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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

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

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

How can PR dashboards drive your next campaign? Read what Meltwater is learning from our clients on the most effective ways to use PR dashboards, and how one PR manager got out of her analytics rut with a little help from technology. Also, take this opportunity to download our comprehensive ebook on PR and social media KPIs and how to track them on your dashboards and create top-notch ROI reports.

Confession: While media monitoring software was evolving into media intelligence over the last decade, I didn’t as a user. My media monitoring routine remained fairly static since the early aughts: Start the day scanning my inbox for the latest press hits, and occasionally log in to look up a journalist or run a coverage report. But then I joined Meltwater’s team of product experts, leading up global product communications—and had to catch up quickly. I learned I was missing out on the powerful tools, best practices, and advanced technologies now available thanks to media intelligence—starting with my underutilisation of dashboards.

Your dashboards are automated oracles always available to help out with everything from content marketing ideas to competitor intelligence—when they’re done right and designed with intention. (Secondary confession: I initially relied on a default template* and ignored half of the widgets.) Our in-house dashboards guru, Ryan Getchell—who’s interviewed clients from Fortune 50 companies to boutique PR agencies—says as PR pros become more data-driven, they’re increasingly using dashboards to drive their campaign strategies:

“Clients that use dashboards to design data-driven campaign strategies tend to rely on three types of PR dashboards: brand, competitor, and industry trends. Track these three staples to gain a real-time understanding of your brand’s PR ecosystem. The insights you glean may reveal new trends or validate what you already know—but backed by data. Armed with these metrics, you can identify areas to influence, strategize how to move the needle, then measure the effectiveness of those efforts through a campaign dashboard to demonstrate PR ROI.”

Read on for some tips* for setting up these three PR dashboards—based on our clients’ own best practices—and how to translate data gleaned from those dashboards into insights that can drive the direction of your next campaign or PR strategy.

1. Brand Dashboards — How to Optimise Them

If you’re already using a media intelligence platform, you likely have some form of this dashboard already. But what’s key here is keeping it focused on your brand, and making sure the metrics you track can accurately measure your brand’s performance. This will be your go-to dashboard to gain insights into how your brand is performing now and over time, creating a baseline for your reporting. You’ll want this dashboard to map directly to your KPIs, informing daily decisions, as well as your monthly, quarterly, and annual reports.

Tip #1: Filter out the noise of competitors and other market data to making sure the metrics you track speak only to your brand’s performance.

Tip #2: Make sure you’re using the right metrics to most accurately measure your brand and how its footprint evolves over time. Depending on your brand’s goals, you may want to include data like publications/social influencers, mentions by geography, or visits to your website (tracked by Google Analytics and integrated into your PR dashboard).

Tip #3: Measure news and social data separately. “Tracking news and social together gives you a holistic view, but oftentimes, the trends within these channels are vastly different,” Ryan says. “Collecting data separately—such as mentions or sentiment – makes it easier to drill in to identify patterns that you might not otherwise recognize when the channels are combined.”

Tip #4: Check daily. Use the content feeds on your brand dashboard as a way to make it part of your routine.

2. Competitor Dashboards — Get Ahead and Stay Ahead

Now that you’re acutely aware of your brand’s performance, apply those same principles (er, metrics) to size up the competition.

Use this dashboard to exclusively benchmark competitors’ brand performance against your own. Identify where your brand and the competition are similar, and spot where you can stand out. Monitor how your competitor is being mentioned or where there’s an opening for your brand to have a louder voice in the conversation.

Tip #1: Just about everything you can know about yourself, you can know about your competitors. And since a good media intelligence tool doesn’t limit you on the number of searches you can track, use this single dashboard as your daily source to keep an eye on all of your competitors.

Tip #2: As Ryan says, “For PR managers, I would recommend checking your brand and competitor dashboards every morning to make sure you’re the first to catch any breaking trends—or every couple of days, depending on the tempo of your industry and news cycle.”

3. Industry Dashboards—Keep the Pulse on the Latest Trends  

Your brand, and those of your competitors, aren’t operating in isolation—take a constant pulse on the greater ecosystem of your industry. Spot market forces that could affect your brand over time: What are the micro- and macro-trends or themes that could impact your brand? Who are the most influential voices leading key conversations, and what kind of keywords or messages are they using?

“Not checking your industry is like flying a plane without checking the weather. Know what elements to expect so you can chart the optimal course,” Ryan says. “Using your industry dashboard in conjunction with brand and competitor dashboards, it’ll be easier to spot areas of opportunity or areas to improve—like geographic performance—to guide your PR strategy.”

Tip #1: Ryan recommends checking this dashboard at least monthly to make sure you’re not missing any key coverage or patterns.

Tip #2: Unlike your competitor dashboard where you’re keeping track of other brands, here you’ll want to keep track of key topics and thought leaders. This dashboard is a great place to find out which themes you’ll want to align yourself to when pitching for coverage and any new movers and shakers whose voices are growing louder—and more influential.

Translating Dashboard Data to Winning Strategies

So you’ve got your PR dashboards set up and you’re armed with analytics that help you understand where your brand is at, how it stacks up against the competition, and where it’s performing in your industry. Now what?

Make the leap from widgets to a data-driven strategy in four broad steps:

Digest your data. Export your dashboard analytics and review with your team—either as a PDF report or a living presentation, like Meltwater’s Shareable Dashboards (which can be shared with anyone, regardless if they have an account.)

Pinpoint opportunities for impact. “SWOT analysis is a simple method that can help with this identification,” Ryan says. “Use your data to guide the mapping.”

Sketch out your strategy. Create a set of tactics that focus on the areas you’ve previously identified for impact.

Design your KPIs. Identify which PR metrics will be the best indicators of whether or not your strategy is working. For instance, most media intelligence providers – including Meltwater—offer a Google Analytics widget to help you connect a news article with the web traffic driven to your company’s site. You can also measure how your messages are gaining traction, such as share of voice or tracking trending themes associated with your brand. Use these custom metrics to create a unique campaign dashboard. (Tip: Check your campaign dashboard daily. Generate regular summaries to detect trends and make adjustments, as needed.)

Want to learn more about setting up PR dashboards, and how to use them for better planning and to measure ROI? Our PR Reporting software can help.

The 3 PR Dashboards Your Comms Strategy Needs

Times are changing for Instagram users, both corporate and private, in India. A likely brand name change, the possible full-scale removal of ‘likes’ from the platform and its implication for brands that use influencer marketing. Plus startling revelations around the huge number of fake followers in India, mean that marketers who have made Instagram a platform of choice, for connecting with their audiences, are having to ask themselves some tough questions.

The current testing of removing ‘like’ counts from posts may have the most far-reaching consequences. Although, it’s only happening in selected markets at present – Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Ireland, Italy and Japan – Instagram hasn’t ruled out taking it into other countries too. 

Speaking to exchange4media, the Indian-based marketing and media industry site, an Instagram spokesperson said the aim was to help users feel comfortable expressing themselves through their content, rather than concerning themselves with how many likes they get. “We chose these markets to get a better sense of how the experience resonates with Instagram’s global community. We don’t have any specific timing to share right now about other countries,” the spokesperson said.

However, the ‘like’ button is a reflection of a brand influencer’s popularity and the removal of the button could change the dynamics of the influencer market.

Scherezade Shroff Talwar, Mumbai-based celebrity video blogger and former model – who has 208 000 followers – doesn’t believe the impact will be significant. “A lot of people still don’t know that a lot of influencers are being paid for partnerships. As far as brands go, ultimately they do want to advertise on the platform. I don’t think it will make a difference. The focus will shift to actual engagement. Brands will definitely focus their campaigns on influencers that are a better fit,” she says.

Santoshi Shetty, a fashion and lifestyle blogger with 633 000 Instagram followers, notes: “While on one hand, the reach of any blogger, influencer or brand gets dictated by the number of likes and the stats are usually calculated that way, on the other hand, it will clear up head space. Therefore, I feel people will stop obsessing over the number of likes. The digital marketing space will become cleaner and there will be more quality over quantity. More substance over frivolity.”

The marketing take on removing like counts

And how do marketers feel? Aakriti Sinha, National Head for Social Media at digital marketing agency Isobar, India, says: “We are in the business of engagement and numbers, and I really hope that this remains at the testing phase only. The numbers really never took the focus away from the content, but yes, it did always maintain a constant pressure on influencers particularly. It did lead them to consistently create content in various formats (sometimes overdose) to stay relevant, affecting the quality of documented content in the process.” 

She continues: “I do hope that this rings in that alarm for all the brands and influencers who were creating sub-standard content to maintain their performance in terms of numbers only. This should bring back the focus on creating rich and relevant content.”

Akshay Popawala, Director of Digital Communication/Strategy at Mumbai-based agency Togglehead, notes: “While the content will still be rooted from mass appeal, the spotlight will then be on campaigns that drive actual results of awareness, sales or click-throughs. Should the test become permanent, the process of influencer marketing will become more transparent and informed.”

But even if hiding ‘likes’ on Instagram fails to become a significant problem for Indian marketers, what of the other elephant in the room – the report released in July showing that Indian content-creators and influencers have the third-highest number of bought followers in the world?

A global study by Swedish e-commerce start-up, A Good Company, and data analytics firm HypeAuditor, analysed Instagram accounts in 82 countries and found that the 3 regions with the most fake followers are the US (49-million), Brazil (27-million) and India (16-million). 

In a statement released to PRWeek, the international public relations industry publication, Anders Ankarlid, CEO of A Good Company, said: “Companies are pouring money into influencer marketing, thinking that they are connecting with real people and not Russian bots. In reality, they are pouring money down the drain and giving away free products to someone who acquired a mass following overnight.” 

In an article analysing the study, the India Times website highlights its own concerns: “In India, it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between personal opinions and paid posts because of lack of user awareness. The data of the reports shows how easy it is for ‘influencers’ to fool not only their followers but also marketing firms looking for influencers to promote their brands.”

Why do influencers on Instagram go to the trouble of buying fake followers?

The answer is simple: because the potential profits are huge. 

Take the example of Priyanka Chopra Jonas, the Indian actress, singer, film producer and winner of the Miss World 2000 pageant. While nobody is suggesting her followers are fake, the huge following that she commands on Instagram (43,7-million at latest count) means that she’s paid US$271 000 for a single influencer post. Virat Kohli, the Indian cricket captain (39-million followers), charges US$196 000 per post.

This puts them at 19th and 23rd respectively on the Instagram Rich List 2019 compiled by Hopper, the UK-based Instagram planner and scheduling tool. But that’s small potatoes compared to what media personality Kylie Jenner earns. Her 143-million followers help put her at number one on the Rich List 2019, as she charges a whopping US$1,266-million per post! At number two is Ariana Grande, the Grammy Award-winning US recording artist. Although she has more followers than Jenner (162-million vs 143-million), she ‘only’ charges US$996 000 per post!

Lastly, and perhaps irrelevant to most users but interesting to marketers, is the seemingly imminent re-branding of Instagram to ‘Instagram from Facebook’. Similarly, its sister app, also part of the wider Facebook stable, is to be renamed ‘WhatsApp from Facebook’. 

This is a change from the past strategy of allowing each app to be seen to operate largely independently. Putting distance between the brands also helps to quarantine them from the damage caused by Facebook’s ongoing privacy scandals. Facebook spokesperson Bertie Thomson has confirmed the rebranding strategy, saying: “We want to be clearer about the products and services that are part of Facebook.”  

Irrespective of all of the above changes and revelations, it seems that Instagram will continue to be a key marketing channel, both in India and elsewhere. According to Social Media Today, the June 2019 international study entitled State of Instagram Marketing 2019 indicates that almost 72% of respondents believe it’s ‘very likely’ that Instagram will become a key marketing channel for them in future.

This would be reflective of both the rising usage stats and coming platform additions (like Shopping Tags and on-platform shopping), which will provide a whole range of new opportunities for marketers.

“Clearly, businesses are paying attention to the trends and are keen to get involved – and with so many planning to use Instagram more in future, you can bet that competition for attention on the platform is also going to increase. If you’ve not established your Instagram presence, it may be the time to get started, as it only looks set to become more significant,” says Social Media Today.

An Instagram Influencer Marketing Platform like Meltwater's influencer marketing solution can help you find and analyze influencers that are relevant to your niche.

Big Instagram Changes Ahead for Indian Marketers and Users?

In an era when brand durability is being questioned, getting customers to see how your brand differentiates itself is a survival imperative. Understanding the customer's journey can assist you in brand building, while media monitoring can ensure you maintain the reputation you've worked hard to build.

You’ve probably heard that it’s cheaper to keep a current customer than to acquire a new one (which is true).

But few companies realize just how much customer retention can impact the bottom line. According to research from Bain & Co, increasing customer retention rates by just 5% can boost profits by 25% to 95%. Not bad, right?

The trouble is, retaining customers is harder than ever in the age of dying brand loyalty. With so much competition in the modern market, consumers can always find a brand that delivers the same products and services—just cheaper and faster.

And data shows that a good deal will often beat out consumer brand loyalty. For instance, 35% of women and 33% of men told Crowdtwist they would consider switching from their preferred brand in exchange for a better price, and 49% of consumers said they would gladly switch brands for a coupon.

So what can you do to retain customers in the face of these obstacles? Let’s explore the mind of the modern consumer, then look at some retention strategies than can help drive brand loyalty.

Consumers have 60% higher customer service expectations than they did just one year ago, according to Parature. Consumer expectations are rising—fast.

Gone are the days of three-brand lifestyles. Today, consumers shop based on price, quality, speed, and overall customer experience. Of those qualifiers, research suggests that customer experience is taking the lead. By 2017, 89% of businesses will compete primarily on customer experience.

Customer Experience is More Important Than Ever

Here are some additional stats that paint a clear picture of modern consumers expectations:

71% of online customers expect help within five minutes. (LivePerson)

52% of customers are less likely to buy from a retailer because of a poor mobile experience. (Google)

95% of unhappy customers share their bad experience with others. (Zendesk)

What can we glean from this data? Well, overall customer experience—both online and offline—is more important than ever. The modern shopper will take any opportunity you give them to spend their money elsewhere.

So what can you do to keep the customers you’ve worked so hard to attain? Below, we’ll look at four key customer retention strategies that drive brand loyalty.

Delivering personalised content and experiences is one way to make each and every customer feel special—and it’s a great competitive differentiator too.

According to Virtual Incentives, brands that personalise their customer experience are perceived as smart, unique, and caring by the majority of consumers. Plus, over half of Millennial customers rank personalisation as a high priority. It’s easy to see why more and more brands are focusing on delivering it.

So how do you promote brand loyalty through personalisation?

Marketing automation and personalised customer journeys tie customer details into the content you deliver them. For example, your email marketing platform likely has specific personalisation tags that you can add to the subject line and email body. These personal touches not only increase open rates, they result in 6 times more sales.

Personalised offers like “You may also like…” and “People like you…” present tailored suggestions based on the customer’s history. There’s a reason practically every retail giant uses this approach. It capitalises on the influence of peer recommendations to encourage repeat purchases.

By designing a more customized experience for your buyers, you can effectively earn their trust and respect over time.

Perks can make loyal customers feel like VIPs. Loyalty programs give them one more reason to shop with you over a competitor. So what can you do to reward your best customers?

Give top customers a sneak peek or early access to new products. When software companies roll out beta releases to their top customers, it benefits everyone: the company generates valuable, targeted feedback before the full release, while the customer gets to be a part of the select group that sees it first.

Offer exclusive perks that encourage brand loyalty, like free shipping and monthly deals. Virgin America runs sales on airfare practically every month. Even if the prices are fairly comparable to their standard fare, the regular cadence of deals and offers portrays Virgin as customer-centric and deal-happy—two things modern consumers love.

Include extras and “freebies” in customers’ orders. Sephora offers 3 samples with every online order, plus “Beauty Insider” reward points. The loyalty program has accelerated the cosmetic giant’s growth, making it a household name and the obvious choice for consumers.

Going the extra mile to surprise and delight means showing gratitude for customers. Create a mutual relationship of appreciation between your company and its most reliable customers via relationship marketing, and they’ll reward you with brand loyalty.

A dynamic customer feedback program helps you better serve your audience. From customer satisfaction to Net Promoter Score, ongoing customer surveys help you spot process and service gaps, follow up with unhappy customers, and cultivate brand advocacy among the happiest.

This rich data generated with customer surveys can inform future decisions and advance the entire organization’s understanding of your target audience.

But it’s not just about traditional customer support satisfaction…

Sales organizations can use closed-lost surveys to reveal missteps in the sales process.

Marketing teams can get competitive insight from prospects with brand surveys.

Development teams can send product surveys to beta users.

The list goes on. Plus, companies can align customer feedback with their primary customer data using a Salesforce survey integration. With survey results in your CRM, customer feedback comes to life, drawing clear pathways to customer success or customer churn and revealing new opportunities for growth.

The bottom line here: survey, and survey often.

Last but not least, beef up customer support resources to help your customers succeed.

U.S. companies lose as much as $41 billion each year due to poor customer service and support. That’s no small chunk of change. Add to this the fact that 68% of customers have switched companies because of poor customer service, and the value of robust customer support becomes clear.

Omni-channel customer support is tomorrow’s blueprint for customer satisfaction and success. It takes multi-channel support a step further, focusing on customer support from the customer perspective. Rather than fragmented interactions, omnichannel is all about a cohesive customer experience. If you call into support, tomorrow’s email case shouldn’t restart the conversation, but simply continue it.

Self-service is another huge factor. When you empower customers to solve issues themselves, you streamline support processes and develop proactive measures, ultimately saving time and money.

Today’s consumer may be less loyal than yesterday’s, but there are plenty of modern ways to combat churn and drive retention.

The tips above culminate into one main message: customer care matters most. If you show your customers that they’re valued, they’re more likely to stick by you. It’s a simple concept, but it’s easy to lose sight of it when you’re focused on metrics rather than people.

As brands begin prioritizing customer experience above customer acquisition, we may well see a wide resurgence of brand loyalty among consumers.

Understand your customer’s journey to be prepared for the peaks and valleys that affect buying decisions by using consumer insights platforms like the Meltwater consumer insights software.

Retaining Customers in the Age of Dying Brand Loyalty

Social listening for small businesses is especially powerful, as one good social listening tool can be used to serve multiple purposes in your organization. Social listening tools run the gamut from free to paid, but they follow the same adage as most things in this world: you get what you pay for. 

That being the case, I’ve seen a lot of discussions on LinkedIn Groups and the like wherein people debate whether or not paid social listening tools for small businesses are worth the spend. Having spent a good chunk of my career helping small businesses and nonprofits with their marketing plans, I’ll voice what may be a counterintuitive opinion here:

A lot of the confusion around social listening lies in the misapprehension that, because social listening tools monitor social media sites specifically, these are tools that should be used for social media marketing specifically – and social media marketing is still a murky discipline for a lot of us, often without well-articulated business goals that make finding the social media ROI a bit like a treasure hunt without a map.

Social listening is essentially a social search: good social media monitoring tools are harnessing Big Data to cut through the noise of gazillions of conversations happening simultaneously on social networks and giving not just the marketing teams, but all departments throughout an organisation the insights to actually establish those well-articulated business goals that any business initiative should have.

In that way, social listening tools aren’t so much a Swiss Army Knife as they are a spoon: just about everyone in the company can find a use for them. That being the case, good social listening tools can make the spend worth it by allowing multiple users to set up multiple profiles. So, if your marketing team is trying to figure out a way to get a spend through your boss for a social listening tool, the best way to do that is to make sure that your software is servicing a legitimate business need.  And so, without further ado…

5 Ways for Small Business to Get the Most out of a Social Listening Tool

Competitive analysis is an essential part of every business strategy. While a competitive analysis used to require a long, drawn-out and often expensive process with external contractors and agencies, these days, social listening can be used to benchmark yourselves against your competitors, in a variety of clever ways:

Positioning: What are your competitors saying about themselves – and is it resonating with relevant followers? Take a look at how your competition is positioning itself and its products and see if they’re getting any feedback from relevant community members that might inform your own marketing efforts. Don't just jump in and implement the insights you find, dig a little deeper and watch how conversations progress over a few months - you might find an interesting trend. If you're a small business, it's wise to look at other SMBs to ensure your budget can achieve the same things.


Product: Are your small business competitors giving any clues as to what they might be working on? How can you combat this with your own strategy? Again, don't be hasty and change company direction just because you know your competitor is working on something. Use the insights you find to explore deeper, for example, run an industry keyword search on the insight you've found to see if there's a progressive spike in engagement. Just because your competitor is doing something, doesn't mean its right. For example, you may find that conversation around a particular topic is dwindling, suggesting it's not a strategically wise move to follow suit.


Share of Voice: Which one of you is getting more engagement?  Vanity metrics like “followers” aren’t the best measurement of a social marketing strategy. Afterall, followers only bring something to the table if they engage with you. As such, instead of followers, use engagement as a success metric.


Awareness: Is their brand awareness growing or shrinking amongst relevant audiences– and how does that compare to yours?  One way to tell is to look at whether engagement is increasing or decreasing, and whether the folks engaging with you and your competitor’s brands are the same small group of people, or whether it’s growing.

Twitter is a really great way for testing subject lines and messaging on your follower. You can post the same article days apart and try different taglines, hooks and positioning to see what gets you the most clicks. This method also works well in crisis communication: if you’re using trying to manage a PR crisis, check to see whether your message is resonating with your customers in a way that suits your brand.

Using real audience data from your followers is a sure way to increase positive engagement. It's wise to document what you find and use the insights to pave way for your future content marketing strategy, for example, if you notice a trend in that your community responds better to humour, you may wish to lead with this tonality in a future advertising campaign.

Your competitors aren’t the only ones talking about products: industry influencers and consumers are talking, too. Put your small business's brand name as a general industry search term – you never know what you’ll find. If your brand only recently launched, it's unlikely you'll find conversations about your company, however, what relevant followers have to say about your industry as a whole/ competitor's products is equally as important and forms the basis of a good R&D strategy.

Do you know what your employees are saying about you? Sites like glassdoor cater to the detractor, so it’s not always easy to get an accurate view of how you’re perceived out in the world. None the less, it's important to understand what people think of your brand as this can considerably impact the people you attract working for your small business. Skills are critical - and so is a good brand reputation to plug the skill gaps you may have.

There are industry influencers and consumers, and then there are investors. Insights from all three are worth listening to when you’re looking at market trends, and any good social media monitoring software will have community features that allow you to tag and follow influencers.

Hopefully, this article has explained how your small business can leverage social marketing, and social media listening, to inform the strategies of your entire business rather than just the marketing team. For a more comprehensive view on social listening across the business organization, check our free social listening guide, or take a listen to our social listening webinar, both of which take a deep dive on how to best use social listening throughout your company.

5 Ways Small Business Can Use Social Listening Tools

First day jitters are real. New employees frequently experience a mixed bag of emotions when they start a job, ranging from excitement to anxious anticipation. Often, those embarking on a career in public relations, especially those joining an agency, have added challenges, too, as it’s not only important to blend in with your new team, but also form a solid working relationship with clients. So how do you navigate your first day at work as a PR newbie?

Heather Fox is a senior account manager at Catalyst, a division of Endeavor Global Marketing, based in New York City. It’s an award-winning agency with a number of national and global clients in a variety of industries. Fox has been with this agency for over eight years, and has steadily risen through the ranks, from her entry-level internship to her current senior-level position. Today, as a seasoned pro, she enjoys assisting new co-workers as they become acclimated to the agency world, and offers some tips for getting up to speed on the first day of work.

Fox suggests, “This may seem trivial to some, but I always recommend over-dressing on your first day, even if you know the office has a casual dress code. Really think about how you are presenting yourself. It’s the first time you will be making an impression on your new co-workers and you want it to be a positive one.”

Fox points out that it’s essential to be proactive from the very beginning. She says, “Agency environments are often busy and your co-workers may be pulled in a lot of different directions. So, when you arrive at a new office, it’s a good idea to set up 20-minute meetings with as many people as you can. You can even meet co-workers for a quick coffee or lunch where you can ask questions and get to know them a bit. And don’t be shy about reaching out to those outside of your core account team, because meeting people will always help you in the long-run.”

Fox also mentioned that doing some extra research in advance is always beneficial. “You will probably be briefed on the clients, but it’s always good to have a general baseline knowledge about a brand’s recent program or big launch that the agency team has spearheaded.”

Agency life is often synonymous with hectic projects, deadlines and late hours. For someone new to the industry, this may present a learning curve. Fox said, “It’s necessary to come in with an open mind and understanding of what agency life is. Above all, we are here to service our clients. When you start a new job, you should be thinking ‘this is a fresh opportunity for me. When I walk in the door, I’m going to get everything I need to get finished in a timely and efficient manner.’ ”

She added, “Depending on the culture of the agency, you may have opportunities to work from home on occasion or leave early. But don’t assume this is true, especially in the beginning. I’m lucky enough to work at an agency that values work-life balance, and it’s better for everyone.”

Client meetings are also critical for making a first impression. In addition to dressing well, she suggests being friendly and approachable. “Don’t be afraid to share some anecdotes or personal information about your life with your clients once in a while. When you talk about small details, like your family, pets or hobbies, that’s when the relationship goes to a deeper level. And that’s also the key to long-time client relationships,” she said.  

Often, the extremely collaborative nature of an agency is different from a corporate environment, and may be an adjustment to recent college graduates. Fox points out, “In the agency world, your entire day-to-day structure and your success is based on your team. Agencies often have brainstorming sessions and invite anyone to join. I highly recommend attending, showing enthusiasm and offering ideas.”

She added, “After all, we’re all in this together. Collaboration is what agency life is all about.” 

First Day in PR: 6 Essential Tips for a PR Newbie from a Seasoned Pro

Legal tech is on the rise. A report by Thomson Reuters confirmed a 484% increase in legal services patent filings over the last five years, led by the US, China and South Korea, as more firms invest in technology. This number reflects the “rise of alternative legal services – such as virtual law firms – and the rapid expansion of the online legal industry.”

According to Forbes, in the past 50 years, more than $750M has been pumped into U.S.-based legal tech.  67 legal tech financing deals were closed last year – more than ever before, with a record 27 in the final quarter.

London-based AI startup Luminance leverages pattern recognition and machine learning to pull valuable information from thousands of contracts and legal documents in seconds – particularly in the case of M&A.

The idea is that it takes out the tedious work, allowing lawyers to focus on the decisions that require human logic. The platform’s pattern recognition technology can also identify potential risks or unusual clauses and cases, ranking them to bring lawyers’ attention to the right place.

The firm has raised $10M as it sets sights on expansion into the US. Beyond pulling more insights, the technology enables legal review to be completed 75% faster, without using large teams of paralegals and junior lawyers working long hours.

While some fear this efficiency may replace some junior level lawyers, CEO Emily Foges is not worried. “You get all these time-savings in doing document review and you lose nothing,” she said. “You are gaining more thinking time.”

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