United States

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

Over 15 000 social media mentions on ‘#adidasxIVYPARK’ globally, resulting ina social reach of 146 Million people on 18 January 2020. That is just a quick glance at the impact that American artist, Beyonce, had when she launched her IVY PARK collection in collaboration with Adidas. Already, her name is a brand that easily sends her fanbase, affectionately known as the ‘Beyhive’, buzzing at the slightest peeks into her life. But with the launch of the much anticipated collaboration with Adidas, Beyonce’s marketing strategy extended far beyond just using herself as the face of the collection. 

Number of Social Reach vs Social Volume, Globally, on #adidasxIVYPARK [caption for the above image]

With the use of high-profile influencers and creating content that her fans continually engaged with, Beyonce relaunched her IVY PARK athleisure wear. It sold out in a matter of minutes. It trended on the day – all because her marketing strategy was designed in such a way that ensured this success. So, what can you learn from the Queen Bey? Let’s explore more.

Using the Right Influencers for Your Brand

As an industry that is set to reach $10 billion by 2020, influencer marketing is highly lucrative for any brand and business. While some fans would have wanted Beyonce to send press drops of her collection to loyal members of the ‘Beyhive’, there was a reason why celebrities and macro-influencers were used predominately for this campaign.

For one, celebrities and macro-influencers have a much higher follower – from 500 000 followers upwards – which increases the exposure that a brand receives when working with influencers like this. For a global launch like ‘#adidasxIVYPARK’, it makes sense to use some of the biggest influencers to not only create global exposure, but target their market in a way that was cost effective and would have a higher return on investment. From the Generation Z appeal that Zendaya has to Reese Witherspoon, who represents the modern working mother, reaching wider buyer personas through influencer marketing was made possible for this campaign, resulting in the collection selling out in minutes.

If you look at the Instagram post from Ellen DeGeneres below, her post received over 2 million views and over 260 000 likes – all of which are potential buyers. By using influencer marketing in this way, your chances of reaching a wider audience are greater.

Thank you, @Beyoncé. I love my big orange box. Your new clothes are really cool too. @WeAreIvyPark @adidas

Second, one of the social media trends on the rise in 2020 is the use of vertical video platforms like Tik Tok and Instagram Stories. More online users are consuming video content, and when it comes to vertical videos, the more followers the user has, the bigger the success in views and engagement. This proved to be true for the celebrities and macro-influencers used for this campaign.

From the Live video that Laverne Cox shared as she tried on clothing items, to the IGTV videos from Yara Shahidi, the combination of using vertical videos and top influencers resulted in an increased awareness on the upcoming collection, the brand trust being built throughout the campaign, and ultimately turning these viewers into buyers.

What can you take away from this? That no matter the size of your business, you can utilize the power of influencer marketing. Global fashion brand, Zara, localised their #DearSouthAfrica campaign by using about 60 South African micro-influencers to achieve their own success. If you know how to find the right influencers for your specific brand, you can achieve the same success.

Marketers know that with any campaign, you need to have a hashtag. They’re important for cutting through all the other digital noise that arises but also helps finding posts easier, particularly on social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram. This makes standing out of a digitally noisy crowd easier, which is exactly what Beyonce did. 

Trending Themes on #adidasxIVYPARK in South Africa [caption refers to the above image]

If you wanted to look for all the content that was coming up for the launch, but only typed the word ‘Beyonce’ in the search bar on Twitter, a variety of posts would come up, and you would have to scroll through it all to find anything ‘Adidas’ related. But because there was the branded ‘#adidasxIVYPARK’ hashtag, this categorised the content specifically to the clothing collection, creating a user experience where people interested only on the collection had an easy way of finding content for it. Hashtags like this also allowed for a community of people to come together and join the conversations on the hashtag, which then creates an engaged community.

BEYONCÉ LEGION on Twitter: "❤️🧡 #BeyHive! Reply to this tweet with your adidas x IVY PARK pics 🧡❤️

#adidasxIVYPARK… "

From a business point of view, using a branded hashtag increases your social media presence by making your content accessible to those interested in your brand. As social media users use hashtags to engage with each other, brands can do the same. If, for example, you use a media monitoring tool to help you discover trending topics, like #adidasxIVYPARK, you’ll participate in high-traffic conversations that lead to more brand visibility. And the more brand visibility you have, the larger the audience you reach which can then generate more leads for you.

Everyday, millions of content marketing pieces are being created. With that, the question becomes: how do you stand out? The answer? By ensuring that the content you create is valuable, relevant and connects with your audience. 

For Beyonce, the content marketing for her #adidasxIVYPARK collection already began in December 2019 for an interview with ELLE magazine. Not only did Beyonce wear clothing from the collection, but she answered questions that were asked by her fans, allowing her to connect with her audience while providing valuable and relevant content for her collection.

But, there’s more to her content marketing strategy:

If there is one sure way to grab the attention of an online user scrolling through Instagram, it’s  by using great visuals. Because people process visuals faster than text, our attention is drawn more to better looking imagery. 

Ivy Park on Twitter: "adidas x IVY PARK January 18 #adidasxIVYPARK  https://t.co/TnQqOEXquZ… "

Looking at all the images and videos that Beyonce released for this collection, you’ll notice two things:

That a consistent colour scheme was used. The warm, bold orange and burgundy colours compliment each other, and stand out against the white backgrounds on Twitter and Instagram, making these images more eye-catching on social media.

Hardly any text was displayed on the visuals, other than the IVY PARK branding. ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ and this was true for this campaign. As one of the 3 E’s of visual branding, the content created for #adidasxIVYPARK was easy to consume because there were very few words used and the images and videos were high quality, making it easier for people to share and engage with the content.

While Beyonce did create teaser images and videos during her ELLE interview and in early January 2020, once celebrities and macro-influencers received the collection, the online frenzy began as they shared their own images and unboxing videos showcasing #adidasxIVYPARK.

Media Not Found

#ivyparkxadidas street style so far ✨ ~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
#beyonce #beyoncé #queenbey #ivypark #ivyparkxadidas #adidas #athleisure #fashion #clothes #jayz #jayonce #thecarters #like4likes #likeforlikes #photooftheday #jayz #hov #hova #athletics #beyhive #beychella #newyork #la #australia #usa #adidasxivypark #athleisure #athleticwear

It was the images of these celebrities walking in the street or the unboxings that happened in their homes, shared all over Instagram and Twitter, that helped generate thousands of online mentions. By having these celebrities and macro-influencers create their own user-generated content, their global recognition gives brands free exposure as their content reaches audiences quicker.

While this was a global launch, there are aspects of this campaign that you can take away, localise and apply to your own marketing strategies:

Make sure you have the right influencer that are the right fit for your brand.

Use a branded hashtag to keep track of mentions and engage with your audience.

Have a killer content marketing strategy that incorporates visuals and user-generated content.

From finding Social Influencers to tracking mentions during your campaign, we have a solution for you: Check out Klear's leading Influencer Marketing platform.

3 Things to Learn from Beyonce’s #adidasxIVYPARK Marketing Strategy

Brand loyalty is something many marketing professionals strive to achieve, however, in order to be successful in driving this, one must first understand the differences between loyalty and attachment. 

You’ve probably heard of the terms brand engagement, brand development, and brand loyalty; but have you heard of brand attachment? And, how does brand attachment differ from brand loyalty?

In a breakout session by JoAnn Sciarinno at Content Marketing World, brand attachment was defined as “the emotional connection between humans and brands.” Thus, just as people can be attached to a person, they can also — by and for a host of reasons — become attached to a brand. For example, if you are an ice cream lover, you are probably attached to a particular brand, like Häagen-Daz or Dreyers. For me, it’s Ben & Jerry’s. I like their unique flavors with creative names (C’mon, Chunky Monkey? Cherries Garcia? Everything But The…who else could think these up?), and I love that they use milk from cows that are fed organically with no rBGH’s. For me, this is why I choose Ben & Jerry's over other competitors.

Whereas brand loyalty may be somewhat superficial, brand attachment goes much deeper.

My reasons for being attached to Ben & Jerry’s, above, exemplify the 3 elements JoAnn Sciarrino described as going into the forming of a brand attachment. They are:

Affection: (They got me with their names)

Connection: (with their sustainable practices)

When these three emotions are in play, it is highly likely that there is brand attachment. It may be an indirect influence on the brand, but it is a strong influence. More than brand loyalty, brand attachment almost becomes a part of you.

How Does Marketing Foster Brand Attachment?

Whatever it is that attracts you to a brand, to begin with, this most likely has to do with the way PR and advertising have served up the content, as well as what other competitors in the market are doing. In this exposure to PR campaigns and ads, you are then brought into what Sciarrino calls the “virtuous circle of brand attachment.” There are three specific phases for the brand, which follow along this path. From each of these, it leads to the other:

Advertising & Marketing to – -> Brand Attachment to – -> Financial Performance

Thus, if I am so attached to Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream it then follows that by me buying it repeatedly, their financial performance improves (even if by a small amount). Multiply that by millions of customers, and your bottom line is happily shored up by engaged, repeat customers. Apple is another great example here: we’re so attached to them that we’re willing to buy new chargers despite how annoying and expensive it is to do it, even when competitors have equally as good products to offer.

What are the advantages of Brand Attachment over Brand Loyalty?

The good thing for brands and companies is that consumers with strong brand attachments influence other people around them. So, in this sense, there are brand advocates that develop from their strong brand attachments. These fans or followers of the brand are not only becoming fans or followers to stay, they are also bringing their friends along, increasing the customer base for the company. They are true brand evangelists, going beyond brand loyalty. It has been proven that:

Highly attached consumers are more motivated to devote their own resources…defending the brand, degrading alternative brands and devoting more time to the brand through brand communities and brand promotion using social media.

When we in PR use paid, earned and owned media it is with the goal of getting prospects and current customers to feel this brand attachment and, essentially, gravitate long-term towards a brand, at an emotional level. When we can publicize for them – say, via re-tweeting a tweet – we extend the reach of their original impression, the impression created by the “brand-attached” party. Thus, once brand attachment is attained, it almost makes our jobs that much easier, right? Sharing these brand messages can be so effective because they far and away exceed promotional messages in resonance with the customers (because of their authentic customer voice).

Bottom line: Find out what your customers’ passions, connections and affections are. Target your PR with that in mind, and see how they follow by becoming attached to your brand – not just showing loyalty, but true attachment. Hopefully, there will be a way we can measure this in the future, by mining and scoring or rating this attachment data via the impressions garnered and corresponding reactions from our customers. This will help prove brand attachment is one way that all companies should strive for the optimum in brand reach: keeping their customers routinely coming back!

And that's a wrap; hopefully you now understand the difference between brand attachment and brand loyalty!

Brand Attachment vs. Brand Loyalty: Let’s Talk Ice Cream.

In world where brand loyalty is at a premium, creating an emotional connection with consumers is imperative, but how does a company gauge consumers' pulse? Media intelligence can be your guide to understanding your customer.

Have you ever wondered how Coca Cola became so synonymous with cola, Hoover with vacuuming, or Google with searching the internet? “Emotional connectivity,” says former Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide CEO, Kevin Roberts, “you want consumer loyalty beyond reason and loyalty beyond recession.” he adds.

Emotional connectivity that turns into loyalty is what true customer experience is all about. For every business seeking to thrive and create a lasting impact, emotional connectivity with both consumers and prospects alike needs to be a mission-critical constant in their branding equation. Nowadays, customers don't spend their money as a result of what they see and hear about companies; rather, they value thoughtful and personalised branding and customer experiences. Advertisers and brand managers are shifting their focus from creating simple brand messages towards building a lasting brand-customer relationship.

A single negative customer experience, unresolved issue or negative interaction with staff is enough to make a client give up on a brand. Worse: a negative customer experience can easily become a negative review, and this can spread quicker than a wink online, thanks to social media and online review sites.

In the age of advance branding strategies, it’s vital for companies to connect with their customers on a deeper and more satisfying level. Here are five ways brands can create worthwhile and memorable customer experiences:

Make the Brand Stand out – in a Good Way

To customers, the uniqueness of branding is what makes a company stand out. This starts with creating a memorable brand name. For instance, affixing the lowercase ‘i’ to its product offerings – like the iPhone, iMac, and iPad – has made each item a very recognizable Apple product.

Of course, Apple did not stop at brand recollection value; that alone would hardly make a customer use and keep using a new product or service. What makes branding meaningful is when a consumer uses a product or service – and enjoys every minute of it.

In a fast-changing digital environment, where each subsequent product tends to get more and more complicated, Apple went back to basics. The company decided to simplify everything. Apple built cleverly crafted branding by focusing not only on the features of each product but also on sleek and simple aesthetics – attributes that seemed like an afterthought to competitors. The marketing strategy clearly worked; Apple created a satisfactory customer experience that has morphed into a huge loyal brand following.

Staying current is a must for every marketing professional that wants to endure over time. In the fast-paced Internet Age, doing so can be challenging, as evidenced by the many businesses that have crashed and burned over the last few decades, like social media platform Friendster and mega-bookstore Borders. It seems like any marketing team that fails to stay relevant is signing its own death warrant.

Many businesses are finding ways to adapt to the changing times through social media, which has become an avenue for consistent, direct, and meaningful customer interaction. Social media provides tremendous insight into customer needs, wants, behavior, and engagement.

These days, having a website and a mobile app is pretty much non-negotiable. Tbey provide information to consumers and help them not only to make informed purchasing decisions, but also to resolve issues that could have a significant impact on how they perceive a brand. Simply having a website that offers support isn't enough for some consumers. Some still expect the option of having 24/7 interaction with companies, which is why so many are turning to customer service specific Twitter pages - this is something to bear in mind.

Connect with Customers on a Personal Level

A personal touch can go a long way in strengthening a business’s branding position. Gone are the days when one size fits all; customers now favor organisations that offer and provide them with tailored experiences. ‘Tailoring’ can be as easy as having the customer’s name in an email newsletter. A ‘Dear Joe’, as opposed to a ‘Dear valued customer’, can be interpreted as solid customer engagement. Personalised email messages, in fact, increase their click-through rates by an average of 14%, according to a report by the Aberdeen Group. Conversion rates also increase by 10%. Furthermore, research by Experian has revealed that personalised emails increase transaction rate by up to six times.

Personalised branding efforts demonstrate gratitude and appreciation for their clients’ continuing patronage – and the gratitude and appreciation are reciprocal.

Transparency has become a way of humanizing the business and showcasing a company’s positive corporate values. According to a study by Label Insight, transparency is the best way to build consumer trust, with more than half of the respondents saying that they would be loyal to a company if it showed itself to be fully transparent. An excellent example of such a marketing campaign is McDonald’s Canada’s ‘Our Food, Your Questions’ campaign. Trying to dispel misinformation and urban myths surrounding its food and ingredients, the fast food giant saw an opportunity to educate its consumers and still stand behind its products. The campaign garnered over 42,000 questions since its launch in 2014. Even though it is widely known that McDonald’s is not the best choice when it comes to healthy eating, the campaign has satisfied its customers’ need to know everything about a product – no skeletons in the closet.

Finally, the key to creating a brand identity that resonates with customers is consistency in interactions. This means keeping the brand in sync with its marketing strategies so that every product and/or service always points back to the brand—distinctly and directly. Coca-Cola is considered to be one of the most widely recognized brands in the world. Although it continues to evolve, its classic script and font can be identified anywhere in the world, even when displayed in different languages. Consistent branding eliminates confusion and shapes how audiences perceive the business.

Consistency is also important when it comes to messaging; it should always be in keeping with a brand’s mission and values.

For instance, clothing company Patagonia has always been clear about its mission to inspire social change and protect the environment by advocating sustainability. It launched a Fair Trade campaign that led consumers to be more mindful of how their clothes were being manufactured, thereby leading to a stronger demand for products coming from Fair Trade Certified factories that pay higher wages to workers.

Ultimately, bridging the gap between brand and customers boils down to creating memorable customer experiences. This, in turn, helps companies to differentiate. Sure, the brand message is still important, but customers become more invested in a company when it walks its talk and prioritizes customer well-being and satisfaction above all else. An outstanding customer experience is by far the best way to encourage the type of brand loyalty that transcends both reason and recession.

If your brand offering wants to move towards cultural ubiquity with your intended audience, nailing down personal experiences will be essential. To come prepared for other steps your customers are experiencing, download our ebook to meet and support your audience at whatever point they are on their customer journey and take a look at customer experience software.

How Does Your Brand Affect Your Customers’ Personal Experiences?

For some, the line between a PR campaign and an advertising campaign remains unclear, so we’ve decided to clear things up by demonstrating the differences.

Advertising is a form of Paid Media. It’s a method of promoting content and increasing your visibility by parting ways with cash. Advertising can take various forms including pay per click ads, advertorials, banner ads, endorsements etc.

One of the key benefits of ad campaigns is that marketing professionals have much more control over when, where, and how a message is sent. This level of control means advertising campaigns are a great way to craft perception amongst a target pool of consumers since we can ensure that content is 'on brand' and favourable- however, it's worth keeping in mind that this does come at a price. Advertising, regardless of the medium, is not cheap!

Much to the joy of ad and marketing professionals, advertising targeting capabilities have come some way in the past few years. We can now get as granular as targeting ads based on the search engine our target audience is using or targeting ads based on similar Twitter accounts consumers are following. This avoidance of a 'spray and pray' approach often balances out of the cost.

A PR campaign produces earned visibility, usually through a third party. For example, the cab company Uber took advantage of a vast amount of positive and negative public relations coverage around the brand. This directly impacted the perception of the company, its reputation and its brand story. If influential newspapers speak of us in a positive light, we’ve hit PR campaign jackpot! It is therefore important to build strong relationships with journalists before we roll out a PR campaign so that we can increase the chances of positive coverage around our brand.

Whereas budget is a factor which largely affects the impact of advertising campaigns, in the case of PR campaigns, relationship building is at the forefront in determining the quality of coverage and whether the PR mention is more favourable. 

How does a PR campaign differ from an Advertising Campaign?

Third-party endorsement of our brand is the desired result from a PR campaign. The audience is much more likely to accept a message from a third party than when the message comes from the brand itself as it seems more trustworthy. As such, audiences find PR campaigns more credible than advertising. In terms of image and reputation, a successfully built PR campaign is the ultimate weapon. Advertising conversely provides opportunities for targeting. An advertising campaign offers reach, whilst a PR campaign offers credibility.

The Importance of Thinking about Public Relations and Advertising in Tandem

While there is a clear difference between public relations and advertising, bear in mind they do impact each other too, thus it doesn't always make sense to view PR and advertising as who separate identifies. For example, advertising can cause a knock-on effect on PR. When we pay celebrities to endorse a brand, their appearance tends to generate a wave of interest from publications. Take Romeo Beckham’s appearance in a Burberry advert as an example. Meltwater’s Media Intelligence platform found that Burberry received 1,774 press mentions in one month (October) compared to 2,334 press mentions in November, the month the advert was aired.

Here are some other ways that PR impacts advertising and vice versa:

• Use advertising to increase the reach of PR coverage, for example, invest in Twitter ads to drive targeted audiences to view cool public relation features

• Pay influencers to collaborate with your brand and increase PR mentions (like the example mentioned above)

• Use a media intelligence tool to analyse PR coverage, for example, trending themes, and use insights to inform PPC landing page content and communicate a cohesive message

• Analyse Paid Media search trends to inform the angle of a PR campaign 


Hopefully the differences between a PR and advertising campaign is much more clear!

PR Campaign vs. Advertising Campaign Differences

Olay, Amazon, Wal Mart, Wayfair and Netflix have all mastered the use of predictive analytics to create a highly personalized customer experience that’s impacting their conversion rates. See how!

AI is enabling the world’s largest brands and retailers to aggregate disparate customer data so they can better understand their consumer base, enhance their user experience online and offline and make more forward-looking product development and strategy decisions.

Olay’s Skin Advisor doubles conversion rate

Leveraging 25 years of expertise in image recognition, which helps it identify skin problems and improvement areas for its users, skincare and beauty brand Olay launched its mobile Skin Advisor nearly 2 years ago and has since seen its conversion rates double. According to Venturebeat, the brand uses machine learning technology to analyze a customer’s skin based on selfies.

The team noticed consumers were facing decision paralysis mainly in store, due to the plethora of options and shades available, but they often lacked the ability or desire to consult with an in-person expert on the best choice for their skin. Enter the mobile Skin Advisor experience. The product was built using Olay’s “massive proprietary database of face and skin images from a wide variety of ethnic and demographic backgrounds.” The tool provides the brand with access to additional insights, including the most popular customer preferences, demographics and shopping behaviors.

Olay isn’t the first beauty brand to offer shade and product recommendations based on aggregated data. Early adopters like Laura Mercier, Maybelline, Bare Minerals and more have offered online shade finders for years. But Olay’s is one of the first to incorporate an AI-driven tool based on years of detailed image data. As a result it’s one of the more accurate applications incorporating facial recognition technology and machine learning for more significant personalization.

Wayfair’s AI-driven personalized search tool

Just as we look to celebrity styles for the latest fashion inspirations, many look to replicate home furnishing styles seen on social media or in celebrity homes, searching for similar items at an affordable cost.

Mass furniture retailer Wayfair looked out this behavior as well as new visual search technologies developed by companies like Pinterest and Google. They created an AI-driven visual search engine in an effort to enhance the customer experience with more personalized recommendations.

“Using either a camera or their photo library on web and mobile, online shoppers can take a picture or upload a photo they’ve already saved to see if Wayfair has something similar,” TechCrunch reports.

The tool’s advantage for Wayfair lies beyond a better search function for consumers. It provides Wayfair’s decision-makers with access to instant external customer insights, enabling the customers to act as scouts that bring the latest trends and styles to the Wayfair team, with significant proof of interest. They can use this data to better plan new designs, promote bestsellers and understand how preferences are changing. Applying machine learning, they can better predict individual user preferences and secure their place as the go-to source for furnishings across the entire home.

Walmart doubles down on tech innovation in the rapidly digitizing retail space

In the race to implement AI solutions in the larger e-commerce space, retail incumbents often struggle to move beyond basic AI innovations that tend to impact just a peripheral segment of the overall business. However, Walmart has managed to remain ahead of the game by looking out at retail newcomers that can provide them with the necessary innovations and access to the digitally savvy audience they need to stay alive in a digital-first world.

Walmart has been making big moves in the digital space in recent years. Its surge of patent applications in the digital space point to a heavy focus on innovation, including potential in-store drone assistants and a blockchain ledger. Its purchase of ecommerce sites jet.com and Bonobos speak to a larger strategy of enhancing its e-commerce offering and better understanding online consumer behavior in an effort to compete with Amazon and offer a more cohesive customer experience online and in-store.

Lauren Desegur, VP of customer experience engineering at WalmartLabs told Forbes, “We’re essentially creating a bridge where we are enhancing the shopping experience through machine learning. We want to make sure there is a seamless experience between what customers do online and what they do in our stores.”

For an idea of the results from these efforts, in the quarter following its purchase of jet.com, Walmart’s ecommerce revenue rose 63 percent year over year. Today it serves 140M customers on a weekly basis, a number of which increasingly comes from its online store.

What do Olay, Amazon, Wal Mart, Wayfair and Netflix have in common? They’ve all mastered use of predictive analytics to create a highly personalized customer experience that’s impacting their conversion rates.

Tip: Update your customer segmentation with our consumer intelligence solution

How AI-driven customer personalization is driving the top line

As innovation in the financial services industry moves online and onto our smartphones, so does the associated fintech PR and marketing communications. Since fintech companies consist of both established and startup companies their approach to social media is breaking ground as well. So, what can we learn from how top fintech companies are using X, formerly known as Twitter? Wade in for examples.

The financial technology industry (fintech) is one of the most innovative and revolutionary business spaces. In the past few years, a small group of small startups have disrupted the massive, traditional, and highly profitable banking industry.

From eliminating account maintenance fees to allowing fast and efficient online payments, fintech is making waves in the financial sector.

With so many changes, PR pros can learn from the way fintech companies use X, formerly known as Twitter. That’s why we’ve analyzed the Twitter accounts of 10 top fintech companies. Here’s what we’ve found.

People love the convenience of modern fintech tools. Unfortunately, with so many recent security breaches, companies need to reassure users that their personal data is safe. At the end of the day, we’re talking about people’s financial health and with $16.8 billion worth of identity data stolen last year, this isn’t a problem to overlook.

Fintech companies thus spend a great deal of their time working to improve their user’s security, X/Twitter being a powerful way to communicate these changes.

Ever since May 25th, GDPR’s implementation deadline, companies haven’t stopped messaging their users about the way they comply with the new rules. Stripe is no exception, as you can see in the following tweet where they not only share how they conform to the new regulations but also share a lengthy guide to understand more about the subject.

Fintech companies are solving a long list of modern challenges. This includes: making banking more accessible while streamlining processes, increasing investments without hefty fees, facilitating payments between consumers, guaranteeing loans without additional bureaucracy, and other financial services, all while working within a well-regulated system.

With a shifting landscape of services and regulations that govern their industry, X (formerly known as Twitter), plays a crucial role in the way companies inform the press, consumers, and investors about changes they’re implementing on their platforms.

PayPal highlights their ongoing dedication to make the payment process frictionless so that consumers can finish their purchases while on the go. Thus, increasing returns for businesses by limiting the abandoned shopping cart problem.

N26 is a European bank that’s attempting to change how the whole banking industry works. In this tweet, they share when they hit an important milestone: the 1 millionth user. 

Robinhood, the commission-free trading app that’s revolutionizing the way people trade stocks and other financial instruments, shares press mentions on Bloomberg. 

Cryptocurrencies have taken the financial space by storm. Everyone talks about them, yet fewer are buying and using them. Since they’re not regulated, traditional investors are hesitant to jump into the fray.

Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange, is the first to be regulated by the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission). In this tweet, they share the news since it will likely increase the number of investors to their platform. 

There’s no better way to promote your financial platform than by giving money away. Skrill, the online payment processor, shares a promotion that hopes to increase their user base.

Fintech companies aim to improve consumers’ lives with faster, better, and cheaper tools. Yet not everything is about money. Since companies, even start-ups, cannot live outside the communities where they live and work, fintech uses X to showcase their support of social and community causes.

SoFi shares how their’s employees have taken the time to volunteer for HandsOn Bay Area.

Here, Lending Club shares how their employees prepare for San Francisco Pride. 

Fintech, much like other tech industries that hope to streamline experiences for consumers in traditionally bureaucratic industries, will continue to break ground. As the fintech space becomes more crowded and platforms differentiate themselves by offering features to enhance the consumer experience, they’ll need to quickly communicate with consumers and investors while keeping an eye on their competition. One way to do this is to succeed at X, formerly known as Twitter.

X/Twitter is an ideal channel for keeping up with (and leading) the conversation around industry developments, it is essential to a robust communications strategy.

So, when you’re ready to amplify your brand messages while listening to the competitive landscape, we can help.

How Fintech Companies Succeed at Twitter

Whether we're looking to be more successful at our jobs, looking to be engaged citizens, take care of our health, or just have some fun, when we need information to make the best decisions, pictures often speak louder than words. Here are the top infographics that make us want to pay attention to what they have to say.

Good data can be a powerful tool. That secret nugget of cold, hard data can be the clincher in a winning argument. But no one’s going to sort through a spreadsheet or take out their calculator while you’re trying to make your point. Data hits home when it’s easy to get.

This was probably what was on Jesuit priest and physicist Christoph Scheiner’s mind back in the 17th century when none other than Galileo Galilei picked a fight with him on the subject of sunspots. Today, his observation of sunspot patterns on the sun’s surface is widely considered to be one of the first infographics.

Fast forward 400 years and the general design principles for infographics haven’t changed that much. It’s still a visual tool used to distill data into an easy-to-grasp image. Here are my picks for the freshest infographics of the year.

The Meltwater Blog

3 Things to Learn from Beyonce’s #adidasxIVYPARK Marketing Strategy

Brand Attachment vs. Brand Loyalty: Let’s Talk Ice Cream.

How Does Your Brand Affect Your Customers’ Personal Experiences?

PR Campaign vs. Advertising Campaign Differences

How AI-driven customer personalization is driving the top line

How Fintech Companies Succeed at Twitter

10 Favorite Infographics With a Spotlight on Data-Driven Storytelling

4 Tips for Nonprofit Social Marketing: Small Budgets, Big Impact

The Ins-And-Outs of LinkedIn Influence

The What, Why & How of Brand Command Centres

How to Use Paid Social Media Ads to Boost Earned Media

The Growing Focus on AI in Venture Capital