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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

Use Graph Search in order to find Pages that your brand can follow via Interest Lists.

When it comes to finding and targeting the right Facebook audience, the platform has a variety of tools to aid marketers. While quantity is nice, the quality is better: the end goal is to find an audience that finds your page, products and company interesting. An effective Facebook strategy is about identifying the right users and adding value so that these users then convert to customers and share your content with like-minded users.

Well, I’m a huge fan of Graph Search and Interest Lists. Interest lists are a great way for me to categorize different sorts of content on Facebook. I personally have lists that contain pages I like and lists of people that post about Social Media, music, Marketing, local news, sports and a bunch of other stuff that interests me.

Basically, Facebook Interest Lists are my map to the content I want to see on the platform. So, how do you build an effective Interest List? Well, it starts with Graph Search. With Facebook Graph Search it’s very easy to find new pages to follow, old and new friends, people with similar interests, new places to explore, and anything else that interests you.

Used together, Facebook Graph Search and Interest lists can help you find interesting content, engage with fans, find new fans and increase your reach. This is all done in three easy steps. Let’s hit it!

Let's start by searching for pages that you, your fans and your target customers are interested in. By searching for these pages we are aiming to understand what they’re posting, engage with their followers, and to expand our reach. Being a part of the Marketing team at Meltwater, I’m curious about what other pages our fans like. I start with a very simple search: “Pages liked by people who like Meltwater Group.” This search is a good place to start, but it’s quite broad. So, even though I find some pages that might be of interest to our audience, it’s time to narrow the search in order to find the gold.

Since we are a Saas company operating in the field of Online Marketing and Social Media Marketing, I’ll add an interest to the search. “Pages liked by people who like Meltwater Group and social media” is a better search. I found more relevant pages of interest to me, our fans and our target audience. This means I can now like these as the Meltwater page and increase brand visibility.

Here are some more examples of narrower searches that might be useful to you:

Pages that friends of your fans like -> Pages that friends of people that like <your brand> like.

Pages in a specific category -> Restaurants liked by people who like <your brand>.

Pages in a specific region -> Media/news/publishing pages liked by people who like <your brand> and who live in San Francisco, California.

Books that specific users like -> Books liked by people who like <your brand>.

Interesting Pages for your brand -> Pages that are of interest to <your brand> / <your competitor>.

Now that I’ve searched and found a couple of interesting pages, it’s time to add them to a Facebook Interest List.

First, I go to the page. The image on the right shows to click on the Gear Icon under their cover photo. Next, I click on 'Add to Interest Lists'. Here I can either choose to add the page to a specific List (if I have any set up) or I can choose to create a new one. For this example, I will choose 'New List' as this will be a separate one that I'll use to find relevant content, engage with users and identify users that have common interests that might be of importance to our brand.

In the pop-up box that follows, I’ll click on 'Next'. I will then give the Facebook List a fitting name and select whether I want it to be public, available to my friends or just available to me. By clicking on 'Done' I have now created my list and I can easily add more pages by visiting their Facebook page, clicking the gear icon and simply adding it.

Facebook Interest lists can easily be forgotten if you don’t get reminded to visit them on a daily basis. Therefore, by clicking the pencil icon I can choose to 'Add to Favourites' meaning I will see it to the left each time I log in on Facebook.

If you've followed the steps in this article, you now have a full Facebook Interest List that is full of insightful pages for you and your brand. So, what exactly can you do with it? To name a few: 

Be a part of the discussions that happen on posts by sending out valuable and engaging content as your company Facebook page. By showing your knowledge and adding value to the discussions, more potential customers will see your page, engage with your content and return to your page.

What is engaging your target audience? Are there any particular posts in your list that engage a lot of users? Do you have anything interesting to add on the subject? Post about the topic on your page, add interesting opinions and see how potential customers interact with the topic. This will allow for more informed and strategic Marketing and Facebook ads further down the line. 

By adding your opinions and comments on posts that your fans find interesting, you engage with your current fans and get the chance to find new followers. Be sure to use your opportunities wisely. Use this tool to understand current and potential audiences. Post smart and relevant content that is interesting to your current target demographic and analyse how they engage with it. 

So, there you have it: Facebook Interest Lists and Graph Search are two features that will help you find, engage and grow your target Facebook community. Looking for more audience targetting tools? In the last few years, Facebook has introduced capabilities in their ad manager to further aid marketers including: 

Do you use Facebook Interest Lists? What do you think of the steps given in this blog post?

Want more Facebook Marketing Strategy tips? Like us on Facebook!

3 Easy Steps to Using Facebook Interest Lists for Business

Digital footprints left behind on social are a hot topic of today. We’ve all heard horror stories about employers following our digital breadcrumbs to find out about the ‘real you’. While many wish for “world peace” on their job applications, photos of an applicant dancing on the bar looking more than worse for wear can communicate a different story. 

But is this the only impact social listening has had on HR?

Social Listening Offers Profiling Opportunities

Social Listening Facilitates Head Hunting

Social Listening Facilitates Employer Branding

Social Listening to Keep an Eye on Competition

When crafted appropriately, a candidate’s online presence can work in their favour. The HR departments are able to gain a more informed impression of a candidate before the interview stage, thus helping with the screening process. For the candidate, social listening and media monitoring provide customer profiling opportunities. For example, companies will be able to see if a candidate has shared industry news, engaged with industry influencers, or published blogs to demonstrate their enthusiasm and knowledge.

Social listening and media monitoring also deliver the added benefit of finding talent for a company. If we set up a keyword search for ‘graduates’, as an example, we can then discover new and fresh talent before our competitors in the industry. The early bird catches the worm, right? Inga Boesecke, Meltwater HR Director Europe explains, “Social listening and engagement allows us to identify potential recruits who are seeking employment but perhaps haven’t considered or heard of Meltwater. We are then able to connect with them directly and give real insight into Meltwater as an employer of choice”.

Now we come to the other side of the coin: not only do companies expect to see more of a candidate, candidates also expect to see more of a company. Social media offers a good opportunity for HR to increase employer branding. Online profiles can show how fun, challenging, and inspiring it is to work for a brand, as well as offering employees the chance to have their voices heard as advocates. By running a keyword such on a brand's name we are able to see both negative and positive comments from employees, thus helping to manage brand reputation. Check out our Meltwater recruitment video on Youtube!

Social listening and online media monitoring have also changed the way companies can keep an eye on the competition through competitor monitoring. A well-established social listening and media monitoring search can help an organisation keep ahead of the curve on developments in the industry and in particular the big players within it. Nowadays we can find all vacancies adverts online; a quick search on a competitor enables us to see:

Where our competitors are recruiting. 
This gives a good indication of their expansion plans

Roles our competitors are recruiting for. 
If we know they are recruiting for a number of R&D jobs we then know new product development is on the way so that we can prepare for this and adapt our strategy accordingly

Hopefully, by now you have a better understanding of how social listening can be used outside of the PR and marketing department. 

4 Ways Social Listening has Influenced HR

A PR team has insights into the trends that face their company's brand, this is no more evident when faced with a crisis. Suddenly, the daily work of brand monitoring and social listening becomes indispensable.

Your PR team will spend much of its time on social media monitoring your image and brand name. The average business will spend 11% of their budget on social media marketing alone this year. The power of PR has the potential to completely reinvent your brand image.

It can help you win back unhappy customers and repair your company image when it’s in the doldrums. This guide is going to show you five of the reasons why you should be listening to your PR team.

Tip: Check out these massive PR trends you should be aware of in 2022!

Making ill-timed remarks can back you into a corner, leaving you on the defense. Businesses are never going to feel comfortable in this position, and your PR strategies are not going to cater to it. The PR professional will help you to get out of this corner and stop you from being on the defensive.

You have to work with them if you’re going to get through a crisis relatively unscathed. They’ll also act to stop them from happening in the first place. The fewer controversies associated with your name the stronger your reputation is going to become going forward.

Your public relations team will help you to eliminate any inconsistencies within your messaging. Once you say something your PR team is going to act to make sure your meaning isn’t obscured anywhere along the way. A misinterpreted comment can do a lot to deflate your company. Boost team morale by making sure your PR team is ensuring the right message is getting across.

The danger with the Internet these days is your words can be misinterpreted. Even perfectly innocuous comments can be taken the wrong way, whether unintentionally or maliciously. Getting your message across with the help of your PR team will stop this from happening.

Don’t Let Negative Momentum Wash You Away

Take a look at Donald Trump for a master class in how to stop negative momentum from washing you away. Negative press can build and build until the pressure becomes too much and your company’s reputation is left in tatters. Donald Trump might be able to get away with it, but it’s far from an ideal situation to be placed in to begin with.

A solid PR team can make sure the news coverage you’re getting is leaving the right impression on the audience. They’ll make sure your name is being built based on substance, as opposed to a PR stunt that left you with a few minutes of fame. PR specialists will hold you to a higher standard that will preserve your reputation in the long term. These are the best reputation management companies to help you with that.

The biggest misconception marketers have is that all press is good press. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Even the greatest marketer can’t spin absolutely everything into something positive. There are many figures in the business world that have said the wrong things at the wrong time and found themselves unable to cope.

Believe it or not, the best press is the inane press you find in the business pages. Controversy can work for you, but you never can tell which way it’s going to go until it actually happens.

Your PR team will stage manage exactly what you’re saying to make sure you’re not making any big mistake. They’ll allow you to present the vision and goals of your company without burning bridges.

A lot of figures outline their views and get in the news all the time. Not all of this coverage is necessarily contusive to achieving an end goal. The fact is the press time you do get should be used to contribute to your long-term future. There’s little point in wasting your marketing content on something that isn’t going to lead to a better company in the long-term.

The goal of any PR team is to make sure your marketing material is consistent with your views. The last thing you want is to have lots of content that says entirely different things. Mixed messages are an easy way to confuse your customers, and it’s unlikely to lead to any sales.

Your PR team doesn’t have to be a huge team that eats up most of the company’s budget. A single PR specialist can help you to fine-tune your marketing strategy so you know you’re hitting the right people. Getting this right will ultimately be a boon for your company in the long-term.

A big part of managing your reputation is in the case of possible crisis management. Hopefully, you’ll never need it, but the time to prepare for crisis, is before it hits. To always be prepared, download our free ebook, Media Intelligence for Crisis Communications.

We originally published this post to our site on August 19, 2016. On Saturdays, we republish content, in case our readers missed them the first time around. This article was written by David Wither from Business2Community and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.

5 Reasons Why Your PR Team Could Save Your Company’s Image

After all of the changes LinkedIn has made to groups, it’s no wonder LinkedIn users and social selling experts are questioning the value of LinkedIn groups for sales and marketing programs. It makes you wonder if LinkedIn groups will experience the same fate as Google+ Communities, deserted after members go elsewhere for relevant discussions and cutting-edge content?

LinkedIn groups began as forums centered around communities asking and answering insightful questions to learn from each other. With the rise of content marketing, many zealous marketers began clogging the stream of the discussion with self-promotional links to landing pages, white papers, and webinars. Unmoderated groups morphed into spammy blog feeds with real discussions being buried. On the other hand, the best LinkedIn groups discovered how to moderate discussions, minimize spam, and foster on-topic discussions among members.

Social sellers started using LinkedIn groups as a way to spam group members with unsolicited sales pitches. They neglected to follow protocol: send a connection request, gauge the prospect’s interest, and then send an appropriate follow-up message. LinkedIn has addressed this issue by limiting LinkedIn users to a total of 15 free 1:1 messages per month. This dramatically slowed down the number of uninvited sales messages sent to group members.

Are LinkedIn groups still worth your time?

The LinkedIn groups user interface would benefit from a makeover, but LinkedIn groups can still be one of the best places to actively prospect, connect with like-minded professionals, and learn from industry thought leaders.

If you want to make the most of your groups, you should first identify the best LinkedIn groups for your goals, and then effectively navigate and participate in your high-value groups.

Participating in LinkedIn groups is one of my preferred ways to engage with prospects, industry peers, and subject matter experts. Because LinkedIn is a professional social network, interactions within LinkedIn groups are different than the more personal Facebook groups or casual Twitter chats.

Now that we’ve established the value in LinkedIn groups, here are my three best practices for using LinkedIn groups effectively, connecting with the right people in groups, and becoming a well-respected group member.

Become an active participant by sharing regular, relevant posts with your groups. To be considered a regular contributor, share a discussion with your groups every one or two weeks, depending on the activity level of each group.

I would caution you against using too much automation when sharing discussion. Avoid mass-blasting the same blog article, discussion title, and description to ALL of your groups. Steer clear of social scheduling tools and post discussions manually.

Personalize each discussion based on the focus of that LinkedIn group and the group members (seniority, subject matter expertise, industry). Follow each group’s rules before submitting a discussion.

Use the discussion area to ask questions of group members as a smart way to spark comments and learn from other subject matter experts.

Summed Up: Don’t post spam. Don’t post the same discussion in all groups. Follow the group’s rules. Stick to the subject matter of each group.

Visit each of your high priority groups on LinkedIn with the intention of commenting on others’ discussions on a weekly basis. Commenting within your groups is just as important as posting your own discussions. When you fail to comment on other group members’ discussions, your discussions often are ignored by group members. Group members expect each other to post relevant discussions and comment on discussions. It’s how a thriving community works.

When you do leave a comment, mention the group member (by tagging them with the @ sign) who posted the discussion. Then provide an insightful, unique point of view on the discussion. Generic comments like, “Awesome!” are worthless. And please do not use the comment box as a place for blatant self-promotion.

Monitoring your groups can take a good amount of time each week. I pick my top 8-10 groups and monitor these on an almost daily basis. As for my other groups, I subscribe to the weekly update email to ensure I don’t miss any relevant discussions.

Here’s how you can adjust your settings in each group to get the weekly or daily update email:

Summed Up: Comment regularly in your high priority groups while monitoring the others less frequently. Always provide value when you comment. Engaging with a comment is one of the best ways to support your groups.

Pay attention to group members—especially potential prospects—who are actively participating in groups and look for ways to interact with them inside the group and then connect with them.

A great benefit of LinkedIn groups is interacting with people outside your network who should become part of your network. Group members are able to search the group membership by job titles or keywords, which can help you find ideal prospects. Actively posting and commenting in your groups helps you gain visibility you would not otherwise have inside the group.

When you are an active group member, you will receive connection requests and LinkedIn messages from other members because you are regularly providing value to the group. I’ve made some of my most valuable professional connections from those within my LinkedIn groups because I am a visible group member, comment regularly, and follow up with those who comment on my discussions.

You can also take a more proactive approach to connecting with group members, but be cautious not to appear too eager to connect. The easiest way to make a connection (that I’ve found) is to comment on a trending discussion and then send a personalized connection request to other commenters. Active group members enjoy connecting with other participants. Win-win.

Be authentic. Look at the profiles of potential connections to ensure they are a good fit. Don’t send generic connection requests.

This article originally appeared in Biznology. This article was written by Mindi Rosser from Business2Community and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.

Are LinkedIn Groups Experiencing A Crisis?

Managing social media is an exciting job – I mean who wouldn’t want to spend hours on an X/Twitter account and get paid for it, right? Community management is both thrilling and challenging in equal measures. For every tweet or Retweet, there is both a potential for virality and failure - you just need to learn how to steer the odds in your favor.

Managing a corporate Twitter account requires a clear vision, thoughtful strategy, and dedication to be successful in keeping a brand in front of existing customers, whilst attracting new ones. We’re here to share practical tips on how to effectively manage a corporate Twitter account to ease the challenging aspects of the job, and endear you to your customers who are Twitter users.

1) Set Expectations for Content – and Follow Through

Amidst millions of social media accounts and billions of conversations taking place every day, getting our corporate Twitter account noticed can be challenging. Grabbing the attention of our target audience starts with establishing our social brand profile, which is achieved by constantly publishing what's relevant to our followers. Consistency helps us build a “routine” that helps our followers know what to expect from our account. Users tend to unfollow inactive accounts or accounts that tweet once or twice a week. Nothing can put potential followers off from following than a corporate Twitter account whose last tweet was published a week ago. Relevancy and consistency ensures followers are not confused and is essential to keep our audience engaged.

2) Keep the Content as Diverse as the Community

People that follow a corporate Twitter account are not only interested in company news, they’re equally interested -if not more so - in the brand story, product updates, offers, “how to use” videos and industry news. By taking a good look at our following base we will see that our audience can be segmented into subgroups, each having their own set of interests and needs. It’s important to tailor our content to meet the diverse needs and interests of our followers. Media monitoring tools with consumer insight reports such as Meltwater can help us understand the topics our followers are interested in and create posts that meet their interests. The analytics will show that engaging and tailored posts will directly and positively affect our bottom line at the same time.

There are times when it makes sense to split our audience into more than one account. Comcast did this early on with @comcastcares, which is specifically for customer service. This is a good way to put the needs of the customer first, as it serves a very specific function. 

There are many simple and perhaps common sense ways that can help drive our engagement level – yet, amidst our busy jobs filled with endless to do lists and deadlines we tend to forget them! In real life when we’re greeted by someone, we greet them back. So, why do we act so differently on Twitter when we have easy-to-access direct messages and replies? Social media shouldn’t be any different. When we receive new followers on any app, we can welcome them. We can ask them about their jobs and their interests so that we can get to know more about them. This does not mean that we should have an automated “thanks for following” reply – that’s a hollow welcome. Honest engagement requires real people acting like real people.

The great thing about starting real conversations is that we can get a good feel as to what our most engaged audience is interested in, and how to make their experience better. For example, we can ask them what made them follow us and the type of posts they would like to see.

The shelf life of a tweet is approximately 30 minutes. Levels of engagement change greatly depending on the time of day, however the “Always on” nature of social media – X, formerly known as Twitter, in particular –  means that we need to keep our accounts active at all times and engage with trending hashtags, whether they are corporate or personal. Media monitoring tools, such as Meltwater intelligence, can help us schedule tweets to ensure our account stays active, even during weekends or outside of office working hours. That said, scheduled posts only do so much. If our corporate Twitter account reads as though a robot is running it, that’s not going to get us honest engagement.

We don’t always have to initiate the conversation. Engagement is also achieved when we join a conversation that is already happening. For example, Meltwater decided to listen to the conversation following Zayn Malik’s announcement that he was leaving One Direction. Using our online Media Monitoring platform we created a heat map of the most engaged parts of the world. This heat map, accompanied with the trending hashtags, resulted in brand impressions tripling! Now, this doesn’t mean that we should capitalize on all social media buzz, we must be selective so that we benefit from trending hashtags and news that’s relevant to our brand. Hijacking news that our followers find offensive will obviously do more harm than good, proving that not all Twitter engagement should be celebrated.

Be sure to add images to tweets. A picture says a thousand words, after all. Adding images, infographics and videos to our tweets will encourage users to click through and engage with the content, and will make a first glance at our corporate Twitter handle a lot more compelling.

The 80/20 rule is a good one for X, formerly known as Twitter: about 80% of the content on our corporate Twitter handle should be about other people. RTing target influencer posts, for example, is a great way to engage them and to give great content to our own community. That leaves 20% of our content for self-promotion. This is where a great media intelligence tool comes in especially handy: understanding who matters within our community and what folks are interested in helps us engage our community and further our influencer strategy with one tweet. Understanding and meeting our audiences needs is what makes marketing such a crucial support to traditional advertising. 

Social media management is about more than simply being seen. It requires a deeper understanding of the social networks that matter to our brand and our audiences. As a marketer, you can tap into potential customers through brand awareness but the job of growing your Twitter followers is more complex. It involves offering real value, which is easiest to achieve with the right tools and insights. 

Pro Marketing: 7 Tips for Managing a Corporate Twitter Account

Once in a while a gem pops up on social channels. We've seen it before in the form of brands dissing each other or in this case, when brands chat on social media. Whether planned or by chance, these examples are social media wins for all those involved.

Social media is traditionally thought of as a brand-to-customer or customer-to-brand marketing channel.

But what happens when brands chat on social media? The past year has shown us how fun, engaging, and sometimes controversial it can be when brands start to converse on social media – pushing the boundaries of brand marketing with each post.

Here’s a look at some of the best and most controversial examples of brand-to-brand communication on Twitter.

MoonPie and Wendy’s are two of the most talked about accounts on Twitter today. Seemingly coming out of nowhere, their social teams have proven that you don’t need to be Nike or NatGeo to go viral.

MoonPie on Twitter: "Been working on a play all afternoon where everyone in the play is named MoonPie let me know what you think… "

One thing MoonPie and Wendy’s are doing particularly well is interacting with other brands on Twitter in order to spark conversation and engagement between two audiences.

In a recent AMA on Reddit hosted by Wendy’s, one user asked what their favorite Twitter account is (besides their own). Wendy’s responded:

Sarah Lathe on Twitter: "How does this make you feel, @MoonPie? Source: @Wendys AMA @reddit… "

Which then prompted this response from MoonPie:

MoonPie on Twitter: "Thank you @Wendys 😊… "

This simple Tweet received more than 250 Retweets, 6,200 Likes, and 47 responses. One user even mentioned that they began to follow the MoonPie account because of the shoutout from Wendy’s.

In this case, both brands showed just how fun and engaging brand-to-brand communication can be. This helped to humanize both MoonPie and Wendy’s through authentic conversation.

London’s Natural History Museum and Science Museum

When Bednarz O’Connell asked this seemingly innocent question, he sparked one of the greatest Twitter wars to ever go down.

Nick O'Connell on Twitter: "Who would win in a staff battle between @sciencemuseum and @NHM_London, what exhibits/items would help you be victorious? #askacurator"

Natural History Museum on Twitter: "We have dinosaurs. No contest.… "

Feeling like they weren’t going to be defeated, the Science Museum came back with:

Science Museum on Twitter: "@NHM_London is full of old fossils, but we have robots, a Spitfire and ancient poisons. Boom! #AskACurator… "

This continued for dozens of tweets and several days. Each brand showcasing why their exhibits are the best in London.

Natural History Museum on Twitter: "We have robot dinosaurs, Pterodactyls and the most venomous creatures on Earth. Plus volcanoes and earthquakes ... And vampire fish.… https://t.co/OZMssySdOe"

Science Museum on Twitter: "What about this merman & we do have a Polaris nuclear missile as Khalil says!… "

Many marketers would argue that getting into a Twitter war with one of your competitors is a bad thing. We beg to differ. In this case, the press and publicity generated was a win for both brands. Each kept the conversation PG and in good fun proving that brand-to-brand conversation doesn’t have to be negative.

Speaking of negative brand-to-brand communication, Wendy’s was back at it again with this tweet calling out their biggest competitor McDonald’s on a mistimed post:

McDonald's Corporation on Twitter: "Black Friday **** Need copy and link****"

Wendy's on Twitter: "When the tweets are as broken as the ice cream machine.… "

Wendy’s has earned the reputation as the “sassy” brand on social media and this post showed just how snarky they can be.

McDonald’s attempted to respond, but by then it was already too late:

McDonald's Corporation on Twitter: "When you tweet before your first cup of McCafé… Nothing comes before coffee.… "

The damage was done. The Wendy’s tweet engagement climbed up into the hundreds of thousands and the best McDonalds could do was watch it all happen.

SF Bart, like so many other brands these days, has grown their social accounts through quirky and brash tweets. This time, they challenged the LA Metro team to a Haiku battle:

SFBART on Twitter: "We challenge @metrolosangeles to a transit poetry slam. Haikus only.

Your move, LA."

SFBART on Twitter: "Believe it or not
There's a subway in LA
(Transit, not sandwich)

@metrolosangeles"

At first, LA Metro didn’t respond, but they finally decided to get in on the action by calling out the Golden State Warriors:

LA Metro on Twitter: "Seventy-three wins
This was your reality
Yet no ring to show

@SFBART #wewentthere"

A sensitive subject for lots of people in the Bay Area.

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