligns with your marketing goals is the first step in your event strategy journey, so make sure you give this consideration time. If marketing budget resource is restricting you from investing in a full pass, you’ll want to look into other options, like gaining general press or industry access or only having a (virtual) exhibition hall pass. Remember, there’s always wiggle room to haggle on costs, so don’t take the price at face value. 

If the marketing budget only allows you to register as a regular audience attendee, roll up your sleeves and enroll in workshops or (digital) breakout sessions. Use your time wisely by attending the workshops that’ll help you solve your own business and marketing challenges.

Although it’s tricker, 'attendee only' access can still be used as a resource to drive marketing lead generation. Take a look at the exhibitor list and during the breaks make a beeline for any that could be potential prospects and start to promote your product/ services to them. You should also consider attending the workshops of prospects that you are keen to speak with.

Booths are particularly useful for sales product demonstrations, so if you’re launching something new, we’d recommend including this option in your marketing strategy. The good thing about booths is that they encourage 1-1 dialogue with attendees, so your sales team can really personalize their pitch. You can also ensure you’re being strategic with booth traffic by booking meetings with attendees and sales reps prior to the event, which will help generate organic footfall as crowds tend to naturally gather around busy booths!

If you have enough marketing budget to invest in a speaking slot, do it! Speaking slots help position you as a thought leader. They can also help you drive traffic to your booth if you have one. Most trade show organizers provide the details of people who have watched your talk, so it’s a great marketing lead generation tool. 

We’d recommend using the opportunity to collaborate with an influencer, this might be profiling a client or joining forces with a thought expert. Whoever you decide to put on stage, they need to be both knowledgeable and charismatic. Do your research beforehand by watching videos from previous talks and running a search on their name in your media intelligence platform. Doing so will help you understand what topics they’ve presented on in the past that have generated the most positive buzz.

Sponsorship options are great brand awareness boosters. This too can also help position your brand as a leader through association. Sponsoring doesn’t tend to drive attendee leads, so if that’s your event-based marketing goal, it’s better to invest in one of the alternative methods mentioned above. 

Whether you are just attending the event or you are speaking at it, there are several different ways you can leverage the opportunity in your content marketing and social media strategy. We'll explain how social media posts, press releases and blogs can be used to increase awareness around an event, expand your network and become a thought-leader. 

1. Increase awareness through public relations

PR is a great way to get the word out, create audience buzz, improve visibility and drive registrations & booth visits when it comes to promotional activities. As discussed in our blog 10 examples of effective press releases, a press release must be adapted according to the campaign, promotion and message. This means the format of a product launch press release will be different from one of an event campaign.

When putting together a press release around your event, keep your overall goals in mind and frame the press release around what you want journalists to do after reading it. For example:

Do you want them to promote your event to their readership? 

Do you want to personally invite them to come? 

Do you want to invite them so they can cover the event and relay this back to their audience? 

When it comes to sending out press releases around events, “what doesn’t work is writing the same old press release for the event,” says Vannessa Wade, Founder, Connect The Dots PR. “Add flare. Talk about the event with excitement. Have a clear call to action.” Olivia Adams, communications strategist at Byrum & Fisk adds, “Whenever possible I try to connect client events to a local community conversation or a trend. This makes media advisories, press releases, pitches, and social media content all that more relevant and impactful when the event is connected to a bigger conversation.”

Once crafted, you need to identify relevant publications to promote to and pitch your press releases. Don't forget to post the release on your website, circulate it via social media and issue the release on wire services. Then, when coverage starts coming in, share the articles on social media and feature them on the event landing page.

Tip: Another event promotion tactic you can use to help land coverage is by interviewing the keynote speakers before the event or arranging for them to speak with members of the press.

2. Use content marketing for event promotion

At this point, you may have an idea of how you’d like to promote your event and cover the conference. But during an event, especially one that is a week-long, it’s challenging to do anything other than focus on what’s happening in the present. Your marketing team will be busy networking, attending sessions, taking notes, watching exhibitor demos, and going to either happy hours or dinners in the evening. Attending a conference can feel chaotic, so having an idea of what your coverage should look like before the event is the best course of action. One way to ensure you are able to create and produce content during the event is by blocking out time in your schedule ahead of time. You'll already be planning out which talks and presentations you go to, so make sure to slot in time to create and post your social content. 

Leveraging content marketing before (or soon after) the conference is over will allow you to engage attendees while they are still thinking about the conference and searching for information. For example, you could post a wrap-up blog or infographic at the end of the day outlining your key takeaways from each session. If you share the content on social media, you'll also be able to interact with attendees engaging with the event hashtag on social channels. And, who says networking can only happen over a cup of coffee in the lobby before the event begins? You can easily begin networking with the other attendees who are active on social media during the conference. 

Here are some other event marketing coverage ideas to help promote your attendance:

Engage your target by creating interview videos to be used in daily Twitter updates 

Share photos highlighting speakers or attendees that reflect your target audience’s demographic

Post live videos to Facebook, Instagram ot LinkedIn from the conference floor

Create a daily blog post that recaps panels

Promote your attendance via live tweet with attribution (Twitter lists comes in handy here)

Share general coverage of the event on Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram with hashtags, which will help other attendees learn about you during the event

Develop an infographic or blog post-round-up that includes lessons learned that can be used by your target, it’s also a good opportunity to include your favorite quotes

Whatever event promotion content type you choose to create, remember that people don’t buy into the event itself; they buy into why the event is taking place and how attending will benefit them. Therefore, you may want to write about why you decided to attend this event and what sets it apart from others. 

3. Increase engagement through social media

Social media can be utilized during every stage of the event marketing process. For instance, it can be used to increase awareness of the event (Facebook and LinkedIn event features are great for this), keep your target audience updated with insights throughout the actual event, and generate a community of likeminded people that can continue the discussion once the (virtual) doors are closed. Let’s look at the role of social media during your event marketing strategy in more detail.

Using social media for promotional activities before the event 

Depending on the conference, it may be possible to see an attendee list with accompanying social media handles before you arrive; gather them and put them into Twitter lists. If you’re super organized, separating out speakers and attendees can be useful later when you’re on-site covering the conference as communication will be slightly different. Since Instagram doesn’t have the ability to make lists, just follow those handles. If no attendee names or social handles are included, identify attendees by looking at who is using the event hashtag and search the speakers’ names.

Most events have dedicated hashtags and it’s a good idea to be monitoring them through a media intelligence tool so you can join the conversations and connect with fellow attendees in real-time. 

Be sure to post a running commentary of the talks too (and include the hashtag) so your social media handles become a ‘go-to’ for guests. Due to the real-time nature of Twitter, it’s best to use this channel for live updates compared to LinkedIn, where wrap-ups are more appropriate. We know that event management can be stressful as things don’t always go right on the day, so we’d recommend scheduling posts, as well as putting out live updates during the event to ease the pressure. 

To help increase the reach of posts, you should tag other partners and sponsors as this will boost the likelihood of them sharing your content. Speaking of reach, employee advocacy can be invaluable during the before, during and after stages of event management. Each of your staff has their own communities and influence over their followers. When this is combined, the reach your brand can benefit from is vast. To start with, enable your employees and make it easy for them by creating sample posts to share. If you’re interested in building a more advanced employee brand ambassador program, check out this blog! 

After the event, interact with the people that used the official hashtag or mentioned the event online. Why not ask them if they attended your talk? And if they didn’t attend, ask if they’d like the slides. Either way, you are continuing to expand your network and developing a community around yourself or brand.

Analyzing the digital footprint of the event on social media can help inspire blog posts, infographics or social posts in the future, as your team will be able to see what topics generated the most conversations. For example, marketers might choose to use the most buzzed topic as the leading message of your event follow up campaign.

You can have the best promotion tactics in the world, but any marketer will tell you that when it comes to driving ROI from your marketing events, it all comes down to the follow-up. And, unfortunately, for any marketers looking to control the entire customer journey, this follow-up is typically handled by the sales team. However, there are a few hacks you can deploy to improve the chances of initiating event marketing conversions. 

Research shows that the best response time for following up with sales leads driven by marketing events is within 10 minutes. This means you have a very small window of time to act on hot marketing leads before they go cold, and your event attendance becomes less impactful. 


Outbound sales are very different from inbound marketing, so don’t assume your sales teams know how to follow up with event leads. Hold a debrief session with your sales team before sending them the leads, so they don’t end up calling them blind. When you do send the leads through, make sure the follow-up notes are super clear. If you have the resources, set up an inbound marketing organization that specializes in this area. 


If your sales team give feedback that a lead wasn’t ready, put them into a nurturing campaign. Lead nurturing is the process of engaging prospective customers by providing them with appropriate content at each stage of the sales funnel to earn their business at the end.

According to research from Bizzabo’s “Event Marketing 2020: Benchmarks and Trends report”, 85% of leaders and executives identified in-person events as critical to their company’s success. Surprisingly, this number is more than double last year (I guess you don’t know what you have until it's gone)! Since in-person live events are unlikely to happen in the next few months, 93% of event marketing professionals plan to invest in virtual events instead. With that being said, 96% of event professionals don’t believe virtual events will totally replace in-person ones, so we’re likely to see more hybrid events (a mixture of live and virtual) emerge when we get nearer to the ‘new normal’. With this in mind, hopefully by now you have a better idea of key event marketing considerations, promotion tactics to include in your mix and advice for converting marketing leads into marketing revenue! Do you have any event-based marketing tips? Tweet us, @Meltwater, we’d love to hear them! 

Before you go, if you’d like to read more marketing strategy tips, check out the marketing section of blog!

Event Marketing Strategies and Best Practices

It’s November 2020 - eleven months into dealing with the shocks and disruptions brought about by the pandemic. Consumer behavior has undoubtedly been altered and people are settling into a “new normal” way of consumption, and we believe many of these changes will remain permanent even as economies and markets reopen. 

But one thing we know for sure — consumers are becoming more “social”. As physical interactions are restricted by lockdowns and social distancing, consumers are spending significantly more time on social media platforms to consume content, engage, and communicate with each other. 

Before the pandemic hit, brands like Panasonic and Google have already been tapping into social media data to understand the voice of the consumers. Consumers have been engaging in billions of social media conversations sharing what they ate, what they bought, their emotions and opinions, and are now doing so on a much wider scale because of the pandemic. With vast increase in social media data points available, developing the voice of consumers has never been more refined, accurate and actionable. 

Not only are consumers engaging in more conversations on social media, the power of social media to influence real-world behaviors has heightened as well. The recent Netflix documentary “The Social Dilemma” paints a grim picture of this very phenomenon. The Black Lives Matter Movement and #cancelculture are prime examples of how social media conversations have the ability to change our daily realities on a drastic scale - for the better or worse. 

The perception that social media has little impact on the realities of your consumers is a dangerous one. Without a firm understanding of the latest social media movements and conversations, brands risk launching tone-deaf campaigns that rub their consumers the wrong way. Take the Virus Vanguard campaign, a COVID-19 campaign by Gov.sg earlier this year that was taken down a day after its launch. At a time where fear and uncertainty about the pandemic was at an all-time high in Singapore, using humor to convey a public message while well-meaning, was a mismatch to the psyche of the Singaporean public. This is why it is crucial for marketing communications teams to pay attention to even the smallest murmurs on social media.

How brands can leverage social media data:

There has never been a more important time to think about how your brand can tap into social media data points to guide your marketing campaigns and strategy. For a start, here are the three most common use cases practiced by our clients: 

For those unfamiliar with social media listening tools, it begins with identifying a certain hypothesis that you would like to prove or disprove. Maybe you want to find out if people were relieved or angry about certain government initiatives or announcements regarding COVID-19, what people are saying about your brand or competitors, or how people are feeling about a certain event. This hypothesis will then shape your boolean search which is a structure of keywords and filters that enables users to pull out the most accurate and relevant information to their search. 

In this example, we took a look at conversations surrounding Christmas in the Philippines. Our hypothesis was “COVID-19 has had an impact on Christmas plans in the Philippines” and we wanted to see if it was true and the reasons behind the outcome. The Boolean search shown above will capture all social media mentions talking about Christmas made by Filipinos and compare data between August 2020 vs August 2019. Meltwater’s Social Listening platform pulled out a total of 478K mentions on Christmas by Filipinos this year. 

Once this boolean search has been set up, users would be able to know how many conversations there were and pick up even the smallest upticks in the volume of social media conversations around the topic they are interested to monitor — in real-time. In the case of Christmas in the Philippines in 2020 (blue line) we notice two large spikes on the 1st of September, which is the start of the Ber Months (Countdown to Christmas Day) and on the 5th of September.

But the analysis doesn’t stop at identifying peaks in conversations. Naturally, the next question any marketers would ask is: What is causing the spikes? 

On Meltwater’s social listening tool, clicking on points on the time graph would filter for conversations on that single day. Even better, our analytics dashboard provides vital information like “Trending Themes” and “Top Hashtags” (among many others)

Marketers can then draw relevant insights about what their consumers are most concerned or excited about. These insights represent the voice of your consumers and can be used to empower both marketing and non-marketing actions - from content marketing to product development.

Use Case 2: Social Analytics for Campaign Measurement

2020 is the year the world officially went digital. Going digital and relying on online marketing channels has become a critical necessity for many brands. As such, another social listening use case our clients find particularly helpful is campaign measurement. Companies that do not have the right measurement tools and processes set up are now forced to look for one. 

As the first step for many brands, Google Analytics is a useful platform to understand the impact of your campaigns on website traffic. Meltwater’s Social Listening tool complements this data set by adding another important layer to your campaign measurement framework. 

These are some widgets available on Meltwater’s platform. Having these choices gives our users the flexibility to define their social media campaign goals and metrics 

1. Track volume of conversations across different social channels 

Let’s look at this example of the recent reality show “The Asian Dream”. The main sponsor of the program, Subaru, wanted to track awareness and reactions to the show on social media. With Meltwater's Social Listening Tool, not only are they able to track how many social media conversations the show created, which is a great indicator of its popularity, they are also able to see how the conversation breaks down on individual social media channels. Understanding which platform is generating the most buzz and conversations about your brand can help you strategize your next steps. For example, if they had the most conversations on Twitter, it would make sense to engage with the show’s fans and viewers on that platform. 

Tracking website traffic is a great indicator of the impact of your campaigns. Overlaying this data with the number of articles and social media conversations generated about your brand or product better demonstrates the impact of your PR and marketing efforts. If there is a visual correlation between social media buzz generated by your campaigns and total number of web visits, marketers can convince and present the value of their work to stakeholders. 

The PESO model is a measurement framework widely known amongst modern PR and Marcomms professionals. It looks at media efforts through these four lenses - paid, earned, shared, and owned. Data from owned and paid channels are relatively simple to track, these data would often be visible to you on your platforms. The struggle that many marketers face is to track earned media - content around your brand that was organically generated by the public. 

Meltwater Social Media Listening tool allows users to track your earned media and understand its contribution to social media chatter about your brand. In this case of “The Asian Dream”, Subaru would be happy to know that the majority of their conversations are actually fan-driven. This means they are reaching new audiences that aren’t currently following their owned pages. 

The consumer-brand relationship has evolved to become more personal and emotional over the years. Consumers perceive brands as active forces within society with huge influences and hence, hold brands to a much higher standard than before, This means that consumers are more critical of brands and quick to react to any inappropriate or tone-deaf brand messaging, especially if it conflicts with their own values. Social media compounds this effect by inviting more people to contribute to the discussion. Just look at all the brands who have been #cancelled this year.

This is a challenge that all brands have to be ready for, even if you have been closely listening to your consumers' voice, carefully crafting your brand messaging, and training your employees on dos and don’ts. With social media, the risk is always there as a single social media post can blow up into a full crisis in a matter of hours.

Meltwater’s real-time alerting tool is a great way to prepare for and mitigate these effects. Similar to trend jacking, it involves setting up a Boolean search that would capture all information about your brand, products, or industry. If it detects something out of the norm, for example, a higher volume of conversation that usually (these filters are typically pre-set by you), users will receive an alert on their mobile. This instant notification often gives marketing communications managers ample time to respond if needed. Furthermore, our analytic features such as sentiment analysis and trending themes would paint a clearer picture of what is happening on the ground. 

Everything you know about your consumers has changed. And the way to keep up is to be where your audience is at - and our research tells us that they are on social media. At its core, Meltwater’s social listening tool gives you the flexibility to define your search parameters, collect real-time social media data, and structure them into strategic insights. The possibilities of what marketing teams can do - beyond the three use cases of trend analysis, campaign measurement and crisis management - are endless.  

Learn more about Meltwater's Social Listening Platform by filling out the form below.

3 Social Listening Use Cases for Pandemic Marketing

Understanding your audience is challenging at the best of times, even when consumer behaviour is predictable, but Covid-19 has made this that more difficult since the way we live, eat and shop has rapidly transformed. It, therefore, brings little surprise that a recent Marketing Week and Econsultancy study found that 53% of marketers believe the Covid-19 pandemic caused ‘radical’ or ‘significant’ changes to the customer journey. 

As leaders do their best to steer their organisations through uncertainty, one of the key changes we’ve seen is the relocation of budget and attention from acquisition to retention. More than 78% of enterprise/ medium-sized companies and almost 65% of small businesses said that customer-centric agility has increased in importance as a result of the pandemic. 

But what do we mean by customer-centricity and how can we keep up with rapidly changing consumer behaviour? We asked a handful of industry experts their advice for brands wanting to engage audiences of today. Here’s what they said…

Q: How do you think COVID-19 has shifted audience behaviour?

“The current pandemic has no real comparison point in modern history. This means most historical data is at best incomplete, and at worse, irrelevant. What we do know is that moments of crisis often reshape our cultural values and individual psyche. From a marketing perspective, most brands will need to rip up their marketing playbook and radically update their customer personas and communication strategy because ‘same old’ doesn’t work in a new world.

The pandemic is likely to produce two distinctive behavioural archetypes: people who have embraced a new lifestyle and those who have largely remained unchanged. Some brands will need to figure out how to win back old customers with new mindsets. Whereas other brands will use the opportunity to steal market share by appealing to consumers' newly formed lifestyles. Inevitably, there will be winners and losers. 

In order to stay on top, brands need to adopt a more responsive approach to consumer research and their communication strategy by using consumer insights tools (for example the Meltwater consumer intelligence suite) and by embracing real-time qualitative insights and building communities of advocates to source an ongoing stream of ideas and inspiration to fuel new growth opportunities."
- Kian Bakhtiari, Forbes CMO Network contributor

Q: How can brands keep on top of audience trends and expectations in the ‘new normal’ world?

"Many consumer trends will change, some will go back to normal. The trick is to determine which ones will stick. I am advising my clients to absorb as much information as possible, and not take any assumption for granted. Whatever we thought we knew about consumers cannot be counted on now, and we need to re-learn with urgency.

How will our customer spending habits change? Will they have less to spend?

Are they buying products the same way, or are they purchasing through new channels?'

Have new competitors emerged? Have old ones gone away?

Can we demonstrate our value to customers like before or have sales and marketing processes been disrupted?

It's important that we don't dwell on worst-case scenarios - that almost never happens. Instead, think about the highest likelihood these factors will be changing, and if you’re ready to meet the needs.”
- Mark Schaefer, author of "Marketing Rebellion: The Most Human Company Wins”

"In a time of crisis, we are witnessing a perpetual renewal of uses from the customers and it’s more important than ever for brands to take context into account by listening to their audience. Social listening has become essential for a better understanding of the needs of users in order to guide brand decisions, whether they are corporate, commercial, marketing or even advertising decisions. 

More than ever, brands need to be audience-centric by responding to the needs of consumers directly. This is the end of superficiality and the return to authentic and proximity-based communication. Brands need to accelerate their commitment to strong values, consumers have become more uncompromising and will want proof of brands' actions. On social media uses, brands must avoid top-down messaging and switch to 'conversational mode' in order to ensure responsive customer service and provide answers to customers. Encouraging interaction, co-creating generously and being helpful have become the new concepts post-crisis."
- Jonathan Chan, Digital Project Manager / Community Manager, Dentsu Aegis Network

Q: Persona maps are a great way to personify your audience.  What common mistake do companies make when creating audience persona maps and what should they do instead?

“Audience persona mapping is a great tool to get under the skin of the target consumer when building marketing plans. Qualitative and quantitative data can be used in the process. 

Often the qualitative angle is used to paint a more personal and relatable picture of the persona. A key ‘watch out’ here is the blurred industry lens. Whether we like to admit it or not, quite often our perceived reality is affected by several factors. 

Firstly, it is hard to take a step back from our in-depth knowledge about the industry we are in. Secondly, we often overlook that our own demographic reality is not always equal to that of the majority of our consumers (e.g., education, income, trend-sensitivity & urban living). Having worked in the food and spirits industry for 14 years, I’ve often encountered marketers and agencies forgetting that we are privileged to be enjoying high-end cocktails or haute-cuisine dinners in trendy places, they forget that even trendy consumers might still struggle to mix their gin and tonic or cook their spaghetti bolognese. 

Another challenge I see is overdoing the exercise. The present-day availability of data gives us the luxury of conducting such deep analysis of the target consumer and building media touchpoint strategies so tight to their exact behaviour that we lose sight of the benefits of the overspill effect of broader media. As an example, we ran a campaign a few years back where our persona mapping enabled us to have a hyper-targeted media approach to the core of our target audience. Based on this we tightly ran social and digital campaigns and cut mass media. As an effect, we lost top-of-mind awareness amongst the slightly broader audience as our media did not have any overspill. Despite this audience not being the recruitment target, this broader group accounted for a substantial size of our business, which we endangered by being too tight.

So, let’s be conscious of our own blurred lenses and consider the benefits of media-overspill.”
- Tjalling Simoons, Marketing Director Germany & Alps, Bacardi

The Meltwater Blog

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Event Marketing Strategies and Best Practices

3 Social Listening Use Cases for Pandemic Marketing

Knowing Your Audience in the Age of Rapidly Changing Consumer Behaviour

The Top 3 Social Media Trends for the Middle East

The Battle for the White House on Social Media

The Rise of Converged Media [Expert Interviews]

Lifestyle Marketing: How To Leverage Your Consumers' Lifestyle

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5 Things to Learn from Apple's Marketing Strategy

A Quick Guide to Social Media Marketing in the Middle East

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