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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

The political landscape has changed quite a bit in the last couple of decades. The internet has played a large role in this transformation. Social media, in particular, is now a serious factor in political campaigns and in the way people think about issues.

Candidates and their supporters constantly post their views on Facebook and Twitter. Each party has its own pages, from which it broadcasts propaganda and requests for donations. Let’s look at some of the leading ways that social media influences politics today.

One of the ways that social media has transformed politics is the sheer speed at which news, poll results and rumors are shared. Whereas in the pre-internet days, people had to wait for the next newspaper or TV news show to get the latest information, online news is a 24/7 phenomenon.

Social media has taken this a step further. While you can access news on many websites at any hour, most people spend more time on sites such as Facebook and Twitter than they do on serious news or political websites. This means that you get all of the latest trending news stories and opinions shared by your friends whenever you log on.

Political polls are an important part of every campaign. They are often confusing because you can often find multiple polls with contradictory results posted on the very same day.

As with other types of political news, the internet has greatly increased the number of poll results we see each day. Social media has accelerated this even more. Not only do social media sites report the results of polls, you can actually participate in Facebook polls.

Polls results have a big influence on elections. This is true even if they are flawed. A poll can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. For example, if people think one candidate is far ahead in the race, they might conclude there’s no point in voting for the underdog. When people are posting the latest poll results on social media throughout the day, there’s a great deal of pressure on candidates to pull ahead of their opponents.

One of the positive effects that social media has on politics is the opportunity for voters to interact more easily with candidates and elected officials. Traditionally, if you wanted to meet a politician or candidate, you’d have to attend a live event. Not everyone is able to do this. With modern technology, it’s now possible to attend virtual events where you can participate in live streaming events and interact with politicians and candidates.

Targeting is used throughout the advertising industry to make sure that ads and messages reach the right audience. Politicians do this as well. In the age of social media, politicians and people running for office are able to target their campaigns.

If a candidate wants to address the concerns of women, college students, retired people, Latinos or any other group of voters, they can now tailor their messages. Just as advertisers on Facebook are able to use analytics and targeted advertising, so can candidates and politicians. Thus, if you notice that political messages seem to be talking to you personally, this is no accident.

Political campaigns are now influenced by every story, whether true or not, that gets spread around social media. It’s getting more and more difficult to separate actual news from fake news online. Social media makes this distinction especially confusing. The constant stream of memes, links and rumors about political leaders and candidates is a mixture of truth, lies, satire and speculation.

There are now quite a few fake or satirical “news” sites that often post stories that sound authentic. The Onion is the best known of these, but there are now many others as well. Some fake news sites are not even amusing but simply exist to post clickbait stories or to troll readers who don’t do their own research.

There are also sites with political biases or those peddling various unsubstantiated conspiracy theories. It’s easy to be influenced by misinformation posted by your friends and followers, even if they don’t intend to mislead you. It’s therefore necessary to use a great deal of discernment before believing anything.

One of the hidden forces that operates on social media is confirmation bias. This is especially powerful when it comes to controversial topics, including politics. If you’re like most people, the majority of your friends and followers on social media probably share your outlook. This means that the vast majority of tweets, Facebook posts, pins or other content you read on these sites tend to express the same point of view, one that you already hold.

It’s natural for people to surround themselves with others of like mind. This is true both online and offline. On social media sites, this can create the illusion that “everybody” thinks the same way. If you have a few hundred friends on Facebook, for example, and 90 percent of them agree on most political issues, the information you get will be filtered through this bias. People will post links to stories that confirm your existing bias. They’ll repeat opinions you already hold.

For this reason, social media may reinforce our opinions and make it more difficult to entertain alternative points of view. In politics, it can help to make people more opinionated and less tolerant of others. On the other hand, if you make an effort to connect with an assortment of people with diverse viewpoints, you can overcome confirmation bias and use social media to make you more open-minded.

Because social media is relatively new, we’re just starting to see its impact on society. There are sure to be many political changes that come about due to social media. There are now proposals for internet voting, which could lead to more people participating in elections. This could make social media even more influential, as people could literally vote moments after reading the latest comments or links they found on Facebook or Twitter.

Other advancements will also change politics. Polling techniques on social media will become more common and, hopefully, more accurate. More virtual political rallies and town halls will take place. As social media becomes ever more popular, its impact on politics will only increase over time. It will be interesting to observe how this plays out.

If you’re looking to have a powerful search platform at your fingertips during the election season, that gives an unlimited number of ad-hoc searches on billions of social conversations, then you should see the power of the Meltwater Suite.

How Social Media Affects Politics

The ‘social age’ has allowed us to tap into the valuable opinions of the general public, meaning that marketing professionals no longer have to rely on customer surveys to learn from their target market.

The ability to analyse data from social channels and tap into exactly what people say and think has undeniably changed the marketing and branding process – after all, a staggering 6,000 tweets are produced every second – that’s a lot of data. However, this is not being tapped into by all organisations. Most companies are monitoring their social mentions, either through the channel or by using a platform, but brands of all sizes can benefit from social listening: analysing relevant social data from your audience, your target market, or your competitors to create a proactive strategy and achieve social success.

A common misconception is that social listening is for ‘big brands’, but we disagree. The focus of any marketing/branding/social/communications department is essentially the same – no matter the size or industry. All organisations want to perform well in the following 5 areas:

Whether you’re B2C, B2B, a nonprofit or a government department, what people think and feel about your organisation is important to you. So rather than hearing about an annoyed customer, an unpopular decision or poor service in a news story or formal complaint the following morning, why not be an active part of the conversation? After all, Twitter found that 60% of consumers expect a response from brands within an hour and 68% of customers will leave a company because of its poor customer service. A colossal 80% of social customer care inquiries start on Twitter, therefore it pays to be on top of all of your mentions.

But, Twitter tells me when I’ve been mentioned for free? While you do receive notifications for your tagged tweets, there are no alerts for untagged mentions of your brand, specific products or an employee. Take Yorkshire Tea as a recent example. They received huge backlash after the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, posted an image on Twitter featuring himself and a very large bag of Yorkshire brew. Many users tweeted insults at the brand, such as ‘I’m out. Tory by association.’ Yorkshire Tea’s loyal following was under threat after the untagged tweet, which the brand confirms they ‘weren’t asked or involved’ in. Alerted in the first instance by the backlash from their customers, social listening would have alerted the social team to the original untagged mention, and they would be able to contain and report on this crisis. Sentiment analysis is also useful in flagging negative tweets around the brand, both tagged and untagged, in real-time. This helps you prioritise your replies and get back to users with issues swiftly and efficiently.

Social listening also proves useful if your brand or hashtag is spelt wrong, as without it you’re missing out on relevant mentions that you should be aware of. Communications departments in the police force or the air ambulance are able to find users tweeting about accidents, and give them relevant information, while train companies can respond to questions around delays and timetabling issues.

Social listening allows you to be proactive in your media presence, rather than have a limited reactive strategy, and will help to grow your brand as “85% of customers are likely to recommend …[ you] to others after having a satisfactory interaction online”.

Everyone wants a successful social channel. No matter the industry or the customer-focus, all marketers aim for engaging content, regular interactions and growth. Social listening helps you to attentively build and curate a community around your brand, by replying to untagged mentions and using the insights and analysis to guide your strategy, analysing what worked and what didn’t. For instance, if a charity has lots of mentions from donors and fundraisers, social listening enables you to reply to users who are directly helping the cause. A personal response also makes a donation the following year much more likely.

By performing the same analysis on your competitors, you can analyse how a successful engagement rate is achieved in your industry and create informed marketing campaigns in the future. For instance, simply benchmarking a company hashtag against a competitor’s, or one campaign against another, you can work out how successful your social content is. You can use the data to tweak your strategy accordingly, improving the success of your channels and you can then easily report on the improvement of your online reputation while driving traffic to your organisation. By keeping track of this growth, you will also effectively prove the value of social. This can be especially helpful when planning next year’s budget, making sure that social has the funding it needs to continue to be successful.

Development in social analysis is the ability to better understand your audience. By analysing the Twitter data from your mentions (both tagged and untagged), you can learn more about your current and prospective customers, by finding out what they think about your brand, as well as their other likes and dislikes. By piecing together all of the common interests of your audience, you’re able to understand your market context and cost-effectively test brand assumptions. This informed approach helps you to justify future campaigns in knowing exactly who you’re talking to, and what makes them tick.

The same approach can be used to profile your target audience, or a competitor’s, to see which hashtags and content are most effective. This way you can curate your social channels to generate content which you know will appeal to your audience, driving up engagements and creating a loyal social community. This will also increase client acquisition as you gain presence within the market, and cuts out a huge amount of time and work by showing you exactly what to share.

Similarly, you can drive insights for other areas of the business using social listening. Product development can analyse tweets made about your products, and others in the market, to identify pain points and fill the gap. Or, you could benchmark the social mentions of different ice cream flavours, analyse the sentiment for vegan sausages or even just see the demand for takeaways in a specific area. Using data to reinforce your business decisions is far more powerful and makes sure that your product is relevant to the market.

Sales and business development can use the technique to find new prospects, by either searching for people asking for recommendations in your market or by searching for users who are having issues with their current product or service and reach out to them on that basis.

Research & Development can also use the listening to view how public opinion has changed over time – for instance, the increase in the use of the phrase ‘plant-based diet’ over the last year, or even gain competitor intelligence. By collaborating with other teams, you may be able to tap into their budgets too and bring social listening on as a shared tool.

You can also use this data to drive your marketing campaigns. For instance, if you were Netflix, and you knew that your customer base and target market also like ice cream and Friends, a campaign featuring Jennifer Aniston watching Netflix and eating Ben & Jerry’s is most likely to be a successful one. Similarly, if you were an insurance company you might track reports of break-ins in specific locations and target your print ads in the newspapers and bus stops of that region. You can be creative as you want to be with social listening – it is simply having access to the data and the ability to deduce insights from it.

Reporting is key to producing powerful campaigns. Not only can you look at previous work to continually improve your approach, but it can also be used to forge new relationships. To obtain new partners or sponsorship for a campaign you can report on the publicity that a previous partner received using retrospective social data, and put this forward to them in a pitch. Football clubs often use this to attract sponsors for their kits, in showing the ROI of their investment in their association with them.

Social listening also helps you to keep up to date with changes in emotion and trends in the market. For instance, Gillette’s advert ‘We Believe: The Best Men Can Be’, came at the same time as the rising #MeToo movement, showing that the brand had listened and changed their tact from punchy macho ads to a thought-provoking statement.

Source: BBC News [caption refers to above image]

Good Influencer Partnerships (Journalist or Social)

Finally, you can use social listening to find the most influential journalists and social influencers in your sphere. With the ability to search Twitter bios as well as tweets, you can quickly and easily identify journalists who are influential in the industry and are worth approaching. This targeted approach is an easy way to build relationships with them and find new avenues to get releases out there.

Similarly, you can find social influencers including bloggers, YouTubers, forum commentators and Facebook, Instagram and Twitter users who have a good following and are influential within the market. By curating relationships here, you are able to build the beginnings of a social influencer strategy. You’re also able to find influential people who already love your brand and are natural advocates for your organisation. By discovering this, you can reach out to them and offer opportunities to work together.

Monitoring is only the beginning when unlocking the potential of social analysis. The future will focus on developing this further, and crucially rather than simply hearing what users are saying on social media, organisations will start listening and applying their findings.

Why Social Listening is Important at All Levels of Business

How can PR dashboards drive your next campaign? Read what Meltwater is learning from our clients on the most effective ways to use PR dashboards, and how one PR manager got out of her analytics rut with a little help from technology. Also, take this opportunity to download our comprehensive ebook on PR and social media KPIs and how to track them on your dashboards and create top-notch ROI reports.

Confession: While media monitoring software was evolving into media intelligence over the last decade, I didn’t as a user. My media monitoring routine remained fairly static since the early aughts: Start the day scanning my inbox for the latest press hits, and occasionally log in to look up a journalist or run a coverage report. But then I joined Meltwater’s team of product experts, leading up global product communications—and had to catch up quickly. I learned I was missing out on the powerful tools, best practices, and advanced technologies now available thanks to media intelligence—starting with my underutilisation of dashboards.

Your dashboards are automated oracles always available to help out with everything from content marketing ideas to competitor intelligence—when they’re done right and designed with intention. (Secondary confession: I initially relied on a default template* and ignored half of the widgets.) Our in-house dashboards guru, Ryan Getchell—who’s interviewed clients from Fortune 50 companies to boutique PR agencies—says as PR pros become more data-driven, they’re increasingly using dashboards to drive their campaign strategies:

“Clients that use dashboards to design data-driven campaign strategies tend to rely on three types of PR dashboards: brand, competitor, and industry trends. Track these three staples to gain a real-time understanding of your brand’s PR ecosystem. The insights you glean may reveal new trends or validate what you already know—but backed by data. Armed with these metrics, you can identify areas to influence, strategize how to move the needle, then measure the effectiveness of those efforts through a campaign dashboard to demonstrate PR ROI.”

Read on for some tips* for setting up these three PR dashboards—based on our clients’ own best practices—and how to translate data gleaned from those dashboards into insights that can drive the direction of your next campaign or PR strategy.

1. Brand Dashboards — How to Optimise Them

If you’re already using a media intelligence platform, you likely have some form of this dashboard already. But what’s key here is keeping it focused on your brand, and making sure the metrics you track can accurately measure your brand’s performance. This will be your go-to dashboard to gain insights into how your brand is performing now and over time, creating a baseline for your reporting. You’ll want this dashboard to map directly to your KPIs, informing daily decisions, as well as your monthly, quarterly, and annual reports.

Tip #1: Filter out the noise of competitors and other market data to making sure the metrics you track speak only to your brand’s performance.

Tip #2: Make sure you’re using the right metrics to most accurately measure your brand and how its footprint evolves over time. Depending on your brand’s goals, you may want to include data like publications/social influencers, mentions by geography, or visits to your website (tracked by Google Analytics and integrated into your PR dashboard).

Tip #3: Measure news and social data separately. “Tracking news and social together gives you a holistic view, but oftentimes, the trends within these channels are vastly different,” Ryan says. “Collecting data separately—such as mentions or sentiment – makes it easier to drill in to identify patterns that you might not otherwise recognize when the channels are combined.”

Tip #4: Check daily. Use the content feeds on your brand dashboard as a way to make it part of your routine.

2. Competitor Dashboards — Get Ahead and Stay Ahead

Now that you’re acutely aware of your brand’s performance, apply those same principles (er, metrics) to size up the competition.

Use this dashboard to exclusively benchmark competitors’ brand performance against your own. Identify where your brand and the competition are similar, and spot where you can stand out. Monitor how your competitor is being mentioned or where there’s an opening for your brand to have a louder voice in the conversation.

Tip #1: Just about everything you can know about yourself, you can know about your competitors. And since a good media intelligence tool doesn’t limit you on the number of searches you can track, use this single dashboard as your daily source to keep an eye on all of your competitors.

Tip #2: As Ryan says, “For PR managers, I would recommend checking your brand and competitor dashboards every morning to make sure you’re the first to catch any breaking trends—or every couple of days, depending on the tempo of your industry and news cycle.”

3. Industry Dashboards—Keep the Pulse on the Latest Trends  

Your brand, and those of your competitors, aren’t operating in isolation—take a constant pulse on the greater ecosystem of your industry. Spot market forces that could affect your brand over time: What are the micro- and macro-trends or themes that could impact your brand? Who are the most influential voices leading key conversations, and what kind of keywords or messages are they using?

“Not checking your industry is like flying a plane without checking the weather. Know what elements to expect so you can chart the optimal course,” Ryan says. “Using your industry dashboard in conjunction with brand and competitor dashboards, it’ll be easier to spot areas of opportunity or areas to improve—like geographic performance—to guide your PR strategy.”

Tip #1: Ryan recommends checking this dashboard at least monthly to make sure you’re not missing any key coverage or patterns.

Tip #2: Unlike your competitor dashboard where you’re keeping track of other brands, here you’ll want to keep track of key topics and thought leaders. This dashboard is a great place to find out which themes you’ll want to align yourself to when pitching for coverage and any new movers and shakers whose voices are growing louder—and more influential.

Translating Dashboard Data to Winning Strategies

So you’ve got your PR dashboards set up and you’re armed with analytics that help you understand where your brand is at, how it stacks up against the competition, and where it’s performing in your industry. Now what?

Make the leap from widgets to a data-driven strategy in four broad steps:

Digest your data. Export your dashboard analytics and review with your team—either as a PDF report or a living presentation, like Meltwater’s Shareable Dashboards (which can be shared with anyone, regardless if they have an account.)

Pinpoint opportunities for impact. “SWOT analysis is a simple method that can help with this identification,” Ryan says. “Use your data to guide the mapping.”

Sketch out your strategy. Create a set of tactics that focus on the areas you’ve previously identified for impact.

Design your KPIs. Identify which PR metrics will be the best indicators of whether or not your strategy is working. For instance, most media intelligence providers – including Meltwater—offer a Google Analytics widget to help you connect a news article with the web traffic driven to your company’s site. You can also measure how your messages are gaining traction, such as share of voice or tracking trending themes associated with your brand. Use these custom metrics to create a unique campaign dashboard. (Tip: Check your campaign dashboard daily. Generate regular summaries to detect trends and make adjustments, as needed.)

Want to learn more about setting up PR dashboards, and how to use them for better planning and to measure ROI? Our PR Reporting software can help.

The 3 PR Dashboards Your Comms Strategy Needs

Times are changing for Instagram users, both corporate and private, in India. A likely brand name change, the possible full-scale removal of ‘likes’ from the platform and its implication for brands that use influencer marketing. Plus startling revelations around the huge number of fake followers in India, mean that marketers who have made Instagram a platform of choice, for connecting with their audiences, are having to ask themselves some tough questions.

The current testing of removing ‘like’ counts from posts may have the most far-reaching consequences. Although, it’s only happening in selected markets at present – Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Ireland, Italy and Japan – Instagram hasn’t ruled out taking it into other countries too. 

Speaking to exchange4media, the Indian-based marketing and media industry site, an Instagram spokesperson said the aim was to help users feel comfortable expressing themselves through their content, rather than concerning themselves with how many likes they get. “We chose these markets to get a better sense of how the experience resonates with Instagram’s global community. We don’t have any specific timing to share right now about other countries,” the spokesperson said.

However, the ‘like’ button is a reflection of a brand influencer’s popularity and the removal of the button could change the dynamics of the influencer market.

Scherezade Shroff Talwar, Mumbai-based celebrity video blogger and former model – who has 208 000 followers – doesn’t believe the impact will be significant. “A lot of people still don’t know that a lot of influencers are being paid for partnerships. As far as brands go, ultimately they do want to advertise on the platform. I don’t think it will make a difference. The focus will shift to actual engagement. Brands will definitely focus their campaigns on influencers that are a better fit,” she says.

Santoshi Shetty, a fashion and lifestyle blogger with 633 000 Instagram followers, notes: “While on one hand, the reach of any blogger, influencer or brand gets dictated by the number of likes and the stats are usually calculated that way, on the other hand, it will clear up head space. Therefore, I feel people will stop obsessing over the number of likes. The digital marketing space will become cleaner and there will be more quality over quantity. More substance over frivolity.”

The marketing take on removing like counts

And how do marketers feel? Aakriti Sinha, National Head for Social Media at digital marketing agency Isobar, India, says: “We are in the business of engagement and numbers, and I really hope that this remains at the testing phase only. The numbers really never took the focus away from the content, but yes, it did always maintain a constant pressure on influencers particularly. It did lead them to consistently create content in various formats (sometimes overdose) to stay relevant, affecting the quality of documented content in the process.” 

She continues: “I do hope that this rings in that alarm for all the brands and influencers who were creating sub-standard content to maintain their performance in terms of numbers only. This should bring back the focus on creating rich and relevant content.”

Akshay Popawala, Director of Digital Communication/Strategy at Mumbai-based agency Togglehead, notes: “While the content will still be rooted from mass appeal, the spotlight will then be on campaigns that drive actual results of awareness, sales or click-throughs. Should the test become permanent, the process of influencer marketing will become more transparent and informed.”

But even if hiding ‘likes’ on Instagram fails to become a significant problem for Indian marketers, what of the other elephant in the room – the report released in July showing that Indian content-creators and influencers have the third-highest number of bought followers in the world?

A global study by Swedish e-commerce start-up, A Good Company, and data analytics firm HypeAuditor, analysed Instagram accounts in 82 countries and found that the 3 regions with the most fake followers are the US (49-million), Brazil (27-million) and India (16-million). 

In a statement released to PRWeek, the international public relations industry publication, Anders Ankarlid, CEO of A Good Company, said: “Companies are pouring money into influencer marketing, thinking that they are connecting with real people and not Russian bots. In reality, they are pouring money down the drain and giving away free products to someone who acquired a mass following overnight.” 

In an article analysing the study, the India Times website highlights its own concerns: “In India, it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between personal opinions and paid posts because of lack of user awareness. The data of the reports shows how easy it is for ‘influencers’ to fool not only their followers but also marketing firms looking for influencers to promote their brands.”

Why do influencers on Instagram go to the trouble of buying fake followers?

The answer is simple: because the potential profits are huge. 

Take the example of Priyanka Chopra Jonas, the Indian actress, singer, film producer and winner of the Miss World 2000 pageant. While nobody is suggesting her followers are fake, the huge following that she commands on Instagram (43,7-million at latest count) means that she’s paid US$271 000 for a single influencer post. Virat Kohli, the Indian cricket captain (39-million followers), charges US$196 000 per post.

This puts them at 19th and 23rd respectively on the Instagram Rich List 2019 compiled by Hopper, the UK-based Instagram planner and scheduling tool. But that’s small potatoes compared to what media personality Kylie Jenner earns. Her 143-million followers help put her at number one on the Rich List 2019, as she charges a whopping US$1,266-million per post! At number two is Ariana Grande, the Grammy Award-winning US recording artist. Although she has more followers than Jenner (162-million vs 143-million), she ‘only’ charges US$996 000 per post!

Lastly, and perhaps irrelevant to most users but interesting to marketers, is the seemingly imminent re-branding of Instagram to ‘Instagram from Facebook’. Similarly, its sister app, also part of the wider Facebook stable, is to be renamed ‘WhatsApp from Facebook’. 

This is a change from the past strategy of allowing each app to be seen to operate largely independently. Putting distance between the brands also helps to quarantine them from the damage caused by Facebook’s ongoing privacy scandals. Facebook spokesperson Bertie Thomson has confirmed the rebranding strategy, saying: “We want to be clearer about the products and services that are part of Facebook.”  

Irrespective of all of the above changes and revelations, it seems that Instagram will continue to be a key marketing channel, both in India and elsewhere. According to Social Media Today, the June 2019 international study entitled State of Instagram Marketing 2019 indicates that almost 72% of respondents believe it’s ‘very likely’ that Instagram will become a key marketing channel for them in future.

This would be reflective of both the rising usage stats and coming platform additions (like Shopping Tags and on-platform shopping), which will provide a whole range of new opportunities for marketers.

“Clearly, businesses are paying attention to the trends and are keen to get involved – and with so many planning to use Instagram more in future, you can bet that competition for attention on the platform is also going to increase. If you’ve not established your Instagram presence, it may be the time to get started, as it only looks set to become more significant,” says Social Media Today.

An Instagram Influencer Marketing Platform like Meltwater's influencer marketing solution can help you find and analyze influencers that are relevant to your niche.

Big Instagram Changes Ahead for Indian Marketers and Users?

In an era when brand durability is being questioned, getting customers to see how your brand differentiates itself is a survival imperative. Understanding the customer's journey can assist you in brand building, while media monitoring can ensure you maintain the reputation you've worked hard to build.

You’ve probably heard that it’s cheaper to keep a current customer than to acquire a new one (which is true).

But few companies realize just how much customer retention can impact the bottom line. According to research from Bain & Co, increasing customer retention rates by just 5% can boost profits by 25% to 95%. Not bad, right?

The trouble is, retaining customers is harder than ever in the age of dying brand loyalty. With so much competition in the modern market, consumers can always find a brand that delivers the same products and services—just cheaper and faster.

And data shows that a good deal will often beat out consumer brand loyalty. For instance, 35% of women and 33% of men told Crowdtwist they would consider switching from their preferred brand in exchange for a better price, and 49% of consumers said they would gladly switch brands for a coupon.

So what can you do to retain customers in the face of these obstacles? Let’s explore the mind of the modern consumer, then look at some retention strategies than can help drive brand loyalty.

Consumers have 60% higher customer service expectations than they did just one year ago, according to Parature. Consumer expectations are rising—fast.

Gone are the days of three-brand lifestyles. Today, consumers shop based on price, quality, speed, and overall customer experience. Of those qualifiers, research suggests that customer experience is taking the lead. By 2017, 89% of businesses will compete primarily on customer experience.

Customer Experience is More Important Than Ever

Here are some additional stats that paint a clear picture of modern consumers expectations:

71% of online customers expect help within five minutes. (LivePerson)

52% of customers are less likely to buy from a retailer because of a poor mobile experience. (Google)

95% of unhappy customers share their bad experience with others. (Zendesk)

What can we glean from this data? Well, overall customer experience—both online and offline—is more important than ever. The modern shopper will take any opportunity you give them to spend their money elsewhere.

So what can you do to keep the customers you’ve worked so hard to attain? Below, we’ll look at four key customer retention strategies that drive brand loyalty.

Delivering personalised content and experiences is one way to make each and every customer feel special—and it’s a great competitive differentiator too.

According to Virtual Incentives, brands that personalise their customer experience are perceived as smart, unique, and caring by the majority of consumers. Plus, over half of Millennial customers rank personalisation as a high priority. It’s easy to see why more and more brands are focusing on delivering it.

So how do you promote brand loyalty through personalisation?

Marketing automation and personalised customer journeys tie customer details into the content you deliver them. For example, your email marketing platform likely has specific personalisation tags that you can add to the subject line and email body. These personal touches not only increase open rates, they result in 6 times more sales.

Personalised offers like “You may also like…” and “People like you…” present tailored suggestions based on the customer’s history. There’s a reason practically every retail giant uses this approach. It capitalises on the influence of peer recommendations to encourage repeat purchases.

By designing a more customized experience for your buyers, you can effectively earn their trust and respect over time.

Perks can make loyal customers feel like VIPs. Loyalty programs give them one more reason to shop with you over a competitor. So what can you do to reward your best customers?

Give top customers a sneak peek or early access to new products. When software companies roll out beta releases to their top customers, it benefits everyone: the company generates valuable, targeted feedback before the full release, while the customer gets to be a part of the select group that sees it first.

Offer exclusive perks that encourage brand loyalty, like free shipping and monthly deals. Virgin America runs sales on airfare practically every month. Even if the prices are fairly comparable to their standard fare, the regular cadence of deals and offers portrays Virgin as customer-centric and deal-happy—two things modern consumers love.

Include extras and “freebies” in customers’ orders. Sephora offers 3 samples with every online order, plus “Beauty Insider” reward points. The loyalty program has accelerated the cosmetic giant’s growth, making it a household name and the obvious choice for consumers.

Going the extra mile to surprise and delight means showing gratitude for customers. Create a mutual relationship of appreciation between your company and its most reliable customers via relationship marketing, and they’ll reward you with brand loyalty.

A dynamic customer feedback program helps you better serve your audience. From customer satisfaction to Net Promoter Score, ongoing customer surveys help you spot process and service gaps, follow up with unhappy customers, and cultivate brand advocacy among the happiest.

This rich data generated with customer surveys can inform future decisions and advance the entire organization’s understanding of your target audience.

But it’s not just about traditional customer support satisfaction…

Sales organizations can use closed-lost surveys to reveal missteps in the sales process.

Marketing teams can get competitive insight from prospects with brand surveys.

Development teams can send product surveys to beta users.

The list goes on. Plus, companies can align customer feedback with their primary customer data using a Salesforce survey integration. With survey results in your CRM, customer feedback comes to life, drawing clear pathways to customer success or customer churn and revealing new opportunities for growth.

The bottom line here: survey, and survey often.

Last but not least, beef up customer support resources to help your customers succeed.

U.S. companies lose as much as $41 billion each year due to poor customer service and support. That’s no small chunk of change. Add to this the fact that 68% of customers have switched companies because of poor customer service, and the value of robust customer support becomes clear.

Omni-channel customer support is tomorrow’s blueprint for customer satisfaction and success. It takes multi-channel support a step further, focusing on customer support from the customer perspective. Rather than fragmented interactions, omnichannel is all about a cohesive customer experience. If you call into support, tomorrow’s email case shouldn’t restart the conversation, but simply continue it.

Self-service is another huge factor. When you empower customers to solve issues themselves, you streamline support processes and develop proactive measures, ultimately saving time and money.

The Meltwater Blog

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