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Generative AI is everywhere now. You see it in content, campaigns, customer experiences, and even internal workflows. It promises speed, scale, and efficiency, but there’s a harder question sitting underneath all that progress; Do your audiences actually trust it?

Trust in the Age of AI: What Consumers Really Think About AI Generated Content

Today, PR teams aren’t just tracking media coverage and share of voice. They’re also measuring how their brand shows up in AI-generated answers, search summaries, and large language models (LLMs). This new LLM visibility layer is quickly becoming a critical part of PR performance.

15 Must-Have PR KPIs and How to Track Them

See how one platform can power every decision across PR, communications, and marketing.

The Meltwater Blog

Blog Topics: Generative Engine Optimization, Media Intelligence, Media Relations, Social Listening, Consumer Intelligence, Influencer Marketing

Find out how you can leverage Facebook to boost your brand's online presence and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

Facebook Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage Instagram to boost your brand's visual appeal and gain a competitive edge. Explore our category page today!

Instagram Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage LinkedIN to grow your professional network and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

LinkedIn Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage TikTok to elevate your brand with creative content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

TikTok Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage X / Twitter to engage your audience effectively and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

X / Twitter Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage YouTube to create engaging video content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

YouTube Blog | Meltwater

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is transforming how brands show up in AI-powered search. Explore insights, strategies, and best practices to help your content rank and resonate across conversational engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot.

Explore insights and strategies for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) to help your brand stay visible and discoverable in AI-powered search.

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Blog Collection | Meltwater

Every day billions of conversations take place on social media: tweets, posts, comments, blogs, reviews, podcasts, and much more.
Learn how to use social listening to make sense of all of that data.

On our social listening category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around social listening and social media monitoring. Read more.

Social Listening Blogs | Category

Business Reputation Management: What does it take to add reputation management to your marketing strategy? More importantly, how do you keep your reputation sparkly and shiny? Here’s your all-access guide to online reputation management for the long term.

On our reputation management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around business reputation management. Read more.

Reputation Management Blogs | Category

From your brand's logo to your website, your social media presence to your customer support—these elements combined are what constitutes a brand in the minds of customers. But, there are thousands of other businesses that have a logo, website, social media presence, and website. So, how can you position your business on the market and make it stand out from the competition?
The key to success is branding & brand management!

On our brand management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around brand management. Build your strategy and reach your goals!

Brand Management Blogs | Category

Competitive intelligence and the act of collecting competitive data can be seen as growth drivers for a company. Our guide will help you understand the concept of competitive intelligence (CI) by answering questions such as: What is the definition of competitive intelligence? How is competitive intelligence useful to organizations? What is the goal of competitive intelligence? And more.

On our competitive intelligence category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around competitive intelligence. Learn how to stay ahead.

Competitive Intelligence Blogs | Category

Let’s dive into the customer journey framework and how to optimize the process by creating a customer journey map and using metrics that matter when analyzing the customer journey.

On our customer journey category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Customer Journey Blogs | Category

What Is Data Analytics? [Beginner’s Guide 2023]
How can I grow my business? 
How do customers interact with my newly launched product?
How do I increase the productivity of my employees?
How do I know if my marketing efforts are working?
We have just two words for you...Data analytics!

On our data analytics category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around AI and data analytics. Technical and still easy to understand.

AI & Data Analytics Blogs | Category

Public relations and media relations can add impact to any marketing strategy. It’s an opportunity for brands to grow their reach beyond traditional sales messages. PR helps to shape the image you want people to have of your brand.
So, what is PR and how do you use it? This guide shows you everything you need to know to build a strong public relations foundation.

On our public relations (PR) category page, you find all our blogs covering public relations and communications topics. Step up your PR game.

Public Relations (PR) Blogs | Category

We all know exactly what the roles of sales or accounting are in a company, right? We might even have a slight idea of what the IT guys are doing.
But there is another business discipline, that plays a crucial role in organizations, even more so during the pandemic – internal communications!
But what exactly do we mean by that, what purpose does it serve and what steps can you take to ensure you and your employees will communicate effectively?

On our internal communications category page, you find all our blogs about internal comms topics. Learn about the intranet, internal newsletters, and more.

Internal Communications Blogs | Category

As the internet has taken root in more areas of our lives — everything from entertainment to shopping to paying bills and more — traditional marketing is becoming less impactful. As any marketer knows, you need to focus on where your audience is if you want to reach them. Since the average person spends about seven hours a day online, it’s no surprise that content has maintained its hold on marketers.

Here's a closer look at what content marketing is and why it matters more than ever in our digital-first economy.

On our content marketing category page, you find blogs about content marketing topics. Learn about strategies, KPIs, tips, and more. Make your content king!

Content Marketing Blogs | Category

The rise of the influencer marketing space – today a $10 billion industry, growing 50% per year – is one of the clearest examples of how social media is transforming traditional marketing. These days having a business website, presence on social, PR coverage, and your own content isn’t enough to compete.
We'll dive into the intricacies of influencer marketing to help ensure that you're equipped with the insights needed to be successful in this space.

On our influencer marketing category page, you find blogs about influencer marketing topics. Build your strategy, find influencers, and measure results.

Influencer Marketing Blogs | Category

Have you just launched a new product or service that you want to get the word out about? Maybe you want to share with consumers why it is awesome and how it is so much better than the one your competitors offer.

Well, then, there is one thing you can't do without...Marketing!

On our marketing category page, you find blogs about marketing topics. Learn about all the different angles and types of marketing and improve your results.

Marketing Blogs | Category

In this guide, we want to give you a peek into the definition of social media management, the daily schedule of a social media manager, social media platforms to promote your business, and the do’s & don’ts of social media management.
Are you ready to begin the journey of becoming a social media superstar?

On our social media management category page, you find blogs about social media management topics. Build and manage your online community.

Social Media Management Blogs | Category

Building a following and using social media platforms to reach a wider audience requires a well-planned social media marketing strategy. In this guide, we’ll be looking at why social media marketing is so essential and how you can make it work for your business.

On our social media marketing category page, you find blogs about social media marketing topics. Learn how to get the highest paid social ROI!

Social Media Marketing Blogs | Category

In the fast-evolving realm of digital marketing and public relations, utilizing the right tools is crucial for success. Our interdisciplinary category showcases all the pertinent tools for digital marketing & PR. These tools help in enhancing your online presence and effectively reaching target groups, whether through reputation management, influencer marketing, or social media management.

On our digital marketing and PR tools category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Digital Marketing & PR Tools Blogs | Category

From basketball brackets to green beer, the month of March is chock-full of entertainment for your social calendar. As winter takes a backseat, spring into action by planning for celebrations around women, puppies and much more. Below we’ve shared all the social media holiday highlights, so you can create content that resonates best with your brand.

Women’s History Month, Music in Our Schools Month, Irish Heritage Month, Social Workers Month, National Credit Education Month

Nutrition Month, American Red Cross Month, March for Meals, Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Month, National Caffeine Awareness Month, National Cheerleading Safety Month, National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, National Kidney Month, Pet Poison Prevention Awareness Month

Peanut Month, National Celery Month, National Frozen Food Month, National Flour Month, National Noodle Month, National Sauce Month

#ManCrushMonday or #MCM, #MondayBlues, #MotivationMonday, #MarketingMonday

#TransformationTuesday or #TT, #TravelTuesday, #TongueOutTuesday, #Tunesday

#WomanCrushWednesday, #WineWednesday, #WellnessWednesday

#TBT or #ThrowbackThursday, #Thursdate, #ThoughtfulThursday, #ThankfulThursday

#FollowFriday or #FF, #FlashbackFriday or #FBF, #FridayFeeling, #FridayReads

National Read Across America Day, Dr. Seuss Day, Old Stuff Day

National Multiple Personality Day, National Absinthe Day

National Employee Appreciation Day, National Salesperson Day, Oreo Day, National Frozen Food Day, Middle Name Pride Day, National Dress Day

Pixar’s Onward, The Way Back, The Banker, First Cow, Hope Gap, Spenser Confidential, The Burnt Orange Heresy, Go Back to China

National Be Heard Day, National Day of Unplugging, National Cereal Day, National Crown Roast of Pork Day

International Women’s Day, Daylight Saving Time begins, National Proofreading Day

National Napping Day, National Barbie Day, National Meatball Day

National Pack Your Lunch Day, Women & Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, National Sleep Awareness Week, Girl Scout Week, National Landline Telephone Day

National Worship of Tools Day, National Promposal Day

National Girl Scout Day, Popcorn Lover’s Day

Friday the 13th, World Sleep Day, Jewel Day, Earmuff Day, National K9 Veterans Day

Bloodshot, My Spy, Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always, I Still Believe, Inside the Rain, The Roads Not Taken, The Informer

Pi Day, Potato Chip Day, Campfire Birthday Week, Learn about Butterflies Day

2020 World Women’s Curling Championship

JUNO Awards, World Consumer Rights Day, Ides of March, Red Nose Day, Poison Prevention Week 

March Madness Begins – Selection Sunday, 2020 Arctic Winter Games

Game Developer’s Conference, National Freedom of Information Day, National Artichoke Day, National Corn Dog Day

Social Sidekick: Your Monthly Guide to Social Holidays

Janna Stark, a trend forecaster, knows how trends evolve over time and what makes them sticky. Here she details examples of brands that have been successful in reading the temperature of their time and how they used that information to launch still-trending campaigns.

Tip: Learn more about trendspotting, trend forecasting, and trend detection.

Not just any trend. Not a fad, or a fly by night kind of trend, but a trend that soars, that’s successful not only in product sales or market recognition, but one that becomes part of the cultural conversation. When we’ve seen it happen, it occurs to us, “Why didn’t I think of that?” Then we start looking for the next big thing. Hoping to hit it big ourselves, but when the excitement wanes or the process becomes overwhelming, we tend to push our ideas aside and replace them with more practical notions and seemingly “achievable” goals. Then it happens again, someone comes up with another idea that shakes the global community, and our eyes widen with envy once more.

In a bygone era, trend evolution had a top-down trajectory. Innovators, product developers, and idea people came up with concepts. The good ones stuck and gained momentum. Ideas, as well as a physical product, were then handed over to marketers who with some savvy media manipulation attracted the appropriate consumer base. Well, gone are the days of the top-down marketing trajectory. Bottom(s) up as we say in the fashion industry! It’s time to let the consumer lead.

The big gun advertisers and marketers don’t want to give up the front line so easily. They are continuously waving cool shiny objects in front of our eyes, hoping to distract us from the critical task at hand, listening to the consumer and letting insight (not hype) drive the creative process.

Let’s get a few things out of the way; AI, VR, IoT, sharing economy, cloud migration, crowdsourcing, FinTech, social media trends, fake news… so shiny!

Don’t jump on a trend because it’s there. To initiate a trend, a new cultural zeitgeist, it is necessary to look at the big picture of how trends evolve. Then, see how that fits into your business and speaks to your audience.

In our current socio-cultural landscape with trust seemingly out the window and new shiny technological advances appearing around every corner, it seems the consumer may want something familiar and safe to hold. Respond to your audiences’ emotional needs and tell a story that connects past and future in a succinct, linear, and comforting way. And while I stand behind my advice to avoid the hype, it should be clear that scanning the cultural landscape both near and far can help you see how changes in society can impact how new ideas are accepted and what becomes a trend.

Let’s Take the Experience Economy as an Example

You don’t have to dig too deep to discover that consumers are currently interested in community building, experiences, and lifestyle over brand-specific messaging. They desire both entertainment and experiences that say something unique about them. They are eager to get offline and go out and meet like-minded people including those who love the same brands they do and are happy to share these experiences via social media.

Savvy companies are figuring out how to change the brick and mortar environment in response to this need. While the giants are failing, smaller players are figuring out how to reinvent the store experience for the 21st century, focusing on authenticity and community while, in many ways, thinking about sales second. Stores are becoming brand meeting places and touchpoints. Whatever your business, there is an opportunity to create a comforting experience for your audience. After all, experiences help shape identity and create lifelong memories. This evolution is a win-win for strengthening brand loyalty and creating a buzz.

Take a look at one of the most innovative viral campaigns in history from 20 years ago. The MasterCard, “Priceless” campaign launched in 1997 and highlighted the priceless human connection between a father and son. The tagline was: “Real conversation. Priceless.” Before social media there was social (a.k.a. word-of-mouth). The campaign went viral without the Internet. Fast forward to today, though the campaign has evolved to include curated “priceless” experiences, the basic premise has remained the same is stronger than ever.

The MasterCard “Priceless” campaign is still going strong two decades since it’s creation. It’s so successful that it is the foundation of all of MasterCard’s campaigns, both domestically and internationally.

Consider This, Consumers Are Looking for the Familiar and the Safe

So, how do you think they feel about the overwhelming choices we have? Personally, it makes me feel very anxious and confused. Bombarding consumers with too many options instead of honing in on what they really want is counter-productive. While our intention may be to simply give people choices, what is actually happening is the opposite. Analysis paralysis due to the paradox of choice is a reality. The danger of this phenomenon is that the consumer may decide to react to this feeling of paralysis by deciding to opt-out of the (consumer market) experience altogether.

If we aren’t able to take a step back from the market-driven race, focusing on trying to keep up, we might be missing the whole point. It’s something I think of as “clutter” (as opposed to choice). Why not decide to be the brand or company that simplifies the clutter? Curate heavily and speak not only to your audience’s emotions but also to their core values.

Brandless.com, which launched in July of this year, is making an effort to take the reigns of the simplicity trend in the food and household product category. They’ve addressed their customer’s core values of good products that work and simplified their product offering. This philosophy is reflected in all aspects of their visual identity. And, by using the direct to consumer model, they have taken out the middleman, offering consumers great value at $3 for every product on their site. Focusing on quality, simplicity, and value is not a bad trend to take a closer look at in our overly cluttered marketplace.

Brandless.com has simplified their product offering and the consumer experience.

If you are looking to create the next big trend, find something that people can relate to. Endear them. Base your strategy on core (global) human truths and values that evoke emotion. Don’t be a storyteller, be a story maker, and most importantly, listen to the people who have already made your business a success with a media monitoring tool or social listening software.

Start a Trend with This Essential Ingredient

Running a contest on Facebook can be a great addition to your social media marketing plan. In one of my recent surveys, I found out that fully 32% of all Facebook users have liked a Page because of a competition on Facebook.

While marketers want to create a magical competition that increases engagement on Facebook, many fall short and end up violating Facebook’s promotion terms or giving away expensive products for very few likes or other return.

Over the years I have helped a lot of businesses create contests on Facebook and I’ve learned something every time. As with any social media marketing endeavour, success comes from good planning, management and follow-up. So, without further ado, here are my seven top tips for companies that want to build a successful promotional campaign on Facebook.

If you're running a promotion on Facebook “because it’s fun” or because all of your competitors are doing it, it’s time for you to go back to the drawing board and rethink your campaign. Your contest should somehow contribute to a business goal for your company. Do you want to reach more relevant fans? Do you want to increase social media engagement with customer? Drive more sales? Decide on a goal that contributes to your wider business strategy, then decide what your goal is worth to you and create a budget that fits.

Say your goal is to drive more likes to your page and each like is worth $5 to you. If the prize will cost you $100, then you will need to get 20 new likes to recoup this cost. Don’t forget set-up costs; you will also need to consider the cost of your Facebook App (more on that later) and any advertising you plan to support your contest on Facebook.

How you calculate what your goal is worth will be unique for your company, but the important thing is that you have a goal and that you can easily measure the success of your contest.

2. Create a simple and shareable contest application

A competition on Facebook needs to be located in an application (read Facebook’s Pages terms if you have not already done so). Whatever choice you make, make sure that you end up with a contest that fans can easily understand and that encourages them to share. Consider four popular types:

A simple “Motivate and Win” contest with a Like-gate, where the components of the contest application are available only to users who like your Page. These are useful if your aim is to grow your Facebook community.

A contest with a few questions, the answers to which users can find the answers on your website. These are especially useful if your goal is to drive traffic to your website.

A competition in which the user needs to vote on other users’ contributions. These usually generate a lot of buzz and get a lovely viral spread as well.

A competition offering a prize to people who share your content. These can be very effective in increasing awareness of your offerings.

The key here is to keep it simple and give the user the ability (and incentive) to share the contest on Facebook with their friends.

3. Ensure your contest on Facebook is accessible on mobile devices

Many Facebook users access the site on mobile devices, so running a competition on Facebook that only works on desktop is a big no-no. Make sure your content on Facebook is accessible to everyone; use a webpage to store your contest on Facebook that can be accessed via mobile apps. You don’t want to risk making your mobile followers sour on you, or lose all mobile users, just because your application doesn’t work on mobile devices!

4. Regularly post about the contest on Facebook

If nobody knows about your contest on Facebook, nobody will participate. Make sure all of your followers and their friends know about the contest by publishing new posts at least 2 – 3 times per week. Offer images of the prize and describe what you can do with it, ask users to participate, and include other calls to action to get more followers to participate in the contest. You can also change your cover photo and point users to your contest. Facebook recently changed its guidelines allowing you to include calls to actions in your cover photo.

5. Promote the contest on your website, in newsletters and through ads

Just because you’re hosting your contest on Facebook doesn’t mean that Facebook should be the only place where you promote it. Add links and banners to your website to make sure visitors are informed about the contest on Facebook and include information on it in your customer newsletters. You can also use other social media apps and create buzz across multiple channels. You never know, the winner may be somebody that hasn't previously liked your Facebook page, they may have been solely a Twitter follower but after seeing the competition promoted on Twitter decided to engage with you on Facebook too. In my experience, advertising on Facebook has been crucial for contests – just make sure that your ads are targeting the right audience (e.g. do not target Italians if your prize is in the US) and try to use multiple ad formats to see which delivers the best results.

6. Send your congratulations to the winner

When the contest is over, you should show the joy that the contest gave all participants and/or winners. You might, for example, take a picture of the lucky winner and publish it on your timeline. (Just keep in mind that, according to Facebook’s Promotion Guidelines, you can’t notify a winner using the Facebook platform). Also consider talking to the winner or some of the participants to get their feedback on the contest, and then use that feedback in posts and for a future contest on Facebook.

When you have done all the above, it’s time to become a “number nerd.” Measure progress toward the goals you picked in Step 1 and how well the contest contributed to your business goals. Check Facebook Insights to see how many people visited your contest, how many more likes you received during the contest period, how your reach was affected during the contest, and so on. Make sure you understand what contributed to the success of your contest, and think about what you can do differently the next time around. Then it’s time to start planning for the next contest on Facebook. 😉

To sum things up, set a goal, create a plan, build an app with shareable content, let the world know about your contest, and keep it simple and fun.

Are there any good tips I missed for running a successful contest on Facebook? Add a comment below!

Want more Facebook marketing tips? Like us on Facebook!

7 Tips for a Successful Contest on Facebook

You wouldn’t copy and paste a competitor’s press release, would you? So why do your PR job listings look the same as theirs? And the same as a hundred other PR job descriptions? Maybe it’s time to get the PR team more involved in crafting a compelling job description that better fits your brand.

Start by Introducing Your Brand Differentiator

Your job description is more than a checklist of attributes you are looking for in a prospective employee. It’s also your pitch to candidates on why they should work for you and not one of your competitors.

The best job descriptions start by setting the stage for who the company is, what their high-level vision is, and how the PR team—and this specific role—help bring that vision to life.

Here are two examples of companies doing this right:

Facebook’s recent PR Director job listing does a good job of selling the candidate on the company, then describing who will thrive in the role.

This PR and Communications Manager job from Telenav does a good job introducing their company and painting the picture of who their ideal candidate is, and the impact their work will make.

While it is important for a candidate to have a clear understanding of the role and its requirements, some job descriptions go too far. If a page of the listing is all job duties, you can cause one of two problems to arise:

Female candidates, who may not feel they are already qualified to do 100% of the activities listed may not apply.

Applicants may get the impression you’ve combined several roles into one, to get more work for less salary.

Instead of an endless bulleted list of job requirements and responsibilities, consider giving a picture of a day-in-the-life for a person in this role. This allows the candidate to put themselves into the picture and visualize how they could contribute in the role.

When business owners note the difficulty they have in finding qualified candidates, it’s not always just a lack of good applicants that’s the issue. Is your hiring process like this: solicit resumes → run them through an applicant screening tool → schedule phone interviews → schedule in-person interviews → make a job offer?

Applicant screening tools can be an effective way to winnow down the number of applicants you manually evaluate. But they are only as good as the data used to set up their filters. If you instead build in a screening process into the job listing itself, you can cut down on the number of irrelevant applicants while giving your team more information to use in evaluating the candidate.

For an entry-level PR position, the screening process could include requesting that they submit a cover letter that includes what interests them most about working in a PR role for your company, and what they’d like to learn from the position. For a more senior PR professional, you could ask for the cover letter to include a brief summary of the PR campaign they’re most proud of and the results it drove for the company.

If someone is applying for every job that has PR in the title, including a specific screening question in your job listing can help weed out applicants who aren’t actually interested in your company. This also will weed out applicants who lack the attention to detail necessary in corporate communications. And as a bonus, including a question that illuminates the skills necessary for being successful in the position, gives candidates the ability to show they know their stuff instead of being judged exclusively on their resume-writing ability.

If you’re recycling the same PR job listings you’ve been using for the past five years, it’s making your PR team look dated. And that’s not how you’ll attract the best and brightest PR pros to your team.

Before posting your next job listing, talk to the team members who will work with this person and ask how the role has changed since the last time you recruited for it. It’s likely that the technology you use has changed, as have many of the day-to-day responsibilities and team interdependencies.

If the most recent person in the role is leaving amicably, you can ask for feedback on the job requirements as part of their exit interview. After all, who is more acutely aware of the challenges of the role than the person who has most recently been in it? That said, understand this feedback may sometimes say more about the outgoing employee than the role itself. It’s important to make sure to clarify and validate their feedback before making significant changes to the job listing.

Hiring the right candidate for your PR team can be tough. But if you follow these tips, you’ll create a job requisition that will do the heavy lifting for you, and help match the right candidates to the job.

And given that the state of PR has changed in the last decade, make sure your candidates have the digital skills to accompany their soft skills and culture fit. Download our ebook on digital competency for the modern PR pro.

How to Draft a PR Job Description That Fits Your Brand

 Social media is the perfect vehicle to leverage and positively impact website traffic, that is, when social platforms are used correctly.

The golden rule in marketing is getting the right message, to the right person, at the right time. Although many of us comms pros usually live by this notion, we also sometimes forget that while the core message remains the same, how it’s communicated needs to be tweaked depending on the channel it’s distributed on. Sure a one size fits all approach makes our life easier when it comes to content creation, but the same can’t be said when it comes to improving results.

Radio content doesn’t work for TV. TV content doesn’t work for social media. Social content doesn’t work for print. You need to create content for social media in order to see ROI from social posts and stop trying to fit the content you already have on channels they’ve not been created for.

“At Meltwater, we’re seeing an increase in clients adopting social-first content strategies in order to drive website traffic. A social-first content strategy considers social media during the ideation and brainstorm phase of planning content, rather than as an afterthought to amplify content reach. This has proved to be a successful method for those wanting to increase link click-throughs on social media”

With this in mind, here are 10 tips to remember when sharing content on social media. Follow them and increase link click-throughs in no time!

Don’t fall into the trap of trying to create and share web content across all social channels. You’re not going to increase link click-throughs via social media if you’re audience aren’t present on the channel. Use a social listening tool to understand where your audience hangs out as this will aid channel prioritisation and focus. You can do this by analysing social conversations about your brand per channel.

Social listening insights will stop you from leaning towards a channel you want to be present on and more towards the channel you should be present on.

“Conduct social listening of conversations developing around your industry/ competitors too. You may find a difference in social network usage, suggesting where your brand’s audience may be to heading to next! Untapped social media channels offer a chance to reach new audiences and increase click-throughs from unique website visitors.”

Although we’re seeing social networks mimic their rival’s technologies (like Instagram rolling out Snap’s Stories), each social network is still fundamentally different from one another. The unique characteristics must be respected when sharing web content on social media if you have any chance of driving web traffic.

The image below from AddThis offers a high-level overview of the differences between social network content and tone of voice.

Let’s take Twitter vs Instagram as an example.

Twitter defines itself as “what’s happening in the world and what people are talking about right now.” It’s a platform for real-time commentary, sparking global conversations. Instagram, on the other hand, defines itself as “a simple, fun & creative way to capture, edit & share photos, videos & messages with friends & family”.

One channel relies on imagery and the other relies on text.

If you’re aiming to increase click-throughs on Twitter, consider the ‘chatter factor’. Will your content spark debate? How can you take the conversation from Twitter onto your web page? For example, prompting people to continue the conversation in the comment section of your webpage works nicely.

When creating content for Insta, consider the ‘shopability factor’. Is the photo attractive enough to not just generate likes, but get people to click on your microsite and explore?
Due to the real-time nature of Twitter, it’s best to post timely content. Newsjacking, moment marketing, company announcements, customer service campaigns and crisis control responses are forms of content that work well for Twitter and will most likely increase link click-throughs compared to other forms of content. On the contrary, evergreen content, that always remains relevant, works better on Facebook.

If you want somebody to explore your post beyond the caption your need to spark audience emotion. The best way to do this is through storytelling. This can be tricky with limited characters, so get creative and look at what others are doing in your industry. Most companies find evoking the below emotions significantly impact engagement and increase link click-through.

85 % of Facebook video is watched without sound, yet in a recent Facebook study, 76% of rated video adverts required sound to be understood. When creating video content to be distributed on social media, ensure the narrative can be followed through imagery, without sound. Add subtitles to increase link click-throughs and post engagement. Check out Facebook’s handy closed-captioning tool which allows you to upload your own captions or generate captions automatically.

When creating content for social media, professionals are in a unique position to arm themselves with more informed engagement insights. For example, they’re able to understand when people click a link, the pages they explore next or when they drop off their site. Social listening to conversations developing around competitors can also give you an insight scoop into the strengths and weaknesses of their strategies. Such insights should be used to A/B test content with optimisation in mind.

The majority of social networks offer native analytics for business accounts within the app, but if you’re interested in more advanced insights, such as trending themes, consider investing in a third party social media analytics tool to help increase link click-throughs.

Don’t forget that image sizing differs by channel. Nothing will detract your audience from clicking a link to your site than an accompanying image that has been cut off as this signifies content that has been poorly put together. You can find the 2018 guide to social media image dimensions here. If you think the content will resonate on other social networks (keeping in mind their unique characteristics) you can easily adjust content sizing using free tools like Canva.

It’s also important to optimise content for mobile users, especially since 80% of social media usage is consumed via mobile. Increase link click-throughs by considering the user experience of engaging with content via a smaller screen vertically, but also the behavioural differences of mobile vs desktop users.

No comms message is complete without a strong call to action (CTA). CTAs are crucial when trying to increase link click-throughs.

“Every piece of content, regardless of what channel it’s distributed on, should have a goal it wants the audience to complete. However, CTAs should be adapted depending on the channel and its characteristics.”

If the aim of the campaign is to double marketing database subscribers, you may want to push this through a timely competition for Twitter. On the contrary, since Facebook supports evergreen content quite nicely, its better database sign-ups through whitepaper downloads for this particular channel.

We often have clients ask “When is the best time to post on social media?” Unfortunately, the answer isn’t as simple as Sunday at 6 pm (despite what people may think).

“The best time to post on social media and increase link click-throughs depends on the time your audience is online on a given social network. This means the best time to post on differs by channel and communities.”

Work out when the best time to post on social media is by looking at what times and days you get the most engagement on social media currently.

For Twitter, go into ‘Twitter Analytics’ and sort by ‘Top Tweets’, you can then look at your top tweets. Analyse which time and day get the most engagement.

For Facebook, go into ‘Insights’ of your page, to look at what days you get the most reach and likes.

On Instagram, if you have a business profile, you can look at Instagram’s analytics feature.

Rolling out a social-first content strategy doesn’t mean creating content for social media only. Marketing campaigns that produce high website traffic tend to be created with integration across all marcomms channels in mind. Customer experiences should be seamless, no matter where the message is viewed. With so many people multi-screening, the chances of your audience coming across the message on different channels (not just social media) is high. An integrated approach ensures consistency and maximum message impact.

10 Tips to Increase Link Click-Throughs on Social Media

In this blog, Rob Ashwell, from Fourteen Comms, sets the context as to why we shouldn’t be using advertising value equivalent (AVE) as a measurement of public relations value and campaign success. AVE is a controversial topic in the PR world. Find out why he thinks social shares may be a better way to analyze, measure and evaluate the success of your campaigns. 

What to use Instead of Advertising Value equivalent (AVE)

Read most PR blogs and you’ll see that evaluation is a significant buzz word in PR circles. As an industry, we (mostly) know that we shouldn’t be using advertising value equivalents as a tool for evaluation. But that isn’t stopping us.

A study by PR Week / the PRCA showed 35% of agencies were still using the AVE metric. As were 23% of in-house teams. But other data suggests these figures are likely to be far too low and PR evaluation is, in fact, rarer than many, such as the PRCA and Amec, would hope.

In 2016, research found 83,000 people worked in the UK’s, and 226,000 in the US’ public relations industry’. So, according to Google AdWords, how many searches for “PR evaluation” are made in all English speaking nations each month? 210.

Google Trends (which gives relative Google search volumes) backs this figure up with a highly erratic graph of weekly searches – and if your marketing and PR teams ask the tool to break this down by region it simply says “Hmm, your search doesn’t have enough data to show here.”

Fig 1: Given there are more than 300,000 PRs in the US and UK and two-thirds of these (in the UK at least) have ditched AVE as a reliable metric, why are so few searching for new analytics and ways to evaluate public relations value?

So if advertising value equivalents aren't right for PR measurement, what is? 

How can your PR and marketing teams use Meltwater’s media intelligence tool to start to evaluate results and plan what has the greatest likelihood of working?

Meltwater alerts PR and marketing pros to new coverage as well as allows them to search retrospectively. This makes it a great starting point when analysing a campaign, or planning for your next one. 

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