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AI adoption is no longer the challenge—trusted context is. Most organizations have AI tools, but many still rely on disconnected, stale, or unverified data, limiting the quality and trustworthiness of AI-generated outputs. Meltwater MCP brings trusted, real-time intelligence into AI assistants.

Your Best Context is Already in the Room

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

Media monitoring helps organizations stay informed about what’s being said across online news, print, broadcast, podcasts, and other media channels. Whether you're tracking brand mentions, measuring PR performance, monitoring competitors, or identifying emerging trends, our expert guides, best practices, and industry insights will help you build a smarter media monitoring strategy and make more informed communications decisions.

Discover expert media monitoring guides, best practices, and industry insights to track brand mentions, monitor competitors, and stay ahead of the news.

Media Monitoring: Guides, Best Practices & Industry Insights

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?
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

From JPMorgan to Goldman Sachs, Lloyd’s of London and more, banks are making serious bets on technology innovation while bracing for the impact of the growing fintech sector. Now billing themselves as technology groups, rather than banks, they’re hiring more AI talent and diving deep into data offerings.

"Technology is going to fundamentally transform the banking industry over the coming years." Antony Jenkins former Barclays CEO via CNBC

Do you want to be an investment banker today? Learn to code. Want to be an analyst? Learn to code. A marketer? Sales executive? Product manager? Market researcher? Learn to code.

Having a solid degree and field experience alone are no longer enough to compete for spots at some of the world’s top institutions.

Specifically in the finance sector, firms globally are making moves to embrace the impact of AI and data-driven technologies. Today when you interact with the likes of Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, you’re no longer entrusting your cash to banks. Instead, both now bill themselves as ‘technology groups.’ According to the Financial Times, “JPMorgan spends $10.8bn a year on tech, more than any other Wall Street group, and technologists account for about a fifth of the company’s 252,000-strong workforce.”

“Coding is not for just tech people, it is for anyone who wants to run a competitive company in the 21st century,” said Mary Callahan Erdoes, head of JPMorgan Asset Management. “These are skillsets of the future . . . By better understanding coding, our business teams can speak the same language as our technology teams, which ultimately drives better tools and solutions for our clients.”

In a move to better position itself on the tech ladder, for instance, Lloyd’s announced last month a global search for technology talent to fuel their new “Lloyd’s Lab,” designed to “help the insurance giant become even more competitive by securing partnerships with innovative global tech start-ups.”

“This is all about taking us into a technology-driven future,” Inga Beale, Lloyd’s CEO, told CNBC’s Squawk Box Europe. “There is huge demand from the market saying, ‘Come on, let’s get talking about innovation.’”

For traditional banks, the threat of innovative and agile startups feels increasingly real. Last year, $58B was raised globally in the fintech space. As well, those fintech companies “don’t suffer from legacy IT systems and can provide banking services 50% cheaper than big banks.” These banks are recognizing they need to transform themselves or risk being left in the dust.

According to the Financial Times, JPMorgan is putting hundreds of new investment bankers and asset managers through mandatory coding lessons, including all 300 new recruits in its asset management division. Overall, a third of the bank’s analysts and associates have taken a coding program.

The team will begin with Python, which will enable them to effectively analyze and interpret large sets of data, with plans of incorporating data science, machine learning and cloud computing in the next year.

The importance of data analysis in the financial industry cannot be understated, as the alternative data industry continues to grow, and the ability to remain competitive lies increasingly in information and insights advantages.

Top financial institutions continue to hire for tech, data science and engineering talent to help them better mine the incredible amount of data they have available, while working to bring their current staff up to speed.

Goldman Sachs prioritizes tech innovation

Over at Goldman Sachs, ‘strats’ have been alive and well for years, working to develop technologies that make the Goldman team more productive.

According to a report on HBR.org, Goldman has repurposed the role of its Strats team (previously known as financial engineers or data scientists) to create a unified engineering front that works with bankers and clients directly, with 2 key goals in mind:

to digitize bankers’ workflows through tools that improve productivity and quality of life

to use technology that is to engage clients in a more modern, data-driven way

The team has also been leveraging external data insights to build apps for specific purposes, like those that “use machine learning algorithms to sift through SEC mutual fund filings to better understand how shareholders relate to each other. In addition, machine learning has been used to analyze the factors that make some companies more vulnerable to activist investors than others.”

Earlier this year, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein presented on the firm’s future strategy at the Credit Suisse Financial Services Conference. Technology and innovation was a major part of what he discussed.

“Engineering underpins our growth initiatives,” Blankfein said, reiterating his comments from 2016 that positioned Goldman squarely in the tech space, competing with the likes of Google and Facebook." - Lloyd Blankfien

Back in 2016, the New York Times wrote on then-CIO R. Martin Chavez, who has been spearheading many of these efforts. Their vision was that Goldman will still have the chief product of a bank, but “the ways in which customers get access to that money will rely more on software and less on the bankers who traditionally delivered Goldman’s services.”

Today, the firm’s flagship loan and savings app, Marcus, has received significant traction as a prime example of the innovative technology they are working to develop in order to remain competitive in the face of the fintech revolution.

According to a recent report by EY, advancements in new technologies are driving change that will enable banks to:

Better serve customers and increase access

Provide enhanced insights both from a risk management and customer service perspective

These innovations are coming both from internal capabilities and external partnerships, driven by the need to derive insights from the vast amount of data we have available. Today, data scientists and programmers are proving just as valuable as traditional analysts. Is a swift and successful digital transformation of the banking industry the answer to their successful navigation of the coming AI revolution?

JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and more double down on tech innovation

The Coronavirus Pandemic has had a quick and fast impact on the way we live our lives. People around the globe have been asked to stay home as much as possible and practice social distancing. Now, more than ever, there is a need to quickly and effectively adapt, transform, work together as a team and manage crisis situations and communications across the board.

Watch this webinar on How to Upskill Social Media and Comms to Think Fast and Act Now.

Those who can, are working from home. For many, remote work is a very new experience. And, school and business closures mean many are having to work from home while sharing a space with loved ones. This means it is essential to ensure that projects run smoothly and collaborations can still ensue.

Klear’s Influencer Management Tool –  want to help you make a smooth transition to remote work, and have outlined some of their top 5 features that will help teams manage their influencer campaigns while working from home.

1. Influencer CRM: Keep The Whole Team Updated on Project Status

Working from home does pose its own challenges, like not having immediate access to a coworker. Especially when you work in a team, you may need to ensure that you have everything mapped out in front of you; what project you are working on, when the project is due, and roadblocks that depend on your coworkers.

Klear’s CRM is a great way to see the status of your entire influencer campaign at a glance. Their CRM has some built-in features that help the entire team stay aligned and maintain clear communication:

Notes: Team members can directly share feedback regarding specific influencers in a campaign. Do you like them, love them, would you never want to collaborate with them again? Add a note so everyone on your team knows how you feel. Everyone with access to Klear can view your notes.

Owner: Don’t step on any toes, even from the safety of your home. The owner tab within the CRM lets you know who’s managing communication with a specific influencer. This way everyone on the team knows where responsibility lies.

Agreements: Klear helps users avoid emails by allowing most communication to happen within the Klear portal. You can send and sign influencer agreements within Klear, and easily see the status of an agreement (signed or pending).

Remember, when most communication is digital, there is a lot of subtexts. Less is usually not more, so write detailed notes so no one misinterprets you.

2. Influencer Tagging: Let Your Team Know Who You’re Interested In

Klear’s influencer search engine is a great tool for you and your team to find the perfect influencer for a new campaign. If you’re used to tapping your coworker on the shoulder and scooting over to a friend’s desk to review a profile, influencer tagging will help you maintain the same workflow. Once you’ve identified an influencer you want to collaborate with, or that have enjoyed collaborating with, simply tag the influencer.

Tags are color-coded and can have names. For example, if you see an influence that would be perfect for you #RedLabel campaing, give the influencer a red tag and name it “red label”. All influencers under a specific tag will be listed together and accessible for the entire team to view.

Though it doesn’t feel the same as enjoying a coffee together while your review potential influencers, influencer tags will at least ensure that everyone is on the same page. Influencer tags also ensure you are your teammates aren’t doing extra work of vetting the same influencer.

TIP: Klear recommends giving your tags funny names to lighten the mood.

3. Download & Share PDFs: Influencer Profiles and Campaign Reports

Now that you’ll be having meetings and projects syncs over Zoom or other video chat platforms, it’s important to come prepared and easily share information with your coworkers. Klear lets you easily download PDF files of influencer profiles and campaign reports, so all of your important information is visible and easy to digest on one document.

Influencer profiles are great to share with coworkers or clients when vetting a potential candidate. Profiles can be downloaded to a one page PDF file, and includes important metrics including True Reach, Klear Score, audience demographics, top content and more.

Campaign Profiles are a great way to review and share the success of a campaign once it’s been completed. Reports included Total Post, True Reach, Engagements, and EMV. Campaign reports also offer a breakdown of each individual influencer’s performance. This is a great resource for the entire team or important stakeholders to get a full picture of how a campaign progressed.

TIP: Review campaign PDFs together with your team during a video chat, so everyone is seeing and reviewing the same information in real-time! 

4. Content Approval: Know Which Influencer Content Will Go Live

Of course, it’s always essential that you review influencer content before it goes live. Whether you are in the office or working from home. But, it’s important to remember that your entire team has access to this tool. Share submitted content with your coworkers so everyone knows what is scheduled to go live, or so others can give feedback on the content you’re not feeling 100% on.

TIP: If an influencer submitted content that you love, let the rest of your team know. Right now everyone needs some good news and some light-hearted content. 

5. Feedback Portal: Keep Everyone Involved, Not Just Team Members

Working from home can feel lonely. Especially if you’re part of a dynamic team that is used to brainstorming sessions and sharing feedback. If you miss getting feedback from coworkers, even those not immediately involved in a project, try using Klear’s new feedback portal.

Separate from notes in the CRM, which is for Klear users. Their feedback portal lets users easily receive feedback from those without access to Klear. This is a great resource for agencies looking to get a client’s input, or larger organizations looking to keep other departments in the loop.

Reading Tip: Does Working From Home Work for PR and Marketing Agencies?

Simply send a link that invites a collaborator to share feedback on every influencer and relevant content. All feedback is private between you and your collaborator.

TIP: When feeling overwhelmed, ask for feedback, even from people who aren’t completely relevant to the project. It’s also a nice way to touch base with co-workers you wouldn’t interact with during your daily tasks. 

NOTE: This blog post was written by Lena Young, the Director of Communications from Klear.

#WFH: 5 Ways To Manage Your Influencer Campaign While Working From Home

Today’s consumers spend an average of 2:24 hours on social media daily—an increase of five minutes over 2019. For younger demographics, the numbers are almost certainly higher. Meltwater’s Dino Delic called these numbers staggering, before adding that being a social media influencer now ranks as the number two career aspiration for youths 11-16 years of age. This suggests that understanding your audience in the digital age is only going to grow more important.

Peeling the onion on all things digital fell to three industry experts in Chicago on March 5. Davitha Ghiassi of Red Havas, Natasha Vuppuluri of Zeno Group, and Eric Sawitoski of Legacy spoke to the imperative for marketers to create strategies that address consumers’ evolving needs. What follows here is only a small sample of what they discussed.

Influencer marketing isn’t “dead,” it’s evolving

When social media posts are now marked sponsored and audiences rightly suspect that influencers are being paid, it’s easy to be skeptical about the quality of the content. And yet it’s hardly fatal. Davitha Ghiassi and Natasha Vuppuluri agreed that in the current environment it’s more important than ever to vet influencers to ensure they authentically represent the brand. Ghiassi’s employer Red Havas distinguishes between three types of influencers, including content creators or co-creators, content distributors providing access to an audience, and online narrators offering media appeal. Just as the market has evolved, so have the influencers, who are no longer so one-dimensional. She cited the founder of Momma’s Gone City as a current example of an influencer-distributor who’s become both a narrator and an authentic content creator by blogging about products that have real value in the influencer’s life.

Creating proof points around your brand’s purpose is now a much bigger deal

Ghiassi said that Red Havas conducts an annual global study where they differentiate between three types of benefits, including the functional (does a product or service do what it’s supposed to), the personal (does it enhance a person’s life), and the collective (does it enhance a person’s community). After trailing the other categories for years, the collective benefits have now achieved parity. Ghiassi says the takeaway for brands is about showcasing purpose, whether to individuals or to society at large. Influencer marketing remains a great way to do this, provided you partner with people who share your company’s values.

If you are looking to begin working with social media influencers, we created a Marketer’s Guide to Social Influencers to help you work with social influencers to reach a larger audience.

Your own content is still central to your credibility

Eric Sawitoski referenced a finding that 82% of Gen Z believe companies need to produce content relative to them personally, while half think that most content is of little value. The content you create internally remains a bedrock in establishing credibility. He cited his own company as evidence. Soon after Legacy started publishing intellectual property, there was a significant uptick in calls from the media asking Sawitoski and his partners to speak as experts. “This leads into an influencer model, where people want to hear what you have to say.”

A rigorous brand audit goes a long way toward warding off worst-case scenarios

Vuppuluri’s Zeno Group conducts workshops with communication pros of various levels and functions and asks them what they would miss most if their company were to disappear tomorrow. Follow-up questions include what they imagine their consumers would miss most. This steely look at worst-case scenarios forces companies to arrive at their true values. Among Zeno Group’s key findings is that younger consumers want to view brands as friends that share their values, but that even one serious misstep will result in the brand being canceled. What at first glance appears warm and fuzzy is anything but that.

Ghiassi said that Red Havas uses what they call 4C modeling to produce actionable intel that feeds more effective campaigns. This involves a close examination of a product’s category, competitors, consumers, and culture. Ghiassi said the insights are derived from a combination of sources, including social listening, the social platforms themselves, free research, and media communication platforms such as Meltwater. These insights are converted into different types of content, pillars, themes, amplification tactics, and influencer partnerships. The strategy and execution all flow from the initial research.

Not sure where to get started when it comes to influencer marketing? Download our Marketer’s Guide to Social Influencers for tips on how to begin building out your plan.

Best practices include making the most of your assets

Aside from being authentic and purpose-driven, what are some other prescriptive measures companies can take to connect with an audience? Ghiassi and Sawitoski talked about leveraging media assets across multiple formats. Even if you feel you must be on TV because that’s what your older clients understand and demand, make sure it’s not at the expense of your younger prospects and customers. Everyone agreed that too many brands create for one channel and don’t tailor the story they're telling to other channels. Given your resource limitations, you need to create an asset that can live on different channels in a variety of formats. Sawitoski suggested using event-based advertising—he referenced a 2020 Super Bowl commercial—as a way to initiate a conversation that you then take to your other channels. Finally, be aware that if and when people watch TV, they're often also engaged on their smartphones. The trick then is to tell a visual story knowing your audience may not be giving you their full attention.

Along with understanding your audience, it's about understanding the platform

A so-called elephant in the room was younger people’s current fascination with the social media platform TikTok. 41% of the platform’s audience is comprised of 16-24 year-olds. Ghiassi observed that much of the fascination lies with young people’s desire to be creators. “So give them a challenge that aligns with that story you’re also telling on TV. If you can think that way, you can nail any channel.”

Natasha Vuppuluri observed that her company’s name derives from the Greek philosopher Zeno of Citium. Zeno is reputed to have said that everyone has two ears and one mouth so that we might listen twice as much as we talk. Zeno Group’s motto to “be fearless, not reckless” means listening carefully to clients and data before acting. Building on Vuppuluri’s advice was Davitha Ghiassi, who recommended never forgetting that social is a two-way street. “Your audience is literally telling you what they want. They're giving you that intel.” Measuring that in the many ways outlined above, including through social platforms as well as through media platforms such as Meltwater, is a good path to success.

We're all problem solvers, Eric Sawitoski said. When you look for an agency partner, you're looking to either change someone's behavior or amplify the amount of change. Cold, hard numbers are a source of inspiration for him. “If you can’t measure it, don’t do it.” He cautioned against “faux success,” where people spin results to fit a desired narrative. Nowadays, there’s so much information that marketing and PR teams can use to prove the ROI of their efforts, there’s almost no excuse for not tracking the results of a campaign.

How to Connect With Your Audience in the Digital Age

My first PR job came in the form of an internship in the University Affairs office. I was beyond excited on my first day; here I was, a student, and I was getting paid (a very small amount) to work in PR – an incredibly awesome achievement! And it was, at first. I quickly learned that some tasks, like sorting hard-copy press clippings, were dreadfully boring and highly inefficient. I dreamt of a day that the process could be automated, I had no idea how robust and customizable monitoring would become 20 years later - in a world of social media and living online. So much so that today’s technology leads to better public relations, and takes the grunt-work out of simple tasks, when used properly.

PR software offers highly customizable editorial and social media monitoring that makes it possible to think beyond monitoring as a scorecard to measure campaign success. Monitoring your brand’s media exposure is imperative, but if you’re only looking at your own clips and metrics you’re missing out on an opportunity to better understand your brand’s perception in the market, what your competition is up to and your place in your industry. Media monitoring can even be a powerful asset as you plan strategy and it’s an amazing ad hoc research tool.

As I explored this concept I talked with a few agency friends about how they see companies use media monitoring today. From what I gather, many companies simply don’t know about the media monitoring available today, don’t know much about their customizable power and some get too comfortable with the “we’ve always done it this way, why change?” mentality.

“While several companies have invested in technologies and services that provide deeper analysis of their media coverage, some are still relying on simple Excel trackers,” comments Jenna Martin, Account Director for Kaplow PR. “I think it ultimately comes down to available funds and executives’ preferences for receiving measurement information.”

Reading tip: See our media monitoring guide.

With that, five less conventional yet HIGHLY USEFUL uses of media monitoring:

1. Understand Your Brand’s Perception and Exposure

Using online monitoring to understanding your brand’s exposure in online media allows PR to step beyond simply grading PR efforts; and to rather offer its organization useful business intelligence. With today’s software and a few minutes of work you can access the basics (e.g. recent articles, clip counts, media reach/circulation) and dig deeper to compare your results to your competition, gauge the sentiment reflected in your media coverage, understand where you’re being covered geographically. Sharing this type of brand information is appreciated by virtually every department of a company, offering PR a way to contribute in new ways.

2. Let Editorial and Media Monitoring Tools Aid Strategy

If your life in this industry is anything like mine you often find yourself preparing to promote products or services that you wouldn’t have expected. Sometimes you might be pitching a product or service you know little about, which can be a problem. In these cases media monitoring tools are your best friend. Before you can think about campaign strategy you must understand the product/service you’re promoting and a quick look at related media can be a lifesaver.

“Many use monitoring ‘during’ [a campaign] to see the success in real time. However, the more experience I have under my belt, I see the need to begin monitoring as early as possible in the planning process,” adds Michael Goon, Senior Account Executive at FleishmanHillard. “It allows us to gain insight on a topic/industry, provides opinions and view points of influencers, and most importantly – it allows you to predict what will and won’t work, or improve an idea/concept.”

What Michael says is spot on. For example, if your new product is “Widget ABC” you can use your media monitoring tools to search for media about similar products. The articles you find will help you better understand how the media perceives similar products and what media is covering similar items; which will help shape your messaging and outreach strategy.

Whether we want to admit it or not, most of us can get a bit obsessive about our competition, even though we know it should not be a distraction to our daily work. Watching your competition is a good thing, it can inspire great ideas, encourage you and your team to work harder and sometimes even gives you a good chuckle when they stumble. But a healthy dose of watching the competition should not take significant time out of your day. If you think about all of the people across an organization that spend time looking at competition is begins to make sense for PR to proactively deliver competitive reports to those interested.

 Rather than doing daily searches or setting up media alerts through online browsers for each competitor in your space, PR can easily configure its media monitoring software to do the work for the organization; right down to delivering tidy reports. Technology today easily automates the process, and best part of all, you can avoid per-clip fees with some products on the market so you’re not paying extra money to watch the competition.

Similar to watching the competition, it is important to understand your industry. Watching industry developments not only helps an organization understand your brand’s place, it can help inform product development, media campaigns, acquisitions, finance, and more. For instance, if your in the SAAS business you can easily customize a media monitoring search that will deliver all news relevant to the industry to sales, legal, your CEO, CFO and CMO. This is another example of where PR can step in and offer valuable information and data that is not easily accessed by the teams who don’t have the proper media monitoring tools.

It used to be that your media monitoring company maintains a list of keywords, brands and people that they monitor for you, and you receive clips based on that set of criteria. Often times you pay-per-clip fee each time they send you a clip. In the good ‘ol days hard copies of these clips were sent and you manually filed them always as appropriate. PR software has changed the game as technology improved; with the right PR software you can eliminate the need to rely on your monitoring service sales rep to maintain a list, you can decide what you search for and alter searches on a whim. 

For instance, if your thinking of pitching your new Widget ABC you can set up a search for like widgets and instantly see coverage relevant coverage that helps you understand the media landscape you’re stepping into with your new product. Good media monitoring tools are DIY and allow you to customize of your searches as you please.

Mr. Goon sums it up nicely, he adds, “It’s important to know who’s talking about your brand? Who are the influencers and what are they saying? In addition, monitoring can show how to leverage an event, piece of news or insight to gain positive exposure for a client.”

The list doesn’t stop with my five examples, I’m sure you can think of other brilliant ways to use media monitoring and analytics that I haven’t thought of yet. Drop use a line, we love comments!

5 Ways to Turbocharge Your PR With Media Monitoring

Online feedback is great. It helps provide validation for the work we do, it helps us to course correct in areas where we can improve, and it gives us a general idea of how we are doing in the market. It’s direct feedback from the client base that has valuable applications as we run and grow our businesses.

The problem is that sometimes online feedback isn’t great. Negative feedback, while helpful in the right context, can damage a business’s reputation, it can harm relationships that the business has cultivated with the public, and sometimes, it is just unpleasant in general. According to ZenDesk, 90% of consumers’ buying decisions are influenced by online reviews. Fortunately, there are several ways businesses can take negative online reviews, social media comments, or negative articles and mitigate the damage. It’s even possible to turn the situation into a net positive.

Not all types of negative feedback are equal. Some negative comments are genuine and well-deserved, while others are intentionally destructive. Learn to distinguish between the types before you move forward:

1 – Actual Problems and Constructive Criticism

Some feedback addresses an actual problem that a customer, patient, or user has found with your product or service, and often meant merely to bring it to your attention. While a public comment exposing a weakness in your organization does not paint you in an ideal light, these reviews and comments can be genuine opportunities for your organization to improve and to engage with the public. Some users may even include potential solutions to the problems themselves. Take these suggestions with a grain of salt, because often, the public is missing key information about the industry. Still, listen to each suggestion and consider whether or not in can work. Often, this kind of feedback can provide effective solutions.

Sometimes, if a customer’s experience is not ideal, they will respond in anger, actively attacking the organization. While the attack itself may not be merited, the issue that upset them in the first place could be very real. If there is a problem that can be solved, take the message to heart without taking the criticism personally. Situations of this sort can go very poorly, but if handled properly, they can also do a lot to build goodwill.

As the saying goes, “Some people just want to watch the world burn.” Some people have no valid reason to be upset, but they will attack an organization just because they get a kick out of stirring the pot. In fact, 28% of Americans have admitted to trolling. In a similar category, some unethical companies will post negative feedback about a competitor, even if it’s untrue, as an opportunity to build public opinion on their own product or service as a competitor.

After determining what sort of negative feedback you’re dealing with, it’s easier to determine the best course of action. If the negative comment or review was merited, always make sure to respond—but be careful how you do. Make sure that you respond in a positive, constructive fashion, and never in anger. Keep the conversation polite, and if the situation warrants it, offer to take the conversation offline. This way, you can delve deeper into the issue without allowing things to escalate online, as well as preserving the customer’s privacy.

When you respond, keep your response brief but personal. In the case of a negative review, acknowledge any mistakes you have made, and if there is a reasonable way to make things right with the customer, attempt to do so. While a business shouldn’t feel obligated to apologize, a polite response and a willingness to go the extra mile can turn an upset customer into a loyal one who may even become an advocate for your organization. Once the situation has been resolved, indicate so on the site where the review was made in a comment.

In the case of trolling, on the other hand, the situation changes. Usually, a troll is trying to bait you into a conflict, which never helps your image. They generally don’t care about fighting fair or even being honest. One more time, do not engage with a troll. Ignore this sort of feedback and, if necessary and possible, simply remove this sort of comment as soon as possible. If the comment or review is on a third-party site, contact the site owners and present your case. Just know that sometimes, sites will refuse to remove content, in which circumstance, the best option is to just ignore it and move on.

Whatever the reason for the feedback, keep one thing in mind: the Internet is fairly permanent. Make sure that your responses are rational, polite, and diplomatic. If you keep your interactions with the public as positive as possible, you can turn the negative reviews around and build strong relationships and a loyal customer base.

This article was written by Robert Cordray from Business2Community and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.

How to Appropriately Respond to Negative Reviews Online

Businesses are racing to transform their customer experience (CX), with 80% of organizations expecting to compete mainly based on CX this year. 

This approach is taking hold in direct response to evolving customer desires, with 67% of customers saying that their standard for good experiences is higher than it has ever been, and 75% of customers expect that companies understand their needs and expectations. 

With our world more connected than it ever has been, businesses are in a prime position to understand their customers, their emotions, and the various touchpoints at play in any buying decision, also known as the customer journey, to then deliver on this ideal customer experience at each step of the journey through various sales or communications activities.

The problem, though, as recent CMSwire and Treasure Data research I collaborated on found, is that many companies are relying on the “easy” data to model their customer journey, and fewer than a third of companies are using a multi-touch attribution strategy. And, perhaps worse yet, nearly half of companies aren’t using any formal marketing attribution strategy.

Companies that are trying to cut corners—or those that lack the skills and resources to understand their audiences truly—are just gambling their marketing budget, hoping their activities may resonate with their buyers. While some of these attempts may succeed, your company is just falling further behind the pack without an accurate, data-driven customer journey map.

A customer journey is the accumulation of every step a customer has taken before purchasing from your company, and the various emotions they felt each step of the way. These steps are often signified by touchpoints, or moments where the customer interacted with your brand in some way. 

Customer journeys are relevant for any company, regardless of the product or service they sell. Two examples of what a customer journey could look like include:

B2C: You’ve moved cities and need new weather-appropriate clothes. You’re scrolling through Instagram and see an ad that you click on. You decide not to buy anything, but you sign up for that company’s email list. After you receive an email coupon, you go to the site to finally buy the item that initially caught your eye. 

B2B: You need to get new software for your PR team. You Google the options, see the top results, and click through to a G2 Crowd report. You find reviews on some of the options, and then go straight to their respective websites to schedule demos. Due to budget constraints, you wait a few months and then eventually purchase your top choice. 

These may sound relatively straightforward in writing, but tracking this process is often not so simple. Understanding these complexities requires a customer journey map, which companies can approach a few different ways (check out this article for more details and examples):

Current State: The most common map, and where most companies should start, these maps visualize how your customers are currently interacting with your company

Day in the Life: This takes a broader view approach by detailing everything your customers do as they go about their day, regardless of if your company is involved. This map will detail pain points and is best for identifying and addressing unmet needs and fleshing out your buyer personas

Future State: These maps are more aspirational, and describe what you believe the future customer journey will be for your existing customers 

Service Blueprint: Building on a simplified version of the Current State or Future State, these maps layer the different systems that are involved—people, processes, policies, technology—to either identify existing pain points or to identify the ecosystem that needs to exist to support the intended experience

Why Comms Pros Should Care About the Customer Journey

Sales and marketing teams are not the only departments in your company that should be actively using your customer journey to drive business activities. 

Customer journey maps are also a necessary communications tool for a variety of reasons. They help you:

Target Your Efforts: PR and comms pros need to understand how to reach their company’s target audiences effectively. Budgets are often tight, and every activity needs to deliver a proven ROI. If comms professionals keep pitching publications that their ideal customers are not actually reading, then you’re just wasting resources, or vanity pitching top-tier publications to feed the ego of your client

Uncover Content Ideas: Responsible communication activations should keep customer needs and pain points in mind. By keeping your comms team versed in the customer journey, you can more easily identify the best storylines to pursue

Enable Cross-Functional Collaboration: Any customer-facing or customer-targeting department in your company (so, arguably everyone) can benefit from some version of a customer journey map. More specifically for comms, your marketing and sales teams are likely creating resources to help move customers along their journey and down the sales funnel. Comms teams need to know about these resources to ensure they’re not duplicating efforts, take the lead in using them to secure more backlinks to the company’s website alongside company interviews in those earlier-determined key publications

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