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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

The Scottish people have embraced immersive technologies, supported a movement towards more liberal human rights policies (by and large) and embraced low-carbon behaviours faster than many of their global counterparts. How do we know this? Well, we’ve done the research and looked into what Scottish audiences, in particular, are talking about.

Through survey data, event info, government policies and behavioural insights, a brand can start to gain a fundamental understanding of who they are talking to in a specific location. However, gaining this insight can involve a lot of manual labour and can be very time consuming.

In a fast-paced environment, where popular themes and discussions change daily (within greater conversations) it can be difficult to keep up using traditional methods. As brand custodians this presents us with a few difficult challenges when speaking to Scottish consumers – especially in a digital world.

It’s easy to miss mentions about specific topics, as well as brand complaints and slander due to the sheer magnitude of information on the internet. According to statistics directly from the Scottish government, 97% of adults said they used the internet at home. With this level of accessibility, drastically higher than in most parts of the world, a flood of opinion-based content can be released about your brand, and you might not know until it’s too late.

Scottish audiences have phenomenal access (compared globally) to the internet and are not afraid to share their opinions online – which makes this audience a potentially lethal opponent to any brand.


Scots are tech-savvy. And, this isn’t an assumption based on connectivity alone. In a report by Public, 3 Scottish cities were named among the most digitally savvy urban areas of the UK, namely: Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh. Generally, we know that tech-savvy audiences expect user-friendly, familiar interfaces, instant gratification and high levels of customer service and delivery.


Scotland is a leader in terms of global conversations and highly conscientious. Twitter data shows that topics, such as climate change and politics have been highly prioritised by Scottish audiences.


Mobile take-up is high, reportedly at 70% since 2016, according to Ofcom. Therefore, a mobile-first approach is necessary for brands targeting emerging audiences.

So, with all of this in mind, you’ve got a powerful audience embracing digital on a daily basis. How will you ensure that your brand stays positioned in a positive light? And that you meet these growing needs of this computer literate and plugged in market?

The Herald Scotland claims that one third of Scots are ‘addicted to social media’. According to a survey by polling firm Censuswide Scotland, ‘17% of Scots feel anxious if they cannot access their social accounts, while 14% say they could not go 48 hours without visiting them’.

In light of this, your brand needs to be where its consumers are, monitoring the conversation on popular social channels like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. So, how do you do this “social listening”?

You can start with media monitoring software and set the monitoring location to Scotland. Essentially, this software will trawl social channels for you looking for specific keywords or mentions of your brand, which you choose. It centralises the instances where these words or related themes have come up into a dashboard, where you can quickly see top tweets and posts in a few minutes. This helps you to assess which of them needs to be addressed urgently as the top mentions will have the biggest social impact.

At the same time, you can view the sentiment of each post, marked by positive, neutral or negative indicators. You can also see an overview of sentiment for all mentions, over a time period that you select. This way, you can quickly establish if there is a crisis brewing or if your consumers are generally saying positive things about your brand on social media.

There are a number of metrics you can set to monitor and help you stay on top of social, and each is easily downloadable or in ready to report format.

Beyond the social, lies an equally important world of media and editorial content from third-parties and journalists looking to discuss relevant topics and brands. It’s easy for your company to be in the public eye before you’ve even become aware of it, and while most journalists will request a direct comment from you in line with a mention.

However, in the famous announcement from Forbes, we as humans create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data each day, which is almost unfathomable. There’s no way that you could manually crawl through all of that yourself. A search engine is a good starting point but it doesn’t allow you as much control over what you need to see first and how you can share that data. In the same breath, the digital landscape is about more than just your brand. It’s about threats and opportunities too.

Monitoring the media with a data-driven mechanism allows you to suss out your competitors, identify opportunities for new creative ideas and products and find out who is doing what you do, but better. You aren’t limited in terms of the keywords you can use, which opens up a gateway of curated information that can revolutionise the way you do business.

Other important benefits to monitoring Scottish media

If you think back to earlier in this post, we spoke about Scots being a generally tech-savvy audience with high expectations. In light of what we know about media monitoring, this is an extremely relevant point. Scottish consumers have expectations for excellent customer service and many of them turn to the media to have these expectations met – particularly social media.

With monitoring software, you can pick up on complaints about your brand even if they aren’t tagged, clearing up disputes from disgruntled customers before they escalate. You can also preemptively offer your services and exceed expectations when it’s so easy to see who is talking about what.

Want to really connect with and understand your Scottish audiences? Have a look at our media monitoring software and see how easy it is to do so. Simply contact us and we’ll give you a free demo.

Media Monitoring in Scotland – A Brand Gateway in a Promising Market

When your business is international, it’s only natural to ask the question “should our PR agency be global too?” But, increasingly, some companies are finding it’s a better fit to manage a stable of regional PR agencies that really know their audience.

Whether you have an existing partner that says it can support your new regional activities or you’re starting fresh with your search, it’s important to be thorough in your decision making, especially since international PR and marketing activities gone awry could permanently damage, or even destroy, your brand.

Tip: Learn how to hire a PR agency and how to hire a marketing firm.

Why Bigger Isn’t Always Better in Global PR

Global PR agencies have innate appeal simply because they can act as a one-stop-shop that can scale with you. And, in many cases, these brands have earned their reputation through a track record of success and true global expertise.

But an agency should not be chosen as your best partner simply because it is global. Further, the convenience of having one agency may come at costs that your team hasn’t considered.

Understanding the difference between translation and localization is crucial when choosing an agency partner. Translation services simply take a message from one language and turn it into the equivalent words in another language. Localization, on the other hand, is the process of adapting a message with the region—and its preferences and idioms—in mind.

The difference may seem subtle, but localization controls how everything about your communication—from your word choice, imagery, layout, channels for distribution, etc.—may be received by regional audiences. For PR, this also means tailoring your media approach based on the communication styles of that region.

In an attempt to stay competitive, agencies may tout regional expertise that is nothing more than translation. Or, many global agencies now partner with local agencies who actually do the work at the local level, begging the question of if you should cut out the middle management—the global PR agency.

Topics to Vet with Your Global PR Agency Partners

When considering a global agency relationship, be thorough in your discovery phases to ensure you have a full scope of what services they actually provide. Make sure you cover each of these topics when vetting your agency partners:

Scope of International Services: Dive deep into the exact nature of how the agency conducts its international business. Do they have established offices in your target market, partner with outside agencies, or do they conduct all business out of their HQ? Agencies may outsource work that gets added to your bill, so you should understand what is performed in-house and what is included in the fees.

Case Studies and Customer References: Ask to see case studies of work done in your target region(s) and ask for client references.

Main Contact: Who would your primary contact be, where are they located, and what languages and cultures have they mastered?

Engaging with multiple regional PR agencies carries added responsibility around communications and further complications with your workflows (don’t you love scheduling meetings for three time zones?), but the benefits can outweigh these added hurdles.

Working with multiple agencies is a very common practice. In 2017, an estimated 43% of companies were working with multiple agencies, and over half of the comms pros in the same survey noted that one of the top reasons for working with PR agencies was because of activities in specific geographic markets.

Much like in your home country, the local options will vary greatly in quality, but you’re eliminating chances of translation gone wrong.

Finding regional agencies to partner with may seem daunting. But it can greatly reduce the risk of brand blunders in your most important international markets. Use these strategies for success when exploring regional partners:

Ask Your Network: Check if your existing agency has an international partner they recommend and ask your peers and colleagues about their agency relationships.

Have A Local Representative on Your Search Team: Regardless of who is leading the agency search, a member of the regional team this agency would partner with should take part in the conversations. They can better identify potential red flags, and dive deeper on if the local agency is able to deliver on the services you need.

Start Small: You do not need to invest in a year of PR services upfront across a handful of agencies to decide if this approach will work for you. Consider starting a small project to get a feel for the agency before committing to a larger scope of services.

How to Go Small Without a Huge Internal PR Team

If you decide that a multitude of agency teams are the way to go, follow these best practices to ensure the most effective use of your team’s time:

Designate a Lead: Ensure that there is a single representative from your company that is overseeing all of the agency relationships. If regions start operating in silos, there’s a potential for them to launch campaigns that damage the brand outside of a localization error.

Hold Cross-Agency Planning Session(s): Each year, or more frequently if resources allow, host a (preferably in-person) planning session that with all of your agencies. This will help build a greater sense of unity, especially since these agencies will be working side-by-side during campaigns that span their regions.

Find Tech to Help: When you’re working across time zones, it helps to have technology that assists with these logistics. Find video conferencing solutions that allow you to record your meetings so you can easily share replay links with any regional partners that could not make a meeting. There are also collaboration tools designed to enable seamless communications for global teams

Regardless of how many agencies you collaborate with to execute your PR program, it’s important to establish consistent global PR metrics and dashboards that each agency uses to ensure you’re meeting your PR goals—and not creating unintended brand harm. With this governance in place, and combined with regular cross-agency strategy meetings, collaborating with a group of regional PR agency partners has the potential to truly localize your brand, and better realize your brand promise in your highest growth potential markets.

For a complete guide to PR measurement—for internal teams and agencies—read our ebook on PR and social media KPIs and everything you need to know to prove ROI.

Want Big Global PR Results? Time to Think Small

Thought leadership and subject matter expertise are essential to an effective marketing strategy. Positioning company leaders as industry experts helps the brand express a point of view, vision, knowledge, and experience. Great thought leadership will help your audience gain a greater understanding about relevant issue and trends that affects them—and they’re learning about them from you and your company.

Jennifer Kutz, Communications and Public Affairs for Google, shares her insights on why and how publication bylines should be part of your marketing strategy.

Why Go After Executive Bylines in Publications?

An executive can always post their expertise and thought leadership on sites like LinkedIn or a company blog. But, contributed content in key media outlets provides deeper benefits. These include faster and deeper trust, as well as credibility, based on the idea that you know something of value that others don’t. Since the audience views those publications as reliable resources for information, attaching your name to that publication extends that credibility to you.

Public relations tactics have shifted from only increasing an executive’s visibility or getting them quoted to getting full executive bylined articles. The publications provide high-quality, relevant content for their readers. Meanwhile, executives and companies enjoy exposure in a reputable publication. Because of the mutual benefit, bylined articles and guest blog opportunities have gained in popularity. But, marketing isn’t the only thing that benefits from bylines.

“Often, company executives can raise the company’s profile, which goes a long way toward establishing a reason for potential investors to invest in that company,” Kutz says. “Having a bylined presence can be a deciding factor that sways those investors toward putting their money (and trust) in that company.”

Once you have a byline, you can get more traction by going back to LinkedIn, your company blog, and all other channels with a clip or link to that published article. If you stay with a direct-to-social media or direct-to-company blog approach, then you only have one pass at getting it in front of your audience.

A Strategy for Getting a Publication Byline as a Subject Matter Expert

Here are some strategic steps to start getting these executive bylines.

Identify the right publications and journalists that cover your expert subject areas.

Their audience is your target audience. For example, let’s say your company makes software that drives energy efficiency. Seek publications that target topics related to energy efficiency. There are many industry publications that cover that space.

Yet, Kutz says it’s important to go deeper with your targeted publication list. “You want to look for broader startup or tech publications that touch on sustainability and topics related to energy efficiency. If you are looking to attract the attention of investors, there are publications like VentureBeat that cater to venture capitalists.”

If you have never had experience identifying the most appropriate publications and journalists, then the best strategy is to hire a PR firm. These have this experience and have already developed media relationships.

Create a spreadsheet of publications and contacts, subject areas and guest post guidelines.

Work with your comms team to create and review a spreadsheet that will help understand these publications and effectively pitch for greater publication success. You cannot take shortcuts for this process. The only way to shorten the time to a certain degree is to again work with a PR expert.

As Kutz explains, “You can’t send a blanket email to an email address like news@mashable.com or to whatever publication you are trying to get your article in. You need to put in the time to explore the media website to see if you can find a contributor section. For example, is there a thought leadership section? Is there a perspective section? If you see that they accept executive bylined articles, then you can kind of look for a contact address, reach out, and gauge their interest.”

Also, go beyond the publication website to get this information. Many publications rely on social media, including Twitter and LinkedIn, to encourage interaction. On these channels, you can learn more about contributor content, bylines, relevant topics and key contacts. You can also use Google search engines to learn more about how to place executive bylines.

Use spreadsheets to track topics, subjects, and related areas that align with each publication’s focus and purpose. Match your unique perspective with these topics and publication angles. Doing so helps you achieve relevance and value for your intended audience.

Share your previous thought leadership results to prove your value to their audiences.

You can use blog posts, conference speaker materials, podcasts, videos, and other quality content. You can also include statistics about followers, likes, and shares. Get involved in industry groups to further your subject expertise and following. If you haven’t done much in this area, then expand these content areas first.

While it helps to have published content, you can also start from scratch. Kutz adds, “You don’t need extensive writing experience. What’s more important is what you are talking about, your story, and what you want to say. Where startup founders or business executives go wrong is thinking that a byline is a place to sell their product. Instead, it’s about defining and sharing your unique perspective.”

Interact with publications and journalists to start building relationships with them.

This is also a way to highlight your values and differentiating qualities, knowledge, and experience. Be persistent with sharing content samples and expertise.

It can be difficult because roles change and reporters move around. Yet, if you connect with journalists on social media, you can maintain these relationships across publications. Throughout moves and changes, the most important lesson is to always engage like a human being rather than just asking for a byline.

“Think about what you can do to help this person. Make sure you are familiar with their work before you approach them before pitching them any ideas,” adds Kutz. “You can find this out by looking at their Twitter feeds and seeing what type of content they are sharing.”

Kutz also suggests doing something a little different. Pitch article ideas to reporters that may have nothing to do with what you do. This shows the reporter you want to help them even when there’s no direct benefit for you. Then, you may be more likely to come to mind when they have a topic that does have something to do with your industry.

Getting an executive byline published doesn’t happen overnight. Think of it as a slow-building process. As part of your “long game,” creating successful thought leadership pieces involves nurturing content, relationships and connections in a targeted, thoughtful way. In time, you can see a big return that enhances your marketing and branding efforts.

Social sharing goes hand in hand with creating content. For a complete executive guide on building social influence, read our ebook, filled with recent examples of business leaders who are engaging their audience through original, meaningful content.

How to Get Executive Bylines in Publications

What does an influencer look like—and act like? You might be surprised. While you've got to keep an eye out for fake influencers, you also have to be creative in finding the right influencers for your brand. For a comprehensive guide to influencer marketing, download our ebook on influencer marketing, full of recent examples from brands who are doing it right.

The world of influencer marketing can be a lucrative one for both the influencer and the brand.

Kylie Jenner, for example, earns a reported $1.2 million per post on Instagram with her 141 million followers. While Cristiano Ronaldo, on the other hand, earns roughly $975K per post with more than 176 million followers.

But brands don’t need to land a top-tier celebrity and dish out nearly $1 million per post to find top paid influencers that will move the needle.

That’s why we’ve put together a list of 4 top paid influencers that you’ve never heard of on social media. Hopefully this will provide some inspiration to go out and find your own!

4 Top Paid Influencers You’ve Probably Never Heard of on Social Media

Chelsea Yamase (Influencer and Ambassador, Chelsea Kauai)

Travel influencer and model Chelsea Yamase has a vast network of people who love to travel and stay in amazing places around the world. That’s why it’s no surprise her picture-perfect posts leads to thousands of engagements and the attention of top brands such as Canon. 

What’s your favorite color? For this month’s #sponsored by @canonusa challenge, they asked me to share a photo honoring the vibrancy of life as seen through their mirrorless #EOSM50. Certain colors, especially pastel and earthy tones, spark so much joy for me and I think these two iconic spots in Jaipur attest to that universal wonder :) India could be a lifetime study in paying attention to proportion, culture, color and details, and there’s never a replacement for standing in front of the real thing - but this little camera does such a great job of capturing them all!

#TeamCanon
-
Shot on Canon EOS M50
EF-M 11-22mm, ISO 200, F/4.0 at 1/320 sec
#India #Jaipur

Brands such as Canon are sparing no expense to get the perfect Instagram shot through the lens of influencers like Chelsea. And why wouldn’t they? The content is delivered in a down-to-earth, authentic way.

This is just one example in a larger trend. Much like press tours, brands are putting together Instagram influencer getaways, sending influencers like Chelsea Yamase on vacations across the globe—inviting them to relax, hang out with their friends, and, of course, post all about it.

Dream come true above our glass igloo✨ anyone else see the face in the Northern Lights?! I didn’t notice it until I started editing and then I couldn’t un-see it.
Photo collab with @samkolder -
This past February I got to join @foursigmatic on an incredible trip in the through their home country of Finland learning about the Sami culture, harvesting chaga mushrooms, and enjoying the most beautiful light (both during the day and at night!). Giveaway is now closed and thank you to everyone who entered!! #foursigmatic #adaptogens #Finland #northernlights #arcticcircle #auroraborealis

Yamase has more than 750K followers and earns up to $10,000 per post on Instagram. Her attention to detail and uncanny ability to capture the perfect moment are exactly why brands continue to work with her.

Although influencer marketing isn’t as popular of a topic as it was just a few short years ago, it remains a key strategy for B2B brands promoting their business and products on social media.

Here we see that the topic of influencer marketing has dipped in the past 12 months compared to the previous 12 months in traditional media. Data supplied by Meltwater media monitoring. 

Ann Handley (Chief Content Officer, MarketingProfs)

Ann Handley has been named by Forbes as the Most Influential Woman in Social Media and one of the Top 20 Women Bloggers. She is the chief content officer of MarketingProfs, and her book Everybody Writes is a bestseller.

Most importantly, she has a community of more than 50K loyal followers on social media that know and trust her.

It’s unclear just how much Handley makes from being an influencer in the B2B space, but she’s doing quite well for herself.

She is a prime example of how authentic and engaging individual influencers can be for your brand.

Ann Handley on Twitter: "Here we goooooooooo #CMWorld… "

“I value three things: quality over quantity, great writing, building an audience over stuffing a pipeline until it bursts at its seams with so-called leads. I value other things, too. But those three things are top of mind.” – Ann Handley

In B2B marketing, it’s not only about finding influencers with the most followers. It’s about finding influencers that are thought leaders in their space. In other words, influencers that truly influence the minds, hearts, and actions of your target customers.

To find influencers that fit your business, you need to have an in-depth understanding of your own brand and how you want to be perceived. Perhaps this statement is no more true than in the fashion industry where image and perception is everything.

Alexa Chung (Founder, Alexa Chung Clothing Line)

With a net worth of more than $12 million, a following up nearly 4 million people, and earnings of up to $15K per post, Alexa Chung is a superstar that you may never have heard of on Instagram.

What makes Chung’s content so effective as an influencer is her ability to “talk” like her audience and customers would on social media (even if there is an entire team behind it).

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

When life gives you an unexpectedly large number of apricots, pop them in a decorative ceramic bowl and head to the beach in your Jujus. That, our friends, is what we call #living.

Jujus are now back in stock. Link in bio. Apricots not included. 📸: @hannastefansson

The most important thing to remember with influencer marketing is that it’s not about you or your brand, it’s about the consumer. And more importantly, about building trust with the consumer so that they buy from you more than just once. 

Identifying an influencer like Alexa Chung that can build trust with her words is like finding a needle in a haystack.

Studies show that 70% of millennial consumers are influenced by the recommendations of their peers in buying decisions over brands. Micro-influencers such as Sweat&Tell with between 10,000-50,000 followers are behind much of that influence online.

Sweat and Tell is an Instagram blog run by best friends Jo and Jacqs. They’ve formed a community of over 30k health-focused women online. Each of their posts reviews a new workout class or routine, centered around health tips and trendy wellness locales in Southern California.

There are really 3 places to find influencers for your brand. Search engines, databases, and networks.

Search engines: A manual process of typing keywords, scanning webpages for contact info, and then keeping track of the info in spreadsheets. I would also lump social media into here – manually searching social channels and hashtags for relevant influencers for a given topic.

Databases: Do website scraping for you, pulling publicly available data. This is one of the best places to start as you’ll immediately gain access to a variety of qualified influencers.

Networks: In the middle of Google/social and databases. A network is like an agency that has relationships with the influencers, but will require that you go through them to reach out.

Learn more about how to find the right influencers to partner with.

So, what does an influencer look like? That just depends on the audience you are trying to reach. It could be someone with huge follower numbers, it could be someone with much smaller numbers. Either way, their audience is exactly who you want to get at. For a comprehensive guide to influencer marketing, download our ebook on influencer marketing, full of recent examples from brands who are doing it right.

4 Top Paid Influencers You Probably Never Heard Of—But Can Learn From

Communicators today have a tall order. It’s tough enough to develop messaging for brands in a constantly changing market. But when we have to not only craft the message but ensure that all the branches of the organization are consistently delivering the same version, it can be downright impossible. The larger the company, the more challenging it can become.

However, there are ways to ease the pain of this situation and get everyone on the same page.

Mixed messages confuse customers. Employees also suffer when internal and external messaging differ. For example, if you give employees a directive of increasing the value of stock options while promoting to customers that their wellbeing is the top priority, this creates confusion for everyone. Better to align the messaging so that all teams understand and are working toward a common goal.

What are some of the most effective ways to help ensure that every branch of the company is sharing the same consistent messages?

1) Allow the communications team to lead the way

When the communications team leads the charge, it may be easier to sync up the efforts and communicate in ways that will hit home with all audiences. Communicators have experience disseminating consistent messages in ways that will be compelling for various audiences. Allow them to leverage that expertise across all departments.

As lines blur among PR, marketing, and advertising teams, it may be time for brands who strive for consistent messaging to consider reorganizing. As Diane Schwartz has written at PR News, as more professionals realize “that digital and social media have made it easier for stakeholders to just bypass them,” and, “as the tools at our disposal work across multiple disciplines, it’s become more critical for brands to promote an omnichannel message that will resonate.”

So how can your organization promote better alignment and information sharing among PR, marketing, and advertising? Whatever solution works for you, it’s more important than ever that everyone shares their campaign calendars and considers centralizing their messaging strategy and execution.

3) Consider varying the wording to resonate across the organization

“The essence of a message across the organization needs to be the same, but the wording must differ,” says Ella Minty, an issues, crisis, and reputation management consultant. “For instance, to ensure it sticks and yields the desired result, the operational department needs to be differentiated in terms of action drivers from the sales department. Consistency of purpose or essence are paramount, but anything else must be tailored, even more so when dealing with international businesses which have many offices across the world.”

Getting buy-in from various parts of your organization on the messaging will go a long way toward their willingness to enact it. Asking for input upfront helps create trust. If people feel their opinions are heard and valued—and the final product reflects that—they’ll be more likely to want to share the message.

If your top-level executives aren’t incorporating the talking points, chances are others may feel it’s not essential to do so. Leaders can set the example for others, especially with new messaging that you’re trying to get both your internal and external audiences to buy into. If teams see the messaging in use by executives, they’re more likely to come on board, as well. Having trouble convincing your data-driven executives to participate? Read this tip sheet on measuring the tangible impact of your branding-building activities.

When teams are spread around the globe, it can be a challenge to work collaboratively. Meetings may not always be possible. Leveraging a tool like Slack can help you stay aligned.

“Tools like Slack are great for keeping all the key stakeholders in the loop in real-time,” says Amanda Burke, Director of Integrated Marketing and Communications at Welly. “So much of what we do is based on trends we read about or what a celebrity posts on Instagram that we don’t have time to wait even for a weekly team call or email recap to act. Slack gives us the opportunity to collaborate across disciplines in real-time and stay aligned in terms of messaging and brand voice.”

The Struggle is Real—But Don’t Let That Stop You

While organizations continue to struggle to keep all the moving parts aligned, communicators can help bridge the gap by leading the way to promote consistent messaging. It may not happen overnight, but if we make strides in the direction of complementary, coordinated messaging, companies will reap the benefits.

For a breakdown on all the steps involved in building strong customer relationships—and the role that consistent messaging plays in promoting brand awareness and loyalty—check out our consumer intelligence suite and read our ebook on Demystifying the B2B Online Customer Journey.

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