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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

Connecting with influencers is a win-win! Influencer marketing helps to raise brand awareness and improve credibility by association with industry leaders. Through influencer marketing, we can connect with experts that have a large following and therefore reach. It’s important to tap into our influencer’s audiences as they are likely to be relevant to our brand.

Tip: Learn how Make-A-Wish America uses the Meltwater suite for their national communications strategies and PR campaigns.

How to start your NGO influencer marketing strategy?

First of all, using the leading Influencer Marketing platform Klear makes influencer marketing a whole lot easier!

Using the influencer contact database, we can search a keyword related to our industry such as “Non-governmental organisation” (NGO) and scroll through the different search results. We can also refine the influencer contact database search further using other filters to remove unwanted content. Results can be listed according to a specific date range, for example, if we wanted to find influencers that have written articles in the past month, then we can do so using the date drop-down menu. The influencer contact database tool allows it to be very easy to discover influencers we otherwise may not be able to find. It also saves us time that we would spend manually searching for influencers or waiting for word-of-mouth to take effect.

Don’t take our word for it, find out for yourself! We can dig deeper into the results by opening the influencer’s content and finding out what they’ve been writing about. This provides us with a great talking point when we do engage with our influencers – something that’s needed for relationship building.

With our influencer contact database tool, we can quickly find the contact details of influencers, and then the world is our oyster!

By clicking on the influencer’s name, the tool will bring up contact details including email, phone numbers, and social media profile pages, allowing us to engage with them in any way we see fit. With one-click access to contact details, we save time doing detective work on Google and social media.

Any contacts that we want to save for future influencer marketing campaigns can be added to a list, which can be filtered by location, beats and job roles. We can ultimately stay on top of our PR by sending out press releases to our selected contacts via the Meltwater media database. So we don’t even have to copy and paste details into a separate software, the platform does all the work!

To measure the ROI of our influencer marketing relationships, the influencer database tool measures key analytics such as open rate, click to open rate, and the number of contacts who have unsubscribed to the release. By giving us metrics and information on how engaged the recipients are, we can analyse the exact impact our press releases are having on our targeted influencers, which helps to improve our future influencer marketing strategy.

Who should we be following in the NGO space?

We used the influencer contact database tool to find 5 top people that have influence in the NGO sector. Get up to scratch with influencer marketing with our list of top NGO influencers to follow and connect with!

Duncan Green @fp2p
Duncan is Oxfam’s Senior Strategic Advisor, who writes informative blogs daily on Oxfam’s website, ranging from world inequality to critiquing a project proposal. With over 30k followers, Duncan is at the top of our NGO influencers list.

John Vidal @john_vidal
John is the Guardian’s Environment Editor, generating content regarding all things environmental. With many of his articles including charities and NGO’s, John has been placed in our top 5 NGO influencers list. Follow him and his community for a pick of environmental content!

Howard Lake @howardlake
Being the Owner and Publisher of UK Fundraising, Howard has accumulated a strong following through providing valuable content. UK Fundraising is a go-to guide for news on charity events, fundraising tips and advice, and forums.

Graham Walker @GW1962
Often writing about charities and NGO-related events for Johnston Press, Graham is one of our top influencers in the NGO segment. If you we want to read great content about important charitable events and news, Graham is our man!

David Leask @LeaskyHT
As the Chief Reporter for The Herald, David covers many topics including regional news, politics, and crime, with many of his stories including news and information about charities. As a result, David is one of our top NGO influencers so why not give him a follow?!

For tips on how to work with influencers effectively, check out our influencer marketing blog post.

Boost Your Influencer Marketing with Our Top 5 NGO Influencers

Top SaaS companies distinguish themselves by perfectly balancing innovation and utility. There's something original and surprising about what they offer, but it also makes perfect sense. What about their social media marketing strategy? How do they get their campaigns to stand out? Here we look at some of our favorite SaaS social media feeds. For extra inspiration, see examples of top social campaigns by nonprofits, healthcare, tourism, sports teams, government agencies, and television shows! And to up your social media game, let us show you what an all-in-one media monitoring, influencer outreach, social listening, and social management solution can do for your brand.

If you’re looking for some incredible marketing inspiration, look no further than the teams behind some of the top SaaS social media accounts online today. 

They excel at everything from storytelling to content creation to engagement and even throwing shade when the time is right. What makes the SaaS industry so great is that it’s relatively young and unbelievably competitive, meaning that there is no shortage of ground-breaking social experiments for us to learn from.

5 Amazing Examples of SaaS Social Media Accounts 

Quirky, fun, and incredibly entertaining, MailChimp might as well be teaching a master class in social media marketing.

It seems like every time I turn around their social media team is launching a new campaign—capturing the hearts of their audience in the process.

For example, MailChimp is used by thousands of small businesses around the world and so their team wanted to give back to those businesses during the holidays. That’s when the Small Business Saturday campaign was born. 

Mailchimp on Twitter: "Happy #SmallBusinessSaturday! Make sure you #ShopLocal today and every day.… "

Most brands would stop with a few Tweets, but MailChimp took it a step forward by creating personalized, custom GIFs of their employees, which they used during the campaign to respond on social media. 

Meltwater Social on Twitter: "With a sprinkle of magic that this time of year brings, retailers, small businesses, and brands have the ability to stand out amidst all the noise. https://t.co/ieYnRdVzmA cc: @Mailchimp… https://t.co/N2sIFF9wOR"

InVision’s social media strategy revolves around design—providing consistently useful and educational content across their various channels. In doing so, they hold their own against design competitors such as Adobe and Sketch. 

Their content is shareable, easy to digest, and uniquely catered to the people who matter the most: customers.

If you focus on posting great content every single day, the engagements (likes, comments, shares, and clicks) will naturally follow.

InVision on Twitter: "⚡️ Want to learn how to spin plates in #InVisionStudio? Take a look at @MarthaABerg's fall-inspired prototype PLUS learn how to recreate it:

👉 @Dribbble shot: https://t.co/3PBrQdZmH5
👉 Full time-lapse: https://t.co/O6CJZxW7Xr
👉 Tutorial on @Medium: https://t.co/GF5EugTDq0… https://t.co/lUbCGCTD62"

I like to think that great content is at the intersection of educational and entertaining.

In other words: edu-tainment. Aim to create content that’s both entertaining and educational, and you’ll be on your way to social success.

One brand that isn’t afraid to march to the beat of their own drum is Wistia. 

Everything from their social media account cover photos to their captions and content is shared in a way that shows off their one-of-a-kind brand personality. Not only does this set them apart from other SaaS brands on social media, but it gives their audience a reason to come back and engage on a regular basis. 

Take the Wistia “One, Ten, One Hundred” marketing campaign, for example. This idea originated from Wistia’s constant questioning of “marketing norms” and their quest to do things differently.

Wistia on Twitter: "And we’re live! 🎉 Our first-ever, four part original series, “One, Ten, One Hundred” is now officially streaming. Watch the full series today! https://t.co/qGWoyqcjEh… https://t.co/OUpZ0X2yY4"

One big challenge for brands today is carving out a niche in a never-ending stream of online content. 

That being said, Wistia proves that you can still build a strong brand following on social media by humanizing your content and cultivating a brand personality that people can relate to.

The thing that makes Intercom so inspirational is their attention to the visual aspects of their social media accounts.

Everything from their cover photo to individual Tweets are designed to reinforce their overall brand. They don’t miss even the smallest of details. 

Take, for example, their use of the Twitter account cover photo in what is a creative visualization of how their product works:

Using visually appealing graphics such as this might seem like “too much” to invest in as a SaaS brand on social media, but Intercom has proven that it’s well worth the investment, surpassing 100,000 monthly users as of February 2017.

Intercom on Twitter: "5 tips for using chatbots and targeted messaging this holiday season to max out your sales revenue. https://t.co/hDPjl5Ngfz… https://t.co/YPnCpsOu6I"

In a world where stock photos are the norm, breaking out with your own unique visual style might just be the boost your brand needs.

The more brands can get their audience actively involved on social media, the better their results will be. 

When it comes to activating an audience, Trello is one of the best in the business.

Recently, Trello launched a brand new campaign called #WhereITrello that asks their community to share photos and stories of where and when they use the Trello product.

Trello on Twitter: "We're launching a new series and you're all a part of it! Announcing #WhereITrello — Post a pic of Trello on your desk, farm, rug, wherever you work and tell us your Trello story using the hashtag #WhereITrello for a chance to win limited edition swag every week!… https://t.co/ONzZ4C6wvE"

Since the launch of #WhereITrello, the hashtag has been used more than 1,000 times across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram making it an instant and smashing success. 

The industry might be young and highly competitive, but there’s no shortage of SaaS social media accounts showing us all how it’s done.

To up your social media game, let us show you what an all-in-one media monitoring, media outreach, social listening, and social management solution can do for your brand. Fill out the form below and we'll be in touch.

5 Examples of Outstanding SaaS Social Media Accounts

PRWeek and Meltwater recently hosted an exclusive event at San Francisco’s EPIC Steak. 

Featured in this post are the highlights of a fireside chat between PayPal’s Amanda Coffee, one of PRWeek’s Women to Watch 2019, and Gideon Fidelzeid, managing editor of PRWeek. 

Coffee manages PayPal’s global corporate media relations as well as executive visibility projects for the CEO and CFO. She also supports programming for 10 social media channels. She shared a number of insights into AI and machine learning that PayPal currently benefits from. The global payment processor has become more prominent in AI since its 2018 acquisition of Jetlore, an AI-powered prediction platform for some of the world’s top retailers, including Nordstrom Rack, Uniqlo, LG, and eBay. Highlights and excerpts follow.

“The place we have the biggest wins with AI is in our risk portfolio.”

PayPal’s recent investment in companies and technologies that allow users to unlock the benefits of the digital world are already creating value for the company and its users. Coffee contrasts today with several years ago when people were commonly flagged for unexpected, big-ticket purchases. “Our data scientists wouldn’t let those go through. The algorithms weren’t sophisticated enough. Instead, they suspected the buyer of being a fraudster. Today, AI and technology can open the door and see things more comprehensively.”

AI’s role as consumer facilitator and security fail-safe

Customers want PayPal to know who they are when they contact the company, and AI allows customer service to do a better job of putting the pieces together. Security may be less intrusive, but AI is powerful enough to inform PayPal of when to step in and require more of the customer. Coffee says, “We have a new chatbot technology, and it’s smart enough to tell me when I have to supply a social security number versus allowing me to simply check something. So we often push our prospects and customers to chat.”

Using AI to turn customer data into smoother, safer commerce

Coffee spoke to the importance of regulation in technology and finance, and acknowledged the role PayPal plays. “One of our most winning recent acquisitions is this new tool called RegEd Tech. Regulation is really big in technology. It’s one of our key differentiators and why merchants want to work with us. If you’re in eCommerce and you want to start selling in Ukraine, for instance, there are all kinds of regulations you have to adhere to. That’s not something as a merchant you want to take on. AI helps us take all that data and synthesize it, look at the merchant and where they want to sell, and help them navigate that regulated environment.”

Transitioning from an audience of millions to a million audiences of one

PRWeek’s Fidelzeid noted that PayPal appears to excel at gaining a deep understanding of the individuals that use their platform—the holy grail for every brand. Addressing this high level of personalization, Coffee contrasted the present with the past. “Credit is the most powerful part of the business for how we understand our customers. If you think back to 100 years ago when you wanted a loan, you would go to the only bank in town. That one lender would dictate whether you got a loan or not. Even 50 years later, they might have some data, but the customer didn’t have transparency into the decision-making process. Now, due to technology like AI, a customer really feels like we’re seeing them in full. We’re seeing all of them.”

“Our credit product isn’t based on a FICO score, it’s based on your relationship with PayPal.”

Coffee spoke of a longtime PayPal customer short on capital looking to expand her afterschool business. “She just didn’t have that US$5,000 in disposable income she needed to switch her lease and move. In a situation like that, we can look at her history and use AI to determine that she really does have a healthy business and give her the benefit of the doubt. AI allows us to open the door and see things more comprehensively. It gives us more insight into the future.”

Optimizing video on social media for a greater return on investment

Journalists at Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal aren’t always focused on the same things PayPal wants to talk about, so Coffee’s team went elsewhere to tell their stories. “We talked to channel owners like Facebook and LinkedIn, and they steered us to video. Afterward, we had people listen to all of our podcast episodes and rate when they were the most and least engaged. We then took all of our data and put AI to work synthesizing it.

“We learned that when the questions were too long, people trailed off. We also learned that people aren’t used to being on Facebook for 20 minutes at a time. We were able to report that we tested using unbiased data and it returned these results. This makes it really helpful to manage across the organization.”

AI’s personalization paying off in greater loyalty and sales

Coffee confirmed that last year PayPal went on an acquisition spree and acquired four companies in six weeks, one of which was their biggest acquisition to date. “What’s interesting is they’re all focused on achieving the same thing. They’re all tools for merchants. Because a lot of our merchants told us, you guys know AI and risk and payouts, this really helpful when doing business in Europe. They said you know this better than we do, and we’d rather just have you deal with it.

“Our new acquisition Jetlore is a technology that uses AI for big merchants like Nordstrom Rack and Uniqlo to make extremely personalized decisions. Merchants and customers really appreciate that personalization, which leads to more loyalty and sales. If you’re a small merchant, that’s not something you can easily buy. Instead, we’re able to give this really valuable AI-powered technology to our merchants as an added bonus.”

In response to a question from PRWeek’s Gideon Fidelzeid about the conversations she has with her CEO about AI, Coffee says, “What’s interesting about anyone who works with the CEO is they’re always thinking five, 10 years ahead. And based on our M&A activity, we’re really investing in AI. When you watch our CEO Dan Schulman’s podcast, you’ll notice it’s built around the key tenet of Krav Maga, which holds that if you stand still, you’re waiting to get hit. 

 “In business, if you’re not evolving, you’re inviting someone to challenge you. Fintech is a huge market. There will always be winners and losers, and the winners are going to be the companies that really invest in technology and care first and foremost about their customers. And customers want personalization, which is powered by AI.”

The question above from the audience struck a nerve with both Fidelzeid and Coffee, with the latter noting that “This is a question people feel they can’t ask, but it’s a top-of-mind question at PayPal, because so many people are involved in operations and customer service. And yet, the way the smartest people in our organization answer it is to point out that AI can only go so far, and benefits so much from human oversight.”

Fidelzeid observed that it’s a question born out of fear, understandably, but expressed his belief that AI is only a tool. Added Coffee, “And it’s a really great tool. It helps communicators a lot. But one thing that always fascinates me is that events like this one today are often extremely popular. And that’s because, at the end of the day, public relations and communications is still at its heart a very people-driven business.”

AI in Communications: A Peek Inside PayPal’s Playbook

Cultivate Social Communities | The First C

In our social media blog series digging into The 4 C’s of Social Media Marketing, we’ve discussed social listening as the foundation of a strong social strategy.  Once that strategy is set, campaigns come to life, your brand will benefit by engaging target social communities in conversation, rather than broadcasting a message at them.  Content that goes unshared is lonely, long-format advertising.  Remember, the number one goal of any social media marketing manager is to inspire word-of-mouth buzz and to help grow your online communities on the side. 

With that framework in place, we can now dive into the first C: social communities (also known as social networks).

Social Communities are the New Target Audience

Those of us who grew up steeped in traditional PR and advertising principles (read: those of us who remember life before the 90’s) weren't plagued by constantly chasing engagement figures. We started at the basics and learned that any successful campaign has three components: a target audience, a message, and a channel.

Once we move from the one-way message of monologuing to the two-way conversation of social dialogue, our target audience becomes a target community and we provide them with more value.  Like advertisers, marketers can qualify communities with standard demographic and psychographic filters (e.g. name, age, gender, interests).  However, the nature of social media is that communities can also be evaluated by their member relationships, behaviors and profiles and extended network.  With this insight, marketers can determine what content they create that engages community members, and who the influencers are within that platform.

An audience, by definition, is a group of people who witness something.  A community, by contrast, is an interconnected group of people who participate in something together.  This is where we clearly see the difference: a monologue marketing campaign aims to influence individual audience members directly, whereas a dialogue marketing campaign aims to influence community members collectively by sparking conversation. We encourage you to explore the latter. 

Find the Influencers in Social Communities

Both audiences and communities are made up of people.  Evaluating communities as a sum of individuals allows us to examine participation and influence beyond the single target community into the other social communities where an individual may be a part.  The ability to spot and engage the most influential members on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram (for example) is one of the big advantages marketers have over advertisers, and it’s why social analytics should focus on actions (shares) rather than intentions (impressions) - to benefit everyone involved.

Finding your influencers is much easier to accomplished with the right tools.  Community management has gone from the eBay model of activating an existing pool of people, who chose to engage on your message boards or with your service, to actively prospecting influencers within both your industry and within your frame of influence, whether or not those people have already engaged with your brand.  Having sophisticated community management tools gives the social media marketer an efficient, scalable way to build strong social communities around specific campaigns, topics and other criterion and to contribute to relevant conversations.

For more on building strong social communities, download The Four C’s of Social Media Marketing

Social – members interact with one another

Collective – members share a common interest

Credible – members share a foundation of trust with one another

Collaborative – members want valuable content to share, and will respond in kind

Spark Conversations in Social Communities with Content

In our recent SXSW wrap-up post measuring social media brand effectiveness, we noted the success of the Grumpy Cat campaign sponsored by social media publisher Mashable.  The cat’s appearance and consequent domination of social chatter was a great example of marketers knowing their audience – and in this case, that audience was a vibrant community.

The Internet loves its feline memes, and a picture really is worth 1,000 words.  Mashable set up a tent where people could come to take a photo with Grumpy Cat at a conference drawing 25,000 attendees, self-selected as both tech-savvy and tweet-ready.  By leveraging Grumpy Cat’s online popularity in person (in the fur?), Mashable gave the technorati a valuable piece of personal content to share on social channels and hijacked the social buzz, making Grumpy Cat was the most talked-about attendee of the entire show.

Mashable crafted its social marketing campaign with a target community firmly in mind.  Everyone who attended SXSW is a potential Mashable reader, and a large percentage of attendees are motivated to demonstrate their position on the bleeding edge of digital by sharing hot interactive trends.  In planning a campaign that would delight, engage and inspire this  community to share, Mashable demonstrated that cultivating strong social communities can really be as easy as flying a cat to Texas – and hey, cats fly free when accompanied by a human.

Social Communities | The First C of Social Media Marketing

Education and nonprofits often feel that their limited resources shut them out of innovative marketing opportunities. But having a strong community and strong mission opens up possibilities with influencer marketing. When you're ready to implement an influencer program that'll work for you at any budget, we have the guide.

Although much of the influencer marketing conversation centers around consumer brands and their partnerships, influencer marketing is also a valuable lever for not-for-profit and higher education organizations, especially when they inspire micro-influencers within their networks.

One organization that does an excellent job of enabling passionate advocates to get involved and spread the word about their organization is charity: water. They fulfil their mission to bring clean and safe drinking water to people in developing countries by encouraging everyday people to create giving campaigns in their name. This has resulted in couples raising funds in lieu of wedding gifts, to children asking for donations instead of dolls, to YouTube influencers celebrating follower milestones.

Social Media Can Build Awareness that Leads to Action

Another organization with passionate followers actively sharing the organization’s content on social is the Best Friends Animal Society. With over a million Facebook likes, and almost 200,000 Twitter followers, Best Friends does a great job of engaging with community members and making it easy for them to take action. This level of social engagement has, in turn, led to attracting the attention of pet-loving social media influencers, including one very popular french bulldog, Walter Cronkite, who threw a fundraiser for his birthday.

“I created a special hashtag for Walter’s birthday (#WaltersCheesyBday – ’cause he loves cheese!), and let our Instagram friends know that, for everyone who posted using the hashtag, I would be donating $1 per post to Best Friends, up to $100,” says Walter’s mom Carrie. “Much to my surprise and joy, not only did people post like crazy, but some even offered to MATCH my donation! The posting window was 24 hours, and we raised $636.00! Not bad for a spontaneous fundraiser.“

It’s interesting to note that this collaboration didn’t come about through outreach on Best Friends’ part—it was a byproduct of their overall community-building, influencer relations, and social media engagement. But they smartly noticed an opportunity to collaborate and further cultivated the relationship.

“This wasn’t an official collaboration, just something I decided to do completely off-the-cuff to celebrate Walter’s birthday,” says Carrie. “I reached out that morning to my friends at Best Friends letting them know what I was up to, and they were completely supportive.” In a continuation of this partnership, Walter and his mom partnered with Best Friends for their Giving Tuesday event, and have been actively involved in getting the word out about their 2016 Holiday Super Adoption.

GUYZZZ! my sassy playbuddy @rita_the_frenchie has ALSO offered to match donations today to @bestfriendsanimalsociety!! i'm so honored. this is the best bday ever. so happy to help all the animals in need! #WaltersCheesyBday 🎉

Although it may seem more difficult to appeal to an influencer without a big marketing budget or a sample closet at your disposal, there are a number of ways to identify influencers who will be open to partnering with you. Start by identifying influencers in your network, and creating low-time commitment ways for them to show their support. Amplify those efforts and activities conducted on your behalf, and create additional opportunities for these influencers to spread the word about your organization.

Even if your organization doesn’t lend itself to adorable instagrammable pets, if you’re regularly sharing your organization’s content on social media, it’s easy to start identifying influencers within your network.

“I work across several social media platforms and use tools to privately tag various groups of our constituents, including different types of influencers,” said Christina Sponselli, director of social media at the University of California, Berkeley. “I also watch our audience’s interactions with posts and our alumni network, which we’ve developed in-house.”

Sponselli and her team recently concluded a successful 24-hour fundraising campaign, Big Give, that used social media channels to drive over $11 million in donations. Key to this success was a highly-engaged community that was nurtured over time.

Get ready to join with other Haasies to change the world! Together let's go beyond ourselves and strengthen the student experience 💪. Give back on Nov. 17 #CalBigGive #Haasome

“We engage with them online, including resharing posts, privately and publicly messaging them, and we have a social media ambassador program, ambassador.berkeley.edu,” said Sponselli. “This program makes it easy for our constituents to share their Cal pride.”

Biggest thanks for your generosity and support in this year's #CalBigGive. Together we were able to raise over $1.2 million dollars for Haas. You've been able to prove once again that we are a dedicated community of doers committed to making BIG impacts. Thank you for making this a #haasome place to be!

With Meltwater's influencer marketing solution, you can identify social influencers based on their location, audience size, engagement rates, and audience demographics.

Using your analytics tool, take a look at your organization’s top twitter, Instagram, and Facebook mentions. If you see that mention has a significant amount of engagement, including likes/retweets, add the sender to your prospective influencers list as they have an audience that is shown to be receptive to content about your organization. LinkedIn doesn’t give you as much insight into how any one individual’s sharing of your content influenced the increase of its reach. However, LinkedIn’s profile inclusion of causes individuals are passionate about, and their volunteering history provides an opportunity to uncover supporters who have significant networks you may potentially be able to leverage.

A mix of in-person and online events and one-time volunteer opportunities are a great way to identify potential influencers within your network. That’s how Walter Cronkite’s mom, Carrie, got involved with Best Friends. “I was familiar with Best Friends Super Adoption events, and my friend @chloetheminifrenchie asked us to appear at their NYC Holiday Super Adoption in December 2015,” she said. “I love what Best Friends is doing—so many animals needs forever homes!—and was impressed with their hard work, dedication, and integrity. We stayed in touch, and they asked me to appear at and help raise awareness of their Super Adoption event this past spring as well.”

It’s likely that you have passionate brand-advocates-in-waiting already participating in activities related to your cause in the local community. By tapping into those activities and building relationships, you have an opportunity to work with influencers who will be eager to share your story.

“As far as pet influencers go, we are PASSIONATE about animals and committed to helping them as much as we can,” said Carrie. “Almost every friend I have in NYC contributes in some way to rescue organizations, whether it’s on a local or national level. We foster, we raise funds, we donate toys, we do as much as we can. When it comes to partnering with nonprofits, we definitely do our homework to make sure the nonprofit does everything they say they do. Plus, the social media pet community is very tight, so we can always get a reference. As far as pitching goes, I answer everyone who reaches out to me on social media. So long story short – reach out to us! We love getting involved!”

Higher education institutions have the benefit of a built-in community, but Sponselli notes that it takes a deep knowledge of that community to move them to action. “What are their interests and passions about your school? What school traditions resonate? Collaborate with your colleagues who meet with alums. Sharing information with one another is a great way to truly understand your alumni.”

Influencer marketing is an excellent opportunity to expand your organization’s audience and reach, while creating more content that engages the community. As you plan for 2017 marketing and communications activities, think about influencers in your network who could be future partners. By nurturing relationships with passionate fans and advocates, you significantly increase the chances of knocking your 2017 communications and fundraising goals out of the park.

No matter your mission or business goals, getting your audience involved in community activities is mission-critical in today’s business climate. To implement a robust influencer marketing program, download our Influencer Marketing Guide.

How Nonprofits Can Identify and Work with Influencers

We all remember the story about House of Cards – the big gamble that launched what would become a new powerhouse at Netflix: Original Content. The streaming giant purchased 2 full seasons of House of Cards in 2012 – a whopping $100M spend – without seeing a single episode. Instead, they’d looked carefully at data to determine how significant the audience was likely to be.

The company saw that fans of the original UK House of Cards also watched movies that starred Kevin Spacey and were directed by David Fincher, one of the show’s executive producers. Combining these elements with a stellar writing and production team created a recipe for success. The show immediately took off, with some indicating they would maintain their Netflix subscription for the sole purpose of watching House of Cards.

Now a major arm of its business, Netflix Original Content is heavily informed not just by its own user data, but by trends the team sees on social media, viewership in competing markets and predictive algorithms that draw correlations between elements of high-performing content – looking at combinations of talent, storylines, themes and directors.

According to Recode, today Netflix is worth around $140B, following a glowing Q4 earnings report in January that sent the stock soaring 42%. It’s now worth more than McDonald’s and GE, and is creeping in on competitors like Disney and Comcast.

The brand didn’t get here by accident. Every decision made at Netflix is deeply driven by data. According to a presentation by Jeff Magnusson, manager of data platform architecture at Netflix, and engineer Charles Smith, the brand’s data philosophy encompasses 3 key tenets:

1. Data should be accessible, easy to discover, and easy to process for everyone.

2. Whether your dataset is large or small, being able to visualize it makes it easier to explain.

3. The longer you take to find the data, the less valuable it becomes.

The team digs so far into personalized customer data that color breakdowns in cover designs for new original content are determined according to their impact on subscriber viewing habits, recommendations, ratings, and more. Everything is personalized, using their advanced machine learning to offer better recommendations and inform their own upcoming content.

With access to such in-depth data – both from existing customers and from reactions to what competitors are doing in the market – the Netflix team can ask better questions and make informed decisions, without using smaller focus groups and other previous forms of testing during the production stage. Instead they can rely on comprehensive data to inform every decision, large or small.

When they do user testing, the team goes big, often spending millions on a single experiment. According to Megan Imbres, Director/Product Creative at Netflix at the 4As 2017 Strategy Festival, CEO Reed Hastings encourages experimentation where everyone can learn something. “ If you think about it, all the time and energy you’re spending on testing – all the work that’s going into it with our data scientists – everyone is trying to read something. Something that I take to heart working at Netflix is really being able to take these big, aggressive testing swings in order to get that learning, get that hypothesis, and then taper back.”

Their first big original film, Bright, starring Will Smith, cost the company $90M and launched on the platform in December. The purchase of the film concept and subsequent marketing was completely informed by customer data.

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