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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

Instagram Stories might typically be ephemeral, but they can have a lasting impact on your marketing. For great Instagram story ideas plus tips on optimizing for business, read on! Then, download our Ultimate Guide to Instagram to build a full-fledged Instagram marketing strategy.

Instagram Stories was launched all the way back in August 2016 and at the time, was widely considered a carbon copy of Snapchat. In 2020, however, more than 500 million Instagrammers use stories every single day. (Though in a twist, Instagram is now constantly playing catch-up with TikTok).

Today we’re exploring Instagram Stories for business. Let’s dive in!

If you’re wondering what impact Instagram Stories can have on your brand, wonder no more. Stories should be an integral part of your social media marketing strategy, including Instagram advertising. They’re a great way to increase engagement with your audience and reiterate your brand story. Brands not utilizing stories are missing out on a huge opportunity for engagement, growth, and sales.

Here are 5 different ways brands can take advantage of Instagram Stories for business.

One of the most challenging things to do as a brand on social media is talk about your product or service without coming across as inauthentic or “sales-y“.

Luckily, the Instagram's Stories About You feature just might be the solution. Stories About You is only available to Instagram users with a Business Account or Creator Account and allows brands to easily share content they were tagged or mentioned in. 

Mixing in user-generated content with your branded content is a great way to increase trust and authenticity. It demonstrates social proof, and encourages more people to mention you when they that you're excited to share UGC .

Given that Instagram Stories only last for 24 hours, it’s the perfect channel for sharing limited-time offers or promotions.

This type of content gives your brand the opportunity to reward your existing followers for their loyalty and engagement. Plus, it incentivizes people to share with their friends and family by creating a sense of urgency and exclusivity.

Instagram Stories also include a bunch of native marketing features to help your offers and promotions stand out. Instagram stickers, in this case the countdown one, are a great way to spice up this content.

Instagram Stories have emerged as one of the most effective advertising channels for brands.

The key part of running Stories ads is creating the ad creative — the Stories image or video — itself. When you post traditional “feed” content for Stories, the Stories ads won’t look like most Stories content. You want to create content formatted specifically with a vertical screen in mind. This will help to make your content look native to audiences on Instagram. 

Creating great Instagram story ads is all about simplicity. You might be tempted to fill your ad creative with many things. That could confuse your audience and lead to a lower conversion rate. Use short copy, beautiful imagery, and a powerful call-to-action. 

One of my favorite utilizations of Instagram Stories for marketing is when brands promote top performing content in new and interactive ways.

Repurposing your best content in an interactive way will ensure that it reaches as much of your audience as possible, increasing your Instagram engagement rate. Blog posts, press releases, product updates, announcements, and more can all be leveraged as stories content.

For example, HubSpot took one of their most-read posts on how to write good emails and turned it into an interactive quiz. People love a good quiz on social media!

Tons of brands are embracing interactive content and seeing amazing results. Experiment with interactive content such as: Instagram polls, quizzes, AMAs, games, contests, surveys, and countdowns.

This type of stories content is perfect for deep engagement and demands your audience’s undivided attention.

This might seem like a given seeing as how it is called Instagram Stories. However, many brands fail to capture the essence of what makes for great stories content. It all starts with a compelling brand story.

There are virtually unlimited ways to tell a story as a brand (all within the 15 second maximum Instagram story length). For example:

Restaurants could show how their dishes are prepared in the kitchen

Musicians could show what it’s like on the tour bus

Sports teams could share a pre-game speech in the locker room

Consulting agencies could discuss how to approach a specific challenge a business is facing

SaaS platforms could show a tour of their office and meet the team

E-commerce brands could share tips on how to create the perfect outfit

Use Instagram Stories to tell your brand’s story and you’ll quickly discover that your audience loves the interaction on a whole new level.

Instagram Stories are one of the best channels to drive engagement, build brand awareness, drive traffic, and even increase sales. With Meltwater’s Social Media Management tool, you can publish and engage from one platform, and easily report on the insights that matter.

Instagram Stories: 5 Creative Ways to Use Them in Your Marketing

The global data collected and reported above were obtained within Nov 2018 and Jul 2019 through Meltwater’s Media Intelligence tool.

Movie remakes are always a tricky business. The cinematic brilliance that first filled the silver screens with pomp and verve will always be a part of the audience’s lives. Those who experienced that brilliance will carry with them the nostalgic baggage and instinctively resort to opening it up whilst rummaging through their old favourite clothes to wear it once again. And unfortunately, more often than not, movie studio executives love looking through the wardrobe and consider rocking the classic suits again.

This is where a data-oriented company such as Meltwater can step in to offer a solution to movie execs in treading that path of brilliance or downward spiral of notoriety for remakes. For this post, we take one of the grandest animated movies of all time – Disney’s The Lion King – and studied the trajectory before the movie’s recent release. We analysed mentions of The Lion King online versus search queries about the movie. Gaps between what users were searching for and what is mentioned online creates opportunities for Marketers.

How can Marketers pounce on these opportunities like the hyenas did on Scar?

When news first broke out in September 2016 about Disney remaking a lineup of classics in live-action – Mulan, Beauty & the Beast, and Aladdin alongside the Lion King – it was positively received but with a tinge of scepticism and worry that childhood memories would be tainted. However, critics and film aficionados were optimistic about casting Jon Favreau to direct and retell the timeless Shakespearan story of the cub that grew up to reclaim his father’s throne from his diabolical uncle. Favreau’s prior work in another Disney remake The Jungle Book greatly favoured the positive backing from the fans.

In November 2018, Disney released its first teaser trailer to The Lion King, and to call it a resounding success would be an understatement. Fans all over the world rejoiced at the sneak peek of the upcoming movie and all their fears were washed away by the rivers running through Pride Lands. There were over 5,000 mentions of The Lion King in the news around the world and more than 2 million social mentions just in November 2018 itself. Also, a name keeps popping up after the trailer’s release – James Earl Jones – which had every fan reminiscing the original from 1994. Fans were ecstatic when they heard the booming ubiquitous baritone voice of Mufasa narrate the trailer and they soaked in the nostalgia of the reanimated classic.  

In comparison, global megastar Beyonce’s involvement in the project had 22,000 social mentions in the same timeframe. This interesting insight revealed that despite the presence of undoubtedly talented superstar such as Beyonce could not match the level of nostalgia and bonds that were fostered related to the original movie. By using this insight extrapolated from the data of user-generated content, marketing professionals can curate or arrange campaigns with an eye on the emotional connection fostered with the audience.

Fine-tune Social Media strategy with geo-located insights

The fan base of The Lion King is vast and wide like the African savannah and during the trailer’s release, they came out in droves. Unsurprisingly, the US formed almost 57% of mentions in social media while the Brits contributed another 6%. A quick glance of the rest of the top ten countries showed interest from different continents, with South Africa and Nigeria representing the movie’s inspiration of the Motherland. Australians (7th) also showed their love for the indomitable lion family. Social media interactions in two of Asia’s most populous nations, India and Indonesia, greatly contributed to the Lion King folklore. These geo-located social insights can help marketing teams further fine-tune their Social Media Marketing strategy. 

For example, these insights can drive anything from streamlining and unifying the Social media strategy that you run in each of these countries, to the amount of budget you allocate for each country.

Closing the gap between search queries and content that is available online

What fans might be searching for online may not be congruent with content that is available online. This creates an opportunity for Marketers to create campaigns around what their audience want but is not found online yet. The infographic further details how the top topics mentioned online about Disney differs from the top search queries in the same period of time. 

Furthermore, during the trailer release, another interesting insight from Social Media mentions  was that many fans were puzzled why the film was called “live-action” when there weren’t any “live” actors involved. By using this insight, marketing and communication departments can address this misunderstanding and resolve lingering doubts and tone down negative sentiment towards their production.

Disney movies - 2019 Social Media Coverage

Measuring the success of Lion King and other Disney movies

Disney’s user-generated content (UGC) is a heaven for marketing departments to discover insights. To illustrate a greater picture of Disney’s UGC, Meltwater flips through the pages of its catalogue for 2019 – The Lion King, Aladdin, Toy Story 4, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and Avengers: Endgame. Just like Buzz’s catchphrase, Disney’s UGC from social media is infinite and definitely beyond expectations, with the movies collectively generating almost 105 million unique social mentions since The Lion King trailer. 

Obviously, Avengers: Endgame traversed the cosmic social universe and gripped the social media world like Thanos’ Infinity Gauntlet with more than 68 million mentions. This has to be attributed to 10 years of developing content within the Marvel Cinematic Universe and fans built an emotional connection with the series coming to an end. It must also be pointed out that the long-awaited final chapter of the Skywalker saga only arrives in cinemas this December while the rest have already hit their peaks. The intergalactic soap opera is also the only movie which had more than a million mentions throughout the period. Toy Story 4 also generated more mentions than The Lion King but this could be attributed to the release dates of the respective movies.

With the Lion King roaring away in the box office, it goes to show that movie remakes are not grounds that have to be left untouched. With careful consideration of nostalgia and respect to the original material, the audience will view it in a positive perspective that it is a method of paying homage while introducing new generations to the legend of Pride’s Rock.

How Data Can Inform Your Marketing Campaigns: The Lion King Case Study

The topic of fashion never goes out of style in the social media sphere. How often have we come across high volumes of #OOTD (“Outfit of the day”) posts crowding our social media feeds?

Hence, when it comes to succeeding within the fashion industry, social media cannot be left out of the equation. Social listening can form an effective strategy for brands to understand how they are performing online as well as seek new opportunities. To understand how fashion brands can leverage social media based on data, let’s use the example of Penshoppe, an up-and-coming clothing brand from the Philippines. 

What began as a simple T-shirt company in Cebu became a global retail name, gaining popularity in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Penshoppe’s rise to fame was attributed to its ability to obtain impressive celebrity endorsements such as that from Zac Efron, Gigi Hadid and more recently, Kendall Jenner. The use of such famous brand ambassadors boosted the company’s online presence which would make it even more important for them to monitor their social media coverage.

So if you are working for a promising fashion brand such as Penshoppe, here is how data can help you leverage social media: 

Fashion is for everyone. There are so many different types of consumers out there with a different sense of style and tastes in clothing. Identifying and understanding the demographics of your consumers can benefit your brand when developing future products or marketing strategies.

Meltwater’s Social Influencers tool allows companies to view the demographics of their online users at a glance. Hence, brands such as Penshoppe can identify which consumers engage the most with their brand and which consumers engage the least.

For instance, here are the demographics of Penshoppe Twitter followers during the first quarter of 2019:

Figure 1: Age group, gender and skill demographics of Penshoppe Twitter followers (Jan-Mar 2019)

From the data, we can observe that a large portion of followers are women within the 18 to 24 year old age category. Thus, to further engage with this market, Penshoppe can continue to produce relevant content or introduce new clothing items that are targeted towards this demographic. One of the top skills of Penshoppe followers is also shown to be Music. Hence, to appeal to their musically inclined audience, Penshoppe can consider incorporating elements of music in their future strategies such as collaborating with a famous singer or band.  

Identifying your audience can also help your brand take note of potential consumers. 35 to 49 year-olds make up a lower portion of Penshoppe’s Twitter followers, indicating that Penshoppe’s content may not be resonating well with this group. This creates a possible opportunity for Penshoppe to develop marketing content or introduce products that are tailored to this untapped market.

Influencers play a crucial role in the business of fashion. You need influencers to promote trends or showcase new items of clothing to boost awareness about your brand and products. Hence, it is important to keep track of your influencers’ online performance and observe how well received their posts are. 

Meltwater’s Social Influencer tool also allows companies like Penshoppe to monitor how well their influencers are doing online and how successful they are in engaging their followers. Penshoppe would be able to identify which posts in relation to their brand received the highest engagement on different social media platforms and which received the least. 

For instance, here are the top Instagram posts mentioning Penshoppe for the first quarter of 2019, ranked by engagement:   

Figure 2: Top 8 Instagram Posts mentioning Penshoppe, ranked by Engagement (Jan-Mar 2019)

Penshoppe can see that one of their key brand ambassadors, Kendall Jenner, is amongst the top Instagram influencers for the period. The tool also allows Penshoppe to see what their influencers are posting, including the levels of engagement and reach garnered. This would give Penshoppe a better idea of what content appeals to social media users. 

Furthermore, under the Top 8 Instagram Posts, it is interesting to note that user, John Karl Ramos, had four highly engaging posts. If he has not been engaged by Penshoppe yet, he could be a potential brand influencer for them in future. 

Users such as John Karl Ramos can be classified as micro-influencers. Micro-influencers are not necessarily celebrities but they do have quite a large number of followers who enjoy their content. They are also usually popular within a niche community or market.   

Other than celebrity endorsements, it would benefit your brand to source for micro-influencers who may have gone other the radar. This can also be done on Meltwater’s Social Influencer tool, where your brand can source for influencers within different markets.

The fashion industry is currently saturated with different players from small online startups to giant global conglomerates. To stay ahead of the game, you need to take note of your share of voice within the industry to know where you stand against other competitors, be it local or international. 

Figures 3a and 3b present Penshoppe’s share-of-voice as compared to other promising local brands (Kamiseta, Bench and Bayo) as well as more recognised international brands (Uniqlo, Forever 21 and H&M):

Figure 3a: Share-of-Voice with local competitors (Jan-Mar 2019)

Figure 3b: Share-of-Voice with international competitors (Jan-Mar 2019)

As compared to other Filipino fashion brands, Penshoppe has a much larger market share of over 50%, implying how it is doing well amongst local players. However, as compared to global brands, Penshoppe loses out to H&M Philippines, despite owning a notably large share-of-voice. 

To further understand how their competitors are performing online, Penshoppe can observe their social media strategies, such as who their influencers are or what their latest online campaign is, through social listening. Identifying trending topics concerning your competitors would also give you an idea of what appeals to customers in relation to other brands. 

For instance, H&M Philippines poses as a strong rival to Penshoppe. Using Meltwater, we could track the trending themes of H&M Philippines’ social coverage during the first quarter of 2019 to find out what has been driving the brand’s popularity: 

Figure 4: Trending themes of H&M Philippines’ social coverage (Jan-Mar 2019)

“Nadine Lustre”, “H&M Swim Essentials” and “Swim Essentials” can be seen to some of the more prominent keywords for the brand during the first quarter.  Recently, H&M Philippines had launched a new swimsuit collection together with Filipino actress, Nadine Lustre, and the traction in these keywords imply how highly received the collaboration was. 

Hence, social listening lets brands such as Penshoppe know what marketing strategies their competitors are currently engaging in, what new products they are launching and how their strategies performed online. They can also see who their competitors’ newest brand ambassadors and influencers are.

4. Stay up-to-date with the latest trends

Trends come and go in the world of fashion. An item of clothing can go out of style within a few weeks or even days. Thus, fashion brands such as Penshoppe have to keep up with the latest trends and know what’s in and what’s out. 

Tracking and anticipating trends online can be challenging, considering the millions of social conversations happening at the same time. But with social listening tools such as Meltwater, Penshoppe can create multiple specialised Boolean searches for different categories of clothing. They can also further categorise the searches by markets or countries to understand how fashion trends differ across regions. 

For instance, let’s look at the category of denim products. 

A denim search on Meltwater could look something like, where different denim items are taken into account: 

Meltwater can then present  the trending topics for the search, as well as, show which topics are continually showing up over time:

Figure 5: Topic momentum for Denim from March to April 2019

The term “shirt” can be seen to have gained a 92.52% increase in social volume from March 2019 to April 2019. This could possibly indicate a rise in the popularity of denim shirts. 

Thus, social listening can allow your brand to anticipate trends and get a head start in updating your current product portfolio to tailor to these latest changes in consumer preference and taste. 

5. Track your campaigns and collaborations

Many fashion retailers such as Penshoppe are active in organising collaborations and campaigns with artists, designers, entertainers or even popular TV programmes and movies. Most of these collaborations are around for a limited time only and usually make a comeback in the following year. 

Other than monitoring social coverage of your regular clothing lines, your brand should also observe how well your current collaborations and campaigns are doing. Such insights can help your brand decide if you wish to continue or repeat a present successful campaign in future or assess why certain campaigns were not well received.   

Penshoppe, for instance, offers a variety of exclusive graphic T-shirt collections in collaboration with other brands and designers. One of them is a collaboration with the cartoon series, We Bare Bears which was first launched in November 2018, and made a comeback again in April 2019. 

Using Meltwater, Penshoppe can track the online social media coverage of the collaboration: 

Figure 6: Social coverage of Penshoppe x We Bare Bears collaboration (Nov 2018 – Apr 2019)

It can be observed that there was a high traction in social coverage in November 2018 when the collaboration was first launched. However, when the collaboration was launched again in April, it can be seen that the volume of social coverage was not as high as the previous period. Thus, Penshoppe could review their marketing strategies for the April 2019 launch and find out why it did not perform as well as in November 2018.

As collaborations and campaigns are common for fashion brands such as Penshoppe, it is essential to keep an eye on how each of them performs to know where you should be shifting your resources to. Media intelligence tools like Meltwater allow you to create multiple searches and hence, your company can create a search for each campaign or collaboration.  

As mentioned, social media plays an important role in any fashion brand’s marketing and business strategies. Being in the know of the latest fashion trends can be challenging if you don’t engage in the right tools to track influencers or monitor your social media hits. Just like Penshoppe, you too can uncover valuable insights on your fashion brand’s performance on social media, so that you never go out of style!

Want to find out how Meltwater’s media monitoring tool can help you create a compelling brand presence on social media channels? Fill out the form below!

How Penshoppe Can Leverage Social Media Based on Data

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]

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