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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

Picture a world where everyone on your public relations team has the information they need to be successful. Everyone has clear PR goals—and set timeframes for achieving them. They all track key performance indicators (KPIs) to calculate, quantify and optimize their programs and measure PR to prove its ROI. Everyone knows exactly where their projects stand.

This world is no longer a fantasy. But taking advantage of this brave new data-fueled world requires identifying the right KPIs, using tools that measure PR performance, then presenting results in clear, convincing reports.

It can seem overwhelming to zero in the right KPIs, gather the data you need to track them and show how your PR activities are contributing toward the company’s goals. Start by looking at your business goals, and breaking down what you need to do to get there. As you progress and compare metric results over time, you’ll gain significant insights into what’s working and what needs refining.

Four Steps to Align PR KPIs to Business Goals

Although the idea of setting PR KPIs can feel a little intimidating at first, it isn’t that complicated once you document what you’re trying to achieve with your external communications, how those efforts positively support your business, and how you can measure ROI from that support. We’ve broken down how to do this into four steps, with the questions to ask yourself along the way to identify your KPIs and public relations metrics.

As the saying goes, you can't manage what you can't measure. It's important to link your public relations goals back to the wider business goals if you're to have control over strategic elements that affect the direction of the general business. Furthermore, aligning what it is you do with that of the c-suite will help you get buy-in.

When identifying the business goals you want to influence with your public relations strategy, ask yourself, what measurable outcomes are your efforts designed to increase? Market share? Web traffic? Positive brand sentiment? Brand awareness? Attendance? Enrollment? Donations? Are you entering a new market or launching a new product? Or are you maintaining or growing an existing business and product line?

Decide what is your top measurable priority? Here are some ideas: 

Tip: Learn more about brand reputation measurement.

Now think about how your efforts in PR contribute to specific business goals through media outreach, awareness building, and customer engagement. For example, perhaps your brand has recently gone through a PR crisis and sales have slumped as a result. If your goal is to change brand perception and reduce brand reputation damage, you might want to tie this back to customer engagement. If you measure customer engagement and see it start to rise again, this would suggest your brand is recovering, plus, it has a more direct line to retention and sales - two goals the c-suite are likely to place a lot of attention on.

Step #4 Align Accomplishments to Business Value

How can you connect and calculate what you’ve outlined and measured above to concrete business value? Profit.

It's important to document what public relations can both do and measure and compare that to what the business is trying to achieve. This will help you decide which measurable KPIs are the most important.

For a simplified KPI example, using the above framework, let’s look at building awareness for your brand through thought leadership. You’ve identified specific themes to emphasize in your outreach. Your goal is to increase media coverage associating your brand for a thought leadership boost.

If you know from experience that it typically takes three interactions with a reporter before you get a reply to your pitch, and you typically need to reach out to 10 reporters to get a month’s worth of coverage, your monthly outreach quota would be 30 outreach attempts. If your hit rate gets better over time, and your goals stay the same, you’ll be able to lower your monthly outreach quota and dedicate your time and resources toward other KPIs.

In addition to internal KPIs, which measure how you are performing against yourself over time, you’ll also want to benchmark the results you found from PR measurement against those of competitors and aspirational brands. This is important as it gives you an accurate picture of the possible results a company in your industry can attain.

KPIs are worthless if you don’t have the right tools for tracking and measuring progress. The combination of tools that your communications and marketing team uses is known as your “marketing technology stack,” and choosing the right ones involves making big decisions. Historically, PR measurement was a difficult process, but thanks to advances in technology such as AI, machine learning and predictive analytics, PR measurement is no longer an uphill battle.

PR measurement tools, like Meltwater’s comprehensive media intelligence platform, will deliver the data you need to track essential metrics. As you dive deeper, you’ll want to get yourself familiar with the tools other departments are using and the overlapping goals that you are all supporting. This will help break down the silos between departments and allow you to offer a more holistic customer experience as a result.

Tip: Read our case study with The Direct Marketing Association that is using Meltwater to measure PR ROI to see the Meltwater PR Suite in action.

Shared Communications and Marketing Goals

The communications and marketing teams will likely have several shared goals, such as:

Generating, nurturing, and qualifying leads

Driving marketing-sourced or influenced revenue

Reducing sales cycles and increasing deal sizes

Retaining clients and building strong brand advocates

These are all things PR can influence and measure ROI from.

However, when you understand what’s important to your colleagues—and they better understand what’s important to you—you can then align KPIs accordingly and share the metrics you need to track them. For instance, PR might traditionally focus on media coverage and the number of brand mentions. But the modern PR pro understands the importance of measuring how coverage has both indirect and direct implications on leads, including generating web referrals, and SEO increasing domain authority. When the PR team demonstrates through clear metrics that they are supporting business goals in this way, it helps move PR from being a “nice to have” to a driver of business growth.

As you start measuring performance, you’ll want to determine an initial baseline number as the starting point for tracking each KPI.

This baseline represents the results you expect given normal operation. Instead of looking exclusively at industry standards, compare your latest monthly, quarterly, and annual results to your results from a similar time period. Choose whatever intervals make the most sense to your organization. As your results improve, you’ll want to push yourself to even greater heights—with the data to prove your results!

How to Measure PR ROI: Align KPIs to Business Goals

Social media is a great place to experiment with new messages. You can quickly gauge their performance and easily compare results. Experimentation should be built into any well-articulated social media strategy. But what about your brand voice on social? Can you experiment with it and push boundaries? Read on to discover how to negotiate the need to stick with brand guidelines and the need to experiment and evolve. Then read our ebook on creating great brand content for social.

What makes for an effective brand positioning strategy on social media? 

Many brands would say that it’s “following strict brand guidelines” while other brands would say it’s all about “being real” with your audience.

Truthfully, the best brands on social media utilize a combination of both of these strategies. And it wouldn’t be completely off base to assume that you follow brands purely for their entertainment value (I sure do). This makes finding the perfect ideal of being on brand and being real even more important.

Today we’re breaking down examples of authentic brands that seem to have found the right mix in their brand strategy on social media.

There’s little doubt that one of the most popular trends in social media today is brands being edgy and sassy, or as we like to say, being real. Edgy brands hook audiences by showing off personality and connecting with their audience in an authentic way.

While this strategy can be extremely effective for some companies in brand building, it can also be completely off-putting for others. The key is to know when, where, and how to use edginess to your advantage.

One brand that keeps it a bit more “professional” than Sticker Mule, but still succeeds at being real is Snickers.

They mix product promotion with humor and engaging visual content. Once Snickers has an idea for a campaign and they’ve planned out the content they want to share, they go all out. For example, perfectly timed Tweets with the Super Bowl: 

SNICKERS on Twitter: "This. Game. Is. Getting. Interesting.… "

Unfortunately, not every brand has a multi-million-dollar content and advertising budget like Snickers, but that doesn’t mean your brand can’t keep it real with a witty, well-timed content. All it takes is a little creativity and planning ahead.

A brand is much more than a logo, cover photo, or set of hex codes. Ultimately, a brand is how you make your customers feel. It’s a long-term investment that is built over many interactions with your audiences across various marketing channels.

Luckily, social media is rapidly changing and “being on brand” doesn’t necessarily mean being boring or stuffy. You can still generate awareness, manage brand reputation, and drive sales with brand-based content.

Professional, yet still fun, @burtsbees exemplifies what it means to build a brand (without keeping it real) in a purposeful way. 

We all know that social media algorithms play an important role in which piece of content gets shown to which user at what specific time. And we also know that engagement is one of the most important algorithm criteria. To be seen and heard on social media (organically), you need to create content that engages your fans.

The number of engagements on your social media posts influences the number of people who would see them.

Happy Valentine’s Day! Show your lips some love! ❤️ Are you rocking tinted or flavored Lip Balm today?
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#lipcolor #lipbalm #lipcare #tintedlipbalm #valentine #beemine #burtsbees

Burt’s Bees shows that the best way to stay on brand is to remain consistent across all of your social media channels. Reinforce your brand voice, values, and message via different types of content and content formats.

Like the talented creators and writers at Pixar once said, “Great stories are universal.” 

This can be applied to brand building as well. Brands that tell stories that are relatable by many different people, cultures, and backgrounds are the brands that are going to stand out.

For an example of this in action, look no further than Airbnb: 

Experiences | Travel Tips | Airbnb

Moving beyond basic accommodation bookings, Airbnb offered curated experiences that begged to be saved, booked, and shared. The success of this campaign was largely due to the story that Airbnb was and is telling about a human’s innate love for travel.

The captivating content extended across the company’s Instagram feed, Instagram Stories, Stories Ads, in addition to print, TV and other social media channels.

Whether you’re keeping it real or being on brand, at the end of the day, your audience wants to be entertained and they want to feel like they’re a part of a vibrant community. Social media monitoring and measurement tools can help you make sense of what audiences think about your brand and what actionable steps you can take to dramatically improve brand sentiment over time.

Being on Brand or Being Real: Which Is Better for Social Media?

As the market undergoes digital transformation, communication experts in the higher education sector are constantly faced with many challenges. That’s why we’ve turned to our clients in the higher education sector to share their best-practices and most effective communication strategies.

From alumni relations to internal newsletters and newsjacking: discover 8 effective communication strategies for the higher education sector!

Most educational institutions build strong media relations in the countries they are based in. However, it is also important to consider the local press in other countries or regions.

Every year, thousands of students come to the Middle East to pursue their higher education. Including international and other regions’ local media in your strategy is a great way to attract foreign students.

“Last summer we launched the Purple Canada Tour where students drove cross country in a purple van spreading the word about Bishop’s and doing random acts of kindness. With every stop, I’d use the influencer database to pull a list of local journalists, and then reach out to set up interviews. As a result, we gained exposure and brand recognition in cities that had never written about the university!” 
Chantal Sneath, Chief Communications Officer, Bishop’s University

Alumni are a strong medium of media coverage for educational institutions. Their work and accomplishments contribute to the overall reputation of the university.

However, its often a challenge for schools to maintain strong relations with their alumni and manually track their news features.

Many institutions use Meltwater to help them automatically pick up all articles which mention their alumni. Keeping the alumni informed of their press coverage can also become a new means of building a stronger Alumni relations strategy.

“Alumni are the university’s ambassadors to the world and it fills us with pride to track their news in the media in combination with the university’s coverage.”
Manuela Gutberlet, Public Relations Manager, German University of Technology in Oman

“I let our alumni know when their name has appeared in the media. If the coverage warrants it, I’ll put the link on Twitter. It’s all part of the brave new world of alumni relations!”
J. Michael Moore, Director of Media Relations, Emory University Goizueta Business School

Keeping track of such news also allows the school to relay important achievements of their alumni.

“One of our alumni became the President of St. Lucia, and we had absolutely no idea because he’s no longer in touch with the university. We learned of this through media monitoring, which was the only way we could have had access to the Caribbean publication that made the announcement, and then we posted the news to our social media channels!”
Chantal Sneath, Chief Communications Officer, Bishop’s University

Research published by schools is one of the most popular topics in the press. While each school has its own lines of research, the marketing team can collaborate with faculty to identify new angles of research in response to current trends.

“We are among a handful of schools that continuously innovate. We are proud to advance the field of education, particularly through the digitization of training and strengthening our international partnerships. We use Meltwater to identify possible angles for coverage, distinguish ourselves and stay in touch with our community. For example, we have seen marketing appear this year as one of the most influential topics in the online press.”
Boris Galinat, Head of External Relations, KEDGE Business School

The communication department must then work on promoting the research work of its professors, for example by identifying journalists who are interested in the topics researched and by personalizing their approach.

“I use Meltwater to find journalists who are likely to be interested in the research that I’m in the process of promoting. For example, I can search for journalists who are discussing particular antibiotics within their articles, and create lists of contacts for each particular field. I then create a bespoke pitch for each journalist.”
Clare Bebb, Media Relations Manager, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine

Finally, it is important to share the results of your campaign with the faculty, to both celebrate their accomplishments and to also help them understand the public opinion around their publication.

“Meltwater lets me share metrics on what’s worked for book promotions. I can use the success of one professor to guide the efforts of another. This allows me to reach out and give back to educators, so I’m not only going to them when I need something.”
J. Michael Moore, Senior Media Relations and Online Producer, Emory University Goizueta Business School

Newsjacking, or the art of utilizing current and trending news for promotion and increased visibility, also works in higher education!

By reacting to highly-discussed news, educational organizations can create a buzz around them in the media landscape. This can be done by publishing research related to the topic or by organizing an event.

“Presidential candidate Ben Carson was speaking nearby in Dayton. A former brain tumor patient of his is on staff here and we asked Dr. Carson if he’d like to visit. We used Meltwater’s keyword search to interest CNN, NBC, Fox News, and international media in covering the reunion. Footage of Dr. Carson at Cedarville University still appears on TV!”
Mark Weinstein, Director of Public Relations, Cedarville University

Some professors are recognized for their expertise in specific topics, and are regularly solicited by the press to give input on current events.

To shed light on the expertise of their faculty, some schools have created their own blog, where professors can express themselves and share their expert opinion and research. These articles are then taken up by the press.

“NSU teachers are often interviewed by the local, national and international press, but we are not aware of most of these interviews. One of our professors does media almost every day and is covered in top tier publications! Our monitoring allows us to identify and leverage this for major media attention.”  Marla Oxenhandler, Associate Director of Public Affairs, Nova Southern University

As a higher education institution, your social media accounts are not only followed by current students, but also alumni, prospective students, parents, journalists, professors and other educational institutions.
In short: a diverse audience! Which also means large numbers of messages to respond to, if you are looking to be able to satisfy them all.

Some universities successfully analyze their different communities, and which social media channel they are more active on. Once the different audience groups are identified, universities can build a social media strategy for communicating with each group.

“Becoming aware of our audiences has been a real issue in our digital communication. We were able to build our messaging on social media based on the different profiles of those who follow us. This has completely transformed our overall communication strategy and has ultimately allowed us to boost our reputation. INP Toulouse is now one of the top 10 schools active on Twitter.”
lorence Lauriac, Director of Communications, INP Toulouse

In the field of public relations, we are accustomed to speaking to journalists and influencers, so much that we often forget about the importance of internal communication.

Maintaining consistent internal communication allows you to keep all your employees informed of your work and the media coverage your university is receiving. It is also one of the most effective ways to showcase your efforts and achievements as a communications department.

A periodical internal newsletter could be the perfect solution!

“My internal stakeholders get this great looking, professional newsletter that makes them say, “Wow, this is impressive, keep this coming!” They see us as a trusted resource for delivering timely news, that’s such a positive thing for our department!” Mark Thomas, Communications Officer, Birdville Independant School District

The higher education sector is not immune to crises, which can be caused by many factors. It is therefore important to media monitoring and alerts that will help your organization in anticipating crises.

“We had an issue dealing with racist emails sent out to our student body, and we received the first alert at 10:30 at night. That initial alert allowed us to immediately research and do proactive damage control. Alerts help us calm fears by providing facts and approaching situations with a level head. The ability to receive alerts based on location and proximity to the campus ensures we’re the first to know if something big is happening.”  Nikki Sunstrum, Director of Social Media, University of Michigan

Boost your communication strategy with Meltwater

Whether analyzing your online reputation or finding relevant journalists for your upcoming campaign, Meltwater can help you achieve your communication goals.
Ask for a personalized demo of our platform and never miss anything that is said about your brand! Fill out the form and we will contact you.

8 Successful Communication Strategies for the Higher Education Sector

We’ve previously covered how Instagram is quickly becoming the darling social media channel for the PR set. That’s why keeping up with the best way to create content for an engaged and savvy audience on this channel is more important than ever. Although this post is a roundup of Instagram for PR updates in 2018, we thought it would be useful to highlight some of the new content types from the past few years with tips on how to use these features. Read on to keep your Instagram strategy current.

In May 2018, Instagram announced they were once again changing the algorithm. This time they are prioritizing newer posts. They’re using the following criteria to determine the post order on a given user’s feed.

Timeliness: Newer posts are given priority on a feed.

Interest: Instagram predicts how much a user is likely to care about a post based on past behavior. For example, if a user regularly engages with makeup tutorials, these kinds of posts will be bumped up.

Relationship: Like Facebook, Instagram wants to prioritize content from our close friends and family. Beyond Facebook connections, those who users interact a lot with through comments and image tags will be shown first.

Instagram for PR: What does this mean for PR Pros?

Choosing the best time to post and especially the best time to post on Instagram is more important than before. Older posts may not show up at the top of a user’s feed. Therefore, knowing when your audience is active on the platform is essential.

Additionally, the relationship aspect of the Instagram algorithm means that we should work hard to build bridges with our social media community to encourage engagement. If our audience isn’t interacting with our content, it won’t be prioritized on their feeds.

2018 also saw Instagram launch an in-app shopping feature for business accounts. As we're sure you've now seen, brands can now direct shoppers to their e-commerce storefronts without compromising on the time users spend on the app itself.

According to Instagram, when someone taps a tag on your post, they’ll see:

A link that takes them directly to your website, where they can purchase the product

One caveat, your account needs to be approved for shopping to use this feature.

Instagram for PR: What does this mean for PR pros?

This is part of a larger strategy to keep business actions on the platform. It’s move from a platform strategy that initially relied on discovery to one that supports actions. Beyond the shopping buttons, consumers can now Reserve, Get Tickets, Start Order, or Book through third-party partners without having to leave Instagram. You’re now able to get those leggings you’ve been eyeing to wear to that yoga class you’ve booked that is next to that juice bar where you’ve ordered a to-go acai bowl. You’ll need to consider a posting strategy that highlights specific actions you’d like yMake sure to coordinate strategies with them so your brand messaging and look remains consistent and your timing syncs up.

When launched, Istagram's carousel ads got all the brand excited - and for good reasons. These ads allow companies to utilize the carousel feature within Instagram Story ads. This 'new' look gives brands the ability to better blend into a user’s feed when they’re looking at Stories rather than a seeming “commercial” interruption.

Carousel Ads are one of the most engaging ad formats. According to the AdRoll group, AdRoll advertisers running carousel ads on Facebook saw an average of 20 percent increase in click-through conversion (CTC) rates and a 40 percent decrease in cost per acquisition (CPA) compared to those who ran single image ads on Facebook. 250 million users now engage with Instagram Stories every day.

Carousel Ads + Instagram Stories … you could be on to a winner!

Paid social is an important part of the media mix for any brand trying to get noticed on social platforms. Combining brand storytelling and advertising together requires working across teams to ensure messaging is in synch, well time, and continually monitored to optimize engagement and spend.

On July 22nd 2018, Instagram launched interactive questions stickers within Stories. This was the first time audiences could submit questions for an account owner to answer. For brands, this feature can be used to encourage additional engagement from your audience!

Take a photo/video or select the picture or video you want to use as a backdrop.

Add the questions sticker, customize the text and background.

Await questions and respond when they come in

Beyond the general “ask us a question” prompt, why not profile an employee or have an influencer come in and have a live ‘Q&A’ story session?

One of the best things about social media is having two-way conversations, so regularly using this feature to more explicitly encourage your audience’s input on your features or products can show them how much you value them.

Beyond making Instagram better for comms pros to engage with our community, Instagram is making the platform increasingly delightful for users with features like music stickers. Add a soundtrack to your post by searching for music within the platform, then layer that over your images or video, and include a ready badge of the artist and song.

Instagram GIF Stickers and Music Stickers

Instagram Stories surpassed Snapchat in 2017 with 250 million daily users in comparison to Snapchats 166 million. The likely reason for this is that Instagram keeps rolling out new features.

Beyond business-oriented features, they’ve added enhancements that compete with Snapchat’s signature playful stance. This includes the ability to add GIF stickers or a song with a Music Sticker to any Instagram Story. To provide a large library of GIFs, Instagram has teamed up with Giphy.

Why should you use GIF or Music Stickers in Stories?

GIFs and Music Stickers are a great way to engage with our communities since they’re fun and expressive. The novelty factor of this latest update is likely to increase the engagement of posts in the short run. In the long run, GIFs are likely to appeal to Millennials and Gen Z, as is pairing music with a great Story. Similar to emojis, this casual communication style will bleed over to use in a business context and you’ll soon see brands adopting their use to connect with audiences.

Taking a photo/video or select the picture or video you want to upload.

Select the GIF or Music icon. Both GIFs and Music have an in-feature search function.

Add the GIF or Music Sticker to your Story.

After you add them, you’ll be able to move, rotate, and resize the GIFs or the Music Sticker on top of your Story.

If you want to pin GIF stickers, tap and hold them. This will pin the sticker to a fixed space in a video.

Making brand messages resonate on social involves visuals. Instagram is providing tools to create dynamic videos that are ripe for experimentation. By mixing content types and showing us how layered, colorful, and–dare we say–delightful their new content types are, Instagram is sending PR folks a clear message. They are putting in the work for brands to create dynamic and actionable content. Think of creative ways to add discreet GIFs and tasteful, on brand music, to your Stories to see how your audience reacts. Don’t be afraid layer other features at the same time as your GIFs and Music Badges, include a location, hashtags, and @mentions. Maybe the sky isn’t the limit, but the “cloud” might be.

One of the reasons Instagram is-by far-one the fastest growing social media platforms is because the mobile platform is invested in supporting business functionality for brands and are consistently iterating on the platform and adding features that keep users coming back.

If you want a robust social media strategy that includes Instagram, (not to mention Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit,) then our Meltwater social media management platform can help.

Instagram for PR: Make the Most of the Platform Updates

Marketing statistics have an instant—and powerful—impact. They allow you to tell an expansive story in the smallest of spaces through easily consumable data. That's why they're an essential tool in the modern marketing and PR pros toolbox. Crafting data-centric brand stories are within your reach, start with using this handy infographic as a guide.

How do you captivate and appeal to an audience with an elusive attention span?

Supercharge your marketing with statistics and you’ll grab them with take-notice data! 

This infographic unpacks how to use metrics and data in a powerful way and harness the full strength of your marketing materials. Magnify the impact of your messages by adding statistics with authority. As PR and marketing pros, tapping into that extra bit of gravitas could be what is needed to break through the static to be heard. 

Places to find great marketing statistics include:

The Meltwater Blog

How to Measure PR ROI: Align KPIs to Business Goals

Being on Brand or Being Real: Which Is Better for Social Media?

8 Successful Communication Strategies for the Higher Education Sector

Instagram for PR: Make the Most of the Platform Updates

Infographic: Supercharge Your Marketing with Statistics

How to Ensure your Flexible Brand Voice Keeps Global Consistency

4 Traits of the Modern Marketer

The Ins and Outs of PR for Product Launches

The History of Public Relations

Top CEO Social Feeds: How to Keep Your Brand on Top

PR Tips: Taking Control of the Conversation in a Digital World

How to Use AI and Data for Supply Chain Risk