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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

Meltwater is a global company with 55 offices around the world. We are interested in supporting and partnering with our clients on a local level. From sourcing hyper-local editorial and broadcast publications for our global content database to support our clients in one of a dozen languages, building a partnership with our clients is always top of mind.

As Meltwater grows, we want to ensure we can connect with our clients and continue to partner with you. Many of you have already taken advantage of our in-app chat in your local language. Across the globe, work is increasingly done at different times, on mobile and online. We recognize our clients’ work isn’t limited to the normal 9-5 work day. Our clients need answers on their own terms — and that means 24 hour support, 7 days a week. So, we’re proud to announce three chat channels our clients can use to connect with Meltwater, 24/7:

Additionally, we now surface relevant articles and in-app tutorials while you are in the Meltwater Media Intelligence application. These articles and in-app tutorials allow you to learn when it works for you.

At Meltwater, we pride ourselves on being an ongoing partner to our 30,000 clients. Whether jumping on a call to assist in creating an internal newsletter or report for your boss or setting up new employees on the Meltwater platform, we want our clients to have personal and open communication with Meltwater.  With these new chat channels, our clients can communicate with Meltwater 24/7. 

Introducing a New Way to Partner with Our Clients

We've posted before about how to get the most out of all the work you put into creating high-impact visual content. And how companies are making the most of highly visual online channels. Here are some great tips on a wide range of visual content and how to make sure it gets your audience's attention.

It’s easier than ever to create and share content.

In fact, we all create and share content regularly for both personal or business reasons. This simply means that there is a vast amount of professional and amateur content out there for everyone’s consumption. It’s crowded.

The result is that it can be quite difficult to catch the attention of an audience when you need to. If you want to catch your audience’s attention with content, one of the best ways to do so is by making it visual.

Visual content has proven to be among the most efficient and effective ways to communicate a message. It is in fact, your best chance to go viral if you want to gain the attention of an audience at scale.

So if visual content is the best way for you to stand out, how do you best leverage its power? What types of visual content work?

Before I answer that question, let’s take a step back…

What do you stand to gain from creating great visual content?

The article ‘5 Ways Content Marketing Can Benefit You’ outlines what you stand to gain from using better content marketing.

Become recognized as a leader in your industry

Give you an advantage over your competitors

When using content marketing, visual content is mainly used to create visual cues that complement the information or message you are trying to present. The idea is to make the information;

With this in mind, there are several different types of visual media content that you can use in different circumstances to effectively convey your message.

It is important to also mention that depending on your objective and the scenario in which you are delivering the content, different types of visual content will be more suitable for your specific case in point.

Below are the main types of visual content, which if used appropriately can easily help you go viral.

The different types of visual content that can go viral

The epitome of visual content is the infographic, and it should therefore be a great place to begin our list.

The infographic crystalizes a lot of information into one easily viewable visual that is less intimidating and easier to understand for any viewer or reader.

In fact, in the social media realm, infographics are liked and shared 3 times more than other any other type of content. Additionally, 60% of content marketers are predicted to use infographics in 2016 as compared to last year.

Probably one of the main reasons for this is that using infographics in content marketing is known to increase profits by as much as 12%.

These are all valid reasons for why infographics are essential, but here are an additional 10 reasons why infographics are important.

Infographics are best used when you have a lot of statistical data that you want your audience to visualize, or if you want to breakdown a lot of ‘hard-to-understand’ content into a more understandable and easily viewable format.

Photos and images are important for several reasons. For brands, they allow audiences to put a face on a brand and therefore make your brand more relatable. Additionally, using photos to show ‘behind the scenes’ of a brand can help audiences better understand and become more curious about a brand.

Photos can also be very helpful in showing off your products and services. In this case, the use of photos is especially useful if you want to show your products in action. This is probably one of the biggest contributing factors as to why 90% of the general public say that images influence their buy-in and purchasing decisions.

When using photos and imagery, be sure to reflect your brands unique selling point. Additionally, be sure to capture the brand’s values through color imagery, composition and so on. If you use relevant images, it has been found that you will be able to drive 94% more views than if you don’t have any images in your content. Plus, 65% of the information in images is more likely to be retained after 3 days.

Mixing up your visual content is quite important. In as much as images and photos are quite often the main drivers for visual content, video should also be used whenever possible to give a voice and sound to your content.

This YouTube video has some useful information on “How Video Content Marketing Can Grow Your Business”:

Here are some important statistics to keep in mind when considering the use of video:

64% of shoppers are more motivated to purchase a product after watching a video about it

If you use the word ‘Video’ in an email, the likelihood that the email will be opened will increase by 19%. Additionally, the click through rate of the email increases by 65% and the rate of unsubscribing to your email list will reduce by 26%

In a survey of ‘Video Marketing Statistics & Trends’ it was predicted that 74% of all internet traffic will be video by 2017

There are several reasons why video should take a leading role in your content marketing plan.

Learning about Video SEO is also essential in tackling Video Content more effectively.

A call-to-action is a way to influence your audience to do something or take some action after attracting them to your content. You can ask your audience to ’click here’, ‘buy now’, ‘follow us’, ‘share’, ‘add to cart’, ‘subscribe here for a free gift’ etc.

You can use imagery, color and hierarchy to grab your audience’s attention and cause them to take action. CTAs are best used to call attention to exclusive content, events, offers and sales. There is a lot of untapped potential in the use of CTAs since it is known that 70% of businesses fail to use them.

On the other hand, those that use CTAs can benefit quite significantly from their use.

A visual representation of a quote can be quite an inspiring way to create emotion and therefore motivate an audience to take action, or feel a certain way about a brand or product.

By using a brands palette, typography and other visual cues to tailor the quote to your message, you can create quite an impact with a quote. Another important aspect about quotes is that they are quite easily shareable through several different platforms, and especially through social media.

An advantage of using inspiring quote cards is that they are quite easy to create and yet can quite easily go viral if done in the right way.

6. Data visualizations and graphical data

Data visualizations include charts, maps, diagrams, graphs and so on. If you take the time and effort to make sure that your graphs are not only easy to understand, but that they also pass relevant and tangible information, then they can quite easily go viral.

Data visualizations are best used to represent facts, figures and extrapolations, when audiences may need to see trends or patterns about certain data. When using data visualizations, it is best to use data that reflects your brands imagery.

An important statistic to have in mind about data visualizations is that 40% of people understand and therefore respond better to visual data as opposed to plain text.

Screenshots highlight something that you want to draw attention to that might otherwise not be noticed. They could also clarify something to your audience so that it is easier for your audience to follow along. If you want to increase understanding, annotating screenshots can add yet another layer of clarity.

The use of screenshots can be used for everything from instructional content to showing live captures of information that you want to share. Such as reviews and testimonials of products or services by customers.

If you for example use screenshots to show off your positive reviews and results from other customers, you will quite easily attract more attention and build confidence in your brand, product or service.

In research done by Dimensional Research investigating the impact of customer service on customer lifetime value, 90% of respondents were influenced by positive reviews when making a buying decision.

Tutorials can include anything from ‘life hacks’, to recipes, to visual step-by-step instructions. They can also be in the form of videos, images, text or a combination of these.

In a book written by Levie, W. J. & Lentz, R. titled ‘Effects of text illustrations: A review of research, Educational Communication and Technology’, they state that, people following directions with text and illustrations do 323% better than people following directions without illustrations.

Question and answer type visuals on a similar note are known to help bridge the gap between businesses needs and consumer wants. Asking your audience questions that stand out from text in a very visual way, is not only attention grabbing, but also sparks a conversation and encourages engagement.

Like questions, another great way to encourage your audience’s engagement is through quizzes and visual puzzles. Through quizzes and visual puzzles, you can easily construct a smart and prudent tone for your brand.

Quizzes and puzzles also help to spark creativity for more consumption or better consumption of your products. They can be used to bring more clarity to abstract knowledge about a product by making the information more practical and useable. This will in turn encourage adoption and use of a product that is otherwise difficult to relate to.

A great way to end this list of visual media content that can easily go viral is by talking about memes and comics. Everyone loves a laugh, and in the internet world, there are few things that have more cause for laughs than the memes we love.

As far back as in 1999, due to the use of memes like the dancing baby, site visits jumped from as little as 4 visits a day to 15,000 per day. This is a very respectable figure even by today’s standards.

The importance and power of visual content

As mentioned earlier, using the appropriate type of visual content is the key to sending it viral. That being said, some of the strong points for why visual content is both important and powerful in almost every use-case are as follows:

Visual content is essential for customer retention

Visual content is vital for creating an immediate impact especially when you have limited time

Visual content can foster better understanding and reduce confusion for readers who took the time to read your post

Visual content is simply more stimulating than any other form of communication. The brain processes visual information 60,000 times faster than text

Visual content grabs attention and creates better engagement since it is able to tell a complete story at once. It also easily evokes more emotion.

Visual content can help to establish a strong selection criteria and a structure for decision making that favors your brand or product over a competitor

What success have you had with creating visual content?

This article originally appeared in Jeffbullas’s Blog.

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

10 Types of Visual Content That Go Viral

Disclaimer: The following article contains major spoilers for Avengers: Endgame! So if you haven’t seen the movie yet, set aside 3 hours of your time to go experience it first on the big screen.

After experiencing the devastating outcome of Avengers: Infinity War, fans waited a whole year to find out what happens next. The latest instalment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), Avengers: Endgame, brought us the grand conclusion we needed, along with many exciting and unforgettable moments. Avengers: Endgame has to be one of Marvel’s most successful movies by far, being the second-highest grossing movie of all time (at the time of writing) and the fastest film to surpass over US$2 billion in ticket sales worldwide. So, it’s no wonder that the movie generated a whole lot of buzz online.

Using Meltwater Social, we assembled to take a deeper look at what fans were talking about in the social media realm. It was unsurprising to discover that within a fortnight of its release date on 24 April 2019, the film generated over 8.7 million social mentions.

Social coverage spanned across multiple social media platforms with the bulk of mentions derived from Twitter. A high portion of social mentions was derived from the United States, followed by the United Kingdom. There was also significant coverage in other parts of the globe such as Europe and Southeast Asia, showing how stories of the MCU resonates with people of different backgrounds and cultures.

Now let’s take a look at some of the most talked about moments in the movie:

Tony Stark’s and Black Widow’s Sacrifice

Looks like Tony really was “the guy to make the sacrifice play”, in contrast to what Steve Rogers may have told him in 2012’s The Avengers film.

With over 65,000 mentions, one of the most important moments would have to be the death of the inimitable Iron Man a.k.a Tony Stark. The ingenious and wealthy business magnate slash scientist has come a long way since he was first introduced in 2008 and has paved the way for the MCU ever since. Fans expressed both their grievances and admiration for the long-time superhero online after witnessing his ultimate sacrifice. Using the Infinity stones (which he removed sneakily from Thanos’ possession), Iron Man wiped out the entirety of Thanos’ armies and the supervillain himself – but at the expense of his own life.

Nevertheless, Iron Man wasn’t the only one who made sacrifices in the movie. In the second act of the film where our superheroes carried out their “Time Heist” to recover all six Infinity stones, Black Widow a.k.a Natasha Romanoff sacrificed herself at Vormir to retrieve the Soul Stone. Her selfless act garnered over 39,000 mentions online, with some fans questioning why she had to be one of the characters to die in the film.

The Worthy Captain! And Avengers Assemble!

Tragic moments aside, there were also amazing, mind-blowing scenes in the movie that would make anyone punch their fists in the air.  

One of them occurred during a gripping fight sequence between Thanos and three of Earth’s mightiest heroes. We discovered that Captain America was able to wield Mjolnir, proving his worthiness, and used its powers against Thanos. The scene sparked over 23,000 social mentions online. Fans expressed how thrilled they were that they finally learned the super soldier was worthy all along.  

The next exciting moment happens not long later. If no one in your cinema was applauding or cheering at this scene, I can assure you they were most likely screaming internally. After Captain America hears Falcon calling out to him, we watched all our once “dead” heroes emerge from portals appearing around the battlefield, before kicking off an epic final battle sequence.  

The scene received over 32,000 hits online with multiple users commending the soundtrack (“Portals” – Alan Silvestri) that was used in the background. Fans were also commenting on how they had waited so long for Captain America to finally say “Avengers Assemble!”

Another noteworthy topic would be Thor’s controversial new look, where the previously able-bodied God of Thunder puts on quite a lot of weight and adopts rather unhealthy drinking habits. The topic reaped over 22,000 hits but unfortunately, about 49% of mentions were tagged as Negative. While some found Thor’s transformation hilarious, there were still many who criticised the character’s new look, claiming that it was unnecessary and did not do any justice to the character’s development.

Amongst all the superheroes featured in the movie (and there were a lot of them), some noteworthy mentions include Ant-Man and MCU newcomer Captain Marvel. Both superheroes who were not in the previous Avengers film appeared in this latest instalment and were ranked amongst the highest mentioned superheroes for the film. Mentions on Ant-Man mainly included fans claiming that the universe wouldn’t have been saved if he had not been released from the Quantum Realm while coverage of Captain Marvel included responses and conversations surrounding a contentious article from Screen Rant.

Ultimately, Avengers: Endgame generated a great amount of buzz and hits online. The mix of sentiments and emotions surrounding different topics seems to signify just how passionate fans can be and how impressive is it that superb filmmaking and storytelling can impact a great number of people. We can’t wait to find out what Marvel has in store for us in their next phase. With Meltwater Social, you too can harness the power of social listening and uncover insights about your brand at your fingertips – no gauntlet needed.

Avengers: Endgame – Deep Dive into the Social Media Realm

The conniving Cersei Lannister once said, “When you play the Game of Thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground.” – a quote that best describes the onus of the fantasy series’ success. The intricacies of political backstabbing and calculated manoeuvring between human morality, familial loyalty and the brutality of wars were the driving force which hooked the audience to the folklore.

The series established a massive fanbase that even the Ruler of the Seven (now six) Kingdoms would have been mightily proud. With the broadcast of the final episode, did fans rejoice at the finality of the folklore or did they have to reluctantly accept its end as closure to the series? With over 6.1 million  social mentions of the series, fans made their voices heard louder than a Dothraki army battle cry.

The Mad Queen and the Decimation of King’s Landing

With more than 1.9 million social mentions for the Mother of Dragons, fans were left in shock and grief when firstly Daenerys scorched the innocents of King’s Landing with Drogon’s flaming breath and subsequently received the pointy end of Jon Snow’s dagger. Like Nietzsche’s quote on gazing into an abyss, Daenerys’ character development has changed from meek princess to merciful Breaker of Chains and finally to the vengeful bloodlust despot. Despite fans showing disdain of her demise, many fans remained loyal to her reign and were satisfied with the character’s ascension to the throne.

Many fans were left upset that Jon Snow, the new Queen-Lover-Auntieslayer, was tasked to carry out the unforgiving deed of ending the Mother of Dragons. There were more than 150,000 social mentions on the Targaryen romance. Fans were also annoyed that the protagonist of the whole epic did not get a satisfying end and was even banished to the icy glaciers of the North instead of taking over the throne. Jon Snow’s whimper off to the chilly horizon left fans distraught as it did not reflect their hero’s resolve.

Based on Cersei’s quote, we know many have died in the Battle of Bastards or the Red Wedding. Amongst the living, the houses mutually agreed that Bran ‘The Broken’ Stark should succeed the throne – a democratic decision to choose a leader. Blessed with Tyrion’s oratorical influence, he shone a light on the events Bran had to experience, the stories that accompanied him and his ability to foretell the future and know everything in the past, the houses (sans his blood kingdom) proclaimed him as the new King.

But what did the fans had to say? There were 885,000 social mentions of Bran and they were not particularly encouraging. Majority of social media responded with resounding mockery character and words such as “disappointment”, “useless”and “nowhere” were used generously among fans. It can be said that fans may be partial to how they want their favourite characters to turn out but for Bran, there was no love lost and even highlighted that no one cared when his character did not even appear for a whole season.

Fans were more satisfied with the final chapter of another favourite, the impish schemer with a heart, Tyrion. There were more than 713,000 mentions of Daenerys’ Hand who gave up his position after her destruction of the city but eventually reclaimed it under Bran. Many fans were in consensus that despite all the travails he had to endure in his life and adventures in Westeros, Tyrion was a key player of the Game of Thrones. He had manoeuvred so much to find himself in a lofty position in King’s Landing and even talked himself out of execution by the Unsullied.

Like the council that voted on Bran’s ascension to the throne, fans sought to find a democratic solution to solve their unhappiness. Even before the discussions on the final episode had even died down, a petition to remake the series’ end was set up and more than 1.5 million people have signed it. However, it would not be too surprising if this fell on deaf ears as the producers have the support from the cast and even the creator George R R Martin gave a thumbs up, citing differences to his canonical books should have been expected.

For eight long years, HBO’s adaptation of Martin’s fantasy folklore has enthralled the audience with heroism, moral ambiguity, insane amounts of bloodletting and gore, suspense, hypersexualised imagery, notorious villains, interweaving realpolitik, and impressive interpretations of dragons to date. Despite the uproar on how series ended, fans have to acknowledge it has, for the best parts (undeniably the first four seasons), been an immovable force within the realms of popular culture.

Disclaimer: All data and insights provided by Meltwater were analysed for the period between and after the final two episodes.

Game of Thrones: Social Media Reactions to the Series Finale

With the Liberal Party trumping the Federal Election, Meltwater looked at a fortnight’s worth of social data in the lead-up to the election to reveal what influenced voters’ choices.

Australia headed to the polls on Saturday 18 May 2019 and the nation had been inundated with information from every possible avenue of news dissemination. This deluge of information provided the necessary decision maker on who they voted into the hallowed halls of government in Canberra. And with social media being a primary source of information, topics of interest swirled through the minds of the voters.

With the Cambridge Analytica scandal and ‘fake news’ closely associated with electioneering efforts overseas, the people of Australia made their votes count by combing through the facts of the policies put forward by the politicians. Due diligence in fact-checking has become part and parcel due to the multitude of information and ‘fake news’ available in our mobiles.

So what made Australians tick during this Federal Election? Which politician made you think twice about the direction that Australia will be taking in the next three years? Meltwater jumps into the pool of news data on the upcoming elections and looks to unravel electioneering trends.

The Federal Election is important in the enactment of future policies governing the country and a myriad of issues influence how the people of Australia voted. Using the data in the month of May, the issue of Tax topped the list of issues that worry the people of Australia the most. This is unsurprising as this is where it will hurt the most for everyone – their hip pockets.

There were a total of 68,900 social mentions and a whopping 68% of them were negative in sentiment. This could be due to widespread concern over the Labor Party’s controversial reform policies on ‘franking credits’ and dividend imputation. The Liberals worked hard on this issue and arguably it could be the reason that won them the elections.

The emphasis on taxes was echoed in the news as the topic had 23,600 mentions, the most of all the topics. This high coverage in media outlets might have helped the Liberal cause too.

The global and shared challenge of climate change was next on the agenda for voters. The issue garnered 54,000 social mentions and 21,900 news mentions. The voting public had an eye on the plans the government was implementing to tackle the environmental threat and proposed policies for the mineral export and mining industries.

Another bread and butter issue of education remained a key issue for the people as policies to cut budget spending on schools worried the general population of parents and teachers. The topic had 37,800 social mentions and 23,000 news mentions. Netizens were predominantly negative at 46%  as Australians reflected on the prospects of the education system.

With elections being the definitive tool for the people to hold the political community accountable, it can be said that social media has become the main medium to voice, advocate and share opinions. And with social media being so dynamically engaging between both communities, key leaders ultimately bear the brunt or receive praise for their policies and stances. With almost a million social mentions, a lot has been said about these five protagonists of this election.

Incumbent prime minister and leader Scott Morrison was mentioned 365,000 times and 55% of them had negative undertones. Compared to the other four individuals, it is the highest percentage of negative sentiments directed to an individual. However, Bill Shorten was mentioned 587,000 times. Dubbed as the ‘unlosable’ election for Labor, many have highlighted Shorten’s lack of general popularity with voters as one of the reasons.

Shorten, Richard DiNatale and Clive Palmer posted around 46-48% of its social mentions with negative sentiment but Pauline Hanson, the face of the right-wing One Nation Party, surprisingly garnered a lower-than-expected 30% negative sentiments. She topped it off with 22% of social mentions being positive in sentiment and the election results were better than expected for her party. On the news front, the Liberal and Labor leaders naturally were mentioned the most with each of them getting more than 50,000 mentions.

With opinions and information available from both social media and news outlets, voters were considerably well-informed and certainly making sure they were fully exercising their democratic right. With the new leaders in position, social media insights should be harnessed to relatively give politicians a sense of which topics people are concerned about. And it is now left to them to fulfil the promises they made or face the reaction in three years’ time.

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An Analysis of Australian Federal Election Coverage

Landing PR coverage can be tricky, even for some of the biggest brands. It’s easy to see how “cool” brands, like Apple, Nike or ASOS can find stories that would appeal to the general public, but what if your brand or industry is considered “boring”?

All PR professionals have the option to increase their PR coverage, they just need to know to find and tell a story that resonates.

In this blog we’ll be rounding up some of tips from Andy Barr (co-founder & co-managing director or 10 Yetis Digital) and us!

TIP 1: Make sure your product and company aren’t awful!

If your product is fundamentally crap, there’s no point in trying to pitch PR stories.  Media attention will simply lead to an increase in negative PR coverage around your brand. So, make sure your product & company is built on a solid base. If there are lots of skeletons in the closet, they’ll be revealed as soon as your brand is in the public eye. Working on areas of your brand that can be criticized before moving on to think about how to make your company exciting is fundamental.

Before trying to get sexier media coverage, you’ll need the support of someone internally. Target a member of the c-suite who’s more open to ‘new ideas’. Influential internal stakeholders are key to generating wider buy-in from the rest of the organization, and the senior management team.

A good way of creating buy-in is to collaborate on the project, that way both parties feel they’ve been involved and a sense of ownership and pride. Don’t underestimate the power of enthusiasm, it’s contagious!

If you’re not used to doing ‘out there’ campaigns make sure you take baby steps. Ramp it up gradually, otherwise, stakeholders might freak out. Not only this, but your audience may be a little confused that you’ve gone from one extreme to another.

Test the waters and use a social listening tool like Meltwater or Meltwater Social to understand whether the tweaks to your campaign are resonating. It’s better to keep your finger on the pulse of your audience and media to spot spikes in negative conversations earlier on, prior to rolling out a complete campaign.

Consider how ‘interesting’ PR coverage will help your brand. What are your goals and how are you measuring them? Also, think about how PR will help you to achieve wider organizational objectives. For example, if the company is hoping to enter a new market, you may want to focus on getting ‘authority links’ from big news sites in that market to help improve SEO amongst that demographic. 

TIP 5: Test & come up with your ideas using ‘The bar factor’

Would your story be talked about by your mates at a bar? If yes, this could suggest you’ll get social shares, engagement and generate general public interest.

“We typically apply the pub (bar) factor to every idea we have, be that B2B or consumer…when we have our team brainstorming sessions, we involve our whole team, not just the PR team. All the ideas get written on a board, then we score each idea out of ten” says Andy.

In an ideal world we’d all be coming up with only original ideas, but in reality, chances are it’s already been done to some extent before. 

There’s nothing wrong with taking inspiration from other campaigns, just as long as you’re not pinching the ideas. Use a social media monitoring tool to understand which parts of campaigns are resonating by breaking the conversational data down into positive trending themes. --> These are the best social media monitoring tools on the market.

Don’t be afraid to look outside of your industry for ideas too. Take a look at how celebs like Kim Kardashian use social media. A list celebs employ the top publicists, as such, they’re full of creative ways to engage audiences.

Also get inspired by sites such as PR examples, The Drum, AdWeek.

Top 7: Come up with more than one angle for a story

If you come up with a fun idea, give yourself multiple story angles. Don’t limit yourself! Take John Lewis as an example. They sent a press release about the Christmas TV ad itself, then how the ad led to an increase in the toy sales, then how many people have viewed the ad since the initial reach. 

If you create a fun piece of content, consider how you can stretch it out over a period of time by drip feeding the audience with new insights. Don’t lay all your cards on the table at once!

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