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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

Contributed articles have long been a staple in an effective PR plan. They establish your brand as an expert on a topic and fall under earned media, meaning the only cost is placing and writing the piece.

But as publications shift to more of a paid model in many cases, are the opportunities to contribute guest posts and articles dwindling?

Do Publications Still Accept Contributed Articles?

Some publications no longer accept any contributed articles. “Huffington Post, for example, shut down its op-ed section entirely,” said Natalie Stezovsky, vice president of Influence & Co. “Forbes has moved away from one-off contributors and just has their columns or councils that you have to be accepted into. Some require a paid membership.”

Why? As publishers shift to paid models, sponsorship packages can bring in more dollars than unpaid contributions.

While some are turning to paid contribution channels, many publications continue to welcome contributed content.

Which media outlets are offering contributed article opportunities? “Honestly, so many,” says Stezovsky. “Harvard Business Review, Inc., Entrepreneur, AdAge, Barron’s, Fortune, Business Insider, The Next Web, The Financial Times, VentureBeat, AdWeek, and Quartz to name a few.” 

Influence conducted a survey of 44 editors, only five of whom said they were decreasing guest-contributed content.

And if you don’t think your content is a fit for the big name publications, even less recognizable media outlets are a good target. Sometimes it’s the publications with a smaller audience that see the most engagement. For example, many industry vertical publications depend on contributed content to fill their pages. They may have fewer readers, but that audience can be highly engaged with content written by industry experts.

Contributed Content Brings Big Benefits to Brands

Whichever publication you choose, placing articles for clients can bring major benefits.

“You’ll enjoy better brand visibility, a more solid reputation in your industry, better web traffic, more online followers, an easier time recruiting talent, and possibly even interest from new investors,” said content marketing influencer Jeff Bullas.

In fact, 78 percent of customers prefer to get to know a company through articles rather than ads, while content marketing has six times higher conversion rates.

If 84% of marketers cite “brand awareness” as their most important content marketing goal, contributed content may be one of the best ways to help them get there.           

What Helps a Contributed Article Get Accepted for Publication?

To get your contributions published, here are some tips to follow:

It should offer a unique point of view: “It’s all about providing unique insights and angles and making sure that the piece of content you’re writing about hasn’t already been covered on the publication. Be sure you’re truly adding value to their readership,” says Stezovsky. Outside data is also often welcomed.

It should be professionally written: The piece should be well constructed and free of typos, poor grammar and spelling errors.

It should meet their editorial guidelines: Be sure to review these, as they usually include word count, format, style, image policy and so forth. 

It shouldn’t be blatantly promotional: “If you’re coming at it from a promotional perspective, don’t expect to get published,” says Stezovsky. Don’t mention your products in the piece. It is, however, acceptable to request a link, which many publications may provide.

It shouldn’t be too similar to other published pieces: “Editors are looking to contributors to tell the stories and give the advice that their staff doesn’t have the industry knowledge to cover on its own,” Stezovsky said.

When you pitch your content, really sell why you are the expert on this topic, and what this article can bring to their publication.

Only pitch original content. Some publications will not accept a piece if it’s already been published somewhere else. You can review their submission guidelines – or ask if it’s unclear.

Ask if you have permission to republish the piece after it appears. Some publications allow this while others strictly forbid it.

Use a tool like Meltwater to help research publications and editors to contact in your efforts.

And don’t forget to share, share, share your article once it’s published. Share it on social media, share it in your newsletter and post it on your site to get the maximum benefit of any article that appears.

For a comprehensive look at media outreach today, read our ebook New Strategies in Media Relations, full of tips and tools on how to get more brand coverage.

How to Level Up Your Contributed Content Game

Sure, it’s difficult to foresee disasters that could occur in your F&B business but given the legal and financial ramifications of not having a crisis management plan in place, it would be wise to hit the ground running and start brainstorming.


Without such a plan, you could be putting your business’ reputation on the line with little means of recovery. A crisis can also strike any company anytime, anywhere. To really survive? Advanced planning will always be the key. After all, in the age of Social Media, posts and photos will go viral before you know it.


Before brainstorming, consider some of the most common mistakes in crisis management:  

These may seem like mistakes you’re unlikely to make but without proper planning, all it takes is one member of the company — from management to service line — to slip-up or get too nervous for these very mistakes to occur. So instead of putting your business reputation on the line, we’ve prepared a step-by-step guide to help you along the process. It’s time to get your crisis management plan started before any unprecedented crises hit!

Before you even start to conceptualise a crisis management plan, it’s important to understand what are some possible risks that your business faces in the F&B industry. Work with members of leadership and key stakeholders to begin listing all relevant threats and vulnerabilities that could impact the company.

Within the F&B industry, some of these risks might include food contamination, manufacturing delays, product recalls, public relations blunders, social media gaffes or even other more universal situations like cyber attacks (especially if you run an online store), data breaches and so much more.

A good to place to start is with a list of issues that have triggered negative feedback in the past and start assessing the likelihood of them occurring again.

Step 2: Have A Crisis & Strategy Team In Place

While a crisis can’t be predicted, having a crisis management strategy could reduce the negative impact on your business. Ensure protocols are set in place and various people within the company have been appointed to handle different aspects of the crisis, should one occur.

For example, a plan for a social media hiccup would involve your digital team preparing and delivering a unified statement across all social media platforms, while your customer service team is briefed on how to handle incoming calls and queries.

Meanwhile, a crisis plan for food contamination and product recalls may require help from the quality control team to investigate the source of contamination and the logistics team to determine how to fix the problem. In addition, service staff should also be aware of how to respond if a customer were to question them. After which, Customer Service, Sales, and Communications teams should work together to answer customer questions and maintain the company’s reputation.

Always ensure the spokesperson (likely to be the CEO) who will address the audience provides a consistent voice, is well trained to answer media questions and participate in interviews. Beyond that, it’s also crucial to ensure that relevant team members are informed to pause and check all ads, and halt social media postings or promotions during the crisis. In more serious situations, company websites should be blacked out as well.

Step 3: Craft A Detailed Plan For Each Situation

Depending on the possible threats, each situation would require a detailed play-by-play plan on what would happen. When crafting this plan, it helps if you answer the standard 5 Why and 1 How questions.


For instance, with regards to public relations guidelines, think about who will talk on behalf of your organisation, what they will say, when and how often they will address the public, why they would speak and where they will communicate this information. Having all of this in place would make managing a crisis far more seamless instead of having a knee-jerk reaction on what to do and who will do it when the situation unfolds.

It’s also important to have certain statements drafted and pre-approved. With the lightning speed that social media moves at, it can hurt your brand to wait for stakeholders to approve statements. Instead, putting out a statement that acknowledges you’re aware of the problem without saying too much will go a long way to putting your audience at ease. Don’t forget the longer you take to get out your initial response, the more fuel it provides your detractors.

One well-known and recent example in Singapore hails from the popular salted egg chips company, Irvin’s Salted Egg. In December 2018, the brand landed itself in an unfortunate situation and in the middle of a social media storm when a customer posted on Facebook that she found a dead lizard in her packet of chips.

While the company nonetheless apologised with a sincere and heartfelt message, supposedly by the CEO, on Facebook, it did take them about 80+ hours to respond. Some normal marketing posts even went out before the apology. Had they prepared for such a situation, pushing out the apology and taking responsibility would have been much swifter, mitigating more negative sentiments online as the hours ticked away.

Similarly, a local restaurant chain, Aloha Poke, landed itself in a hairy situation when a customer found a big spider at the bottom of her poke bowl delivery order. However, this situation was handled with a lot more grace and in a far quicker manner.

As soon as the customer’s Facebook post went up, the company published an almost immediate apology on their Facebook page to show their regret for the quality lapse and a commitment to do even better moving forward. While it’s unclear whether they were prepared for these type of situations, their speed to delivering a well-crafted response is laudable.

The co-founder also personally reached out to the customer to compensate and take full responsibility, further showcasing that the founders are personally involved in the business. Ultimately, handling a food contamination crisis with such tact and professionalism is one way to soothe any built up negativity.

Step 4: Test & Review The Plan With Everyone Involved

Just as fire drills are conducted in buildings so everyone is aware of what to do and where to go in an emergency, testing your crisis management plan is crucial.

After all, you can’t predict if your plan will work since the possibilities of where a path will take you next are essentially endless. As such, constantly test your plan to ensure you have every potential crisis and loophole covered with everyone involved. Doing this will also help you identify aspects you might have missed earlier, which you can then use to review the current plan.   

While making this plan, do not assume relevant departments or individuals are aware of their roles and responsibilities. Instead, define a clear structure and hand it down from top management onwards or from regional teams to local teams.

Once you have solidified your crisis management plan, the process doesn’t just stop there. Actively listen to conversations taking place online and in the media to understand what topics are being discussed and how they relate to your brand. Consistent monitoring could potentially allow you to pre-empt the looming crisis if you look for it.

To make monitoring easy, the Meltwater Media Monitoring tool provides an easy-to-use platform that allows you to stay on top of conversations surrounding your brand. Essentially you can track media coverage, trends, sentiment, reach, social echo and more in real-time, allowing you to manage marketing and communications activities swiftly in the digital age. For instance, if a high traction site appears on your searches, you can click through directly to the article from the platform to have a more in-depth look during a crisis.

With the Meltwater mobile app, you can also set up Crisis Notification alerts so you stay in-the-know while on the move. Begin by setting up crisis-specific searches to track crisis keywords such as ‘insect in food’. Once this keyword is identified in conversations, push notifications will be triggered, allowing you to stay abreast of potential crises anytime, anywhere.  

Using these tools, you can identify positive, neutral and negative sentiments around the crisis. This would help you to narrow down what to address and which of the numerous action plans to execute.

Crisis management may be growing more complex with the popularity of social media, as news of a crisis can spread with just one post. However, such platforms provide brands with means to act fast and accurately just by listening to the community chatter.

No doubt it’s hard to prepare for every crisis out there that could affect the F&B industry but aim to prepare for the ones you can pre-empt with these steps in mind.

Craft A Crisis Management Plan For The F&B Industry With These 5 Steps

As more millennials enter the workforce, e-commerce sites gain traction, and the share economy expands, Chinese social media networks like WeChat, Douyin, and Xiaohongshu have never been more important – especially to PR professionals, marketing executives and social media buyers working to promote brands, products and people online.

And with more than 770 million active Chinese internet users engaging in conversations, sharing stories and creating content every day – and the average Chinese adult spending 6 hours a day digesting news media – there has never been a better time to explore the power of social, big data and consumer insights.

To kickstart your thinking, here’s a list of the top four social media trends I see reshaping greater China over the next 12 months:

Tip: Learn how to find social media trends yourself.

Thanks to video and photo sharing platforms like Douyin, the desire to know more about the lives of our friends, the brands we buy from and the Key Opinion Leaders we follow has increased dramatically. However, today, keeping consumers up-to-date with what you’re doing – and therefore satisfied with your level of B2C engagement – can be a challenge. That’s why short media clips and live streaming videos on platforms like Douyin and Tudou have become so popular over the last year. These types of videos enable brands to share real-life, real-time content with consumers, who can then comment, like and share the video with their friends in real-time.

China has the largest e-commerce market in the world – and it’s only set to grow over the next few years. So as the gap between social media networks like WeChat and e-Commerce platforms like Alibaba shrinks – thanks to social media payment platforms such as Alipay and WeChat Pay – converting social media users (or consumers) to paying customers is only going to get easier in China. In fact, Alipay and WeChat Pay are now the most popular forms of online payments in China – with WeChat Pay attracting more than 600 million users every month. In addition to this, the increasing number of e-commerce shopping festivals like 11/11 are having a major impact on new brands entering the market, or existing brands looking to test new products. 

Search engines like Baidu aren’t the only platforms consumers use to find products and services anymore. Today, they also use social media platforms – and the recommendations of KOLs – to find relevant information and items they might like to purchase. So instead of visiting a website, or searching the brand name on Baidu, they will simply search for the brand’s online social media profile to read fellow consumers’ comments and recommendations. Employees and employers are also using social media to network and find out more about individuals and organisations.

Since the advent of the smartphone, Chinese consumers have become increasingly reliant on digital platforms and applications to live their lives. Today, consumers no longer rely on traditional news platforms like print, radio, TV and even news websites to find out what’s going on around them. Instead, they digest their news media via mobile applications and on social media. In fact, the average mobile internet user in China spends 12 minutes a day reading the news on an application, 30 minutes watching video content, and 2.5 hours on social media. As mobile and social become deeply ingrained in our lives, these figures are likely to increase significantly.

Are You Aware of the Social Media Trends Shaping Greater China?

Across social media, trend hunters and animal enthusiasts alike are proclaiming 2019 the year of the vegan.

From Kind and Tyson, to Forbes and The Economist, to Taco Bell, McDonald’s, KFC and Carl’s Jr, experts are predicting – and perhaps willing – 2019 to be the undisputed Year of the Vegan.

According to The Economist’s report, “Where millennials lead, businesses and governments will follow.” And it is the millennials who are distinctively leading the charge toward plant-based living, followed closely by their rapidly-coming-of-age counterparts, Gen Z.

In America in 2015, according to one survey, 3.4% of the population were vegetarian and just 0.4% were vegan. Today, according to Gallup, 5% of the total population say they are vegetarian and 3% vegan, but “fully a quarter of 25- to 34-year-old Americans say they are vegans or vegetarians.”

Consumers appear to be making the commitment. According to The Guardian, record numbers of people have signed up for Veganuary, a movement designed to help meat-eaters pledge to go meat-free for the month of January – with 14,000 signing up in just one day. “Since the movement started five years ago, participant numbers have more than doubled each year and a total of more than 250,000 people in 193 countries have signed up.”

Fast and slow food brands alike are jumping on the bandwagon. McDonald’s has started selling vegan hamburgers. Taco Bell announced an all new, all-vegetarian menu. Waitrose in the UK launched a new line of vegan products. And according to The Economist, sales of vegan foods in America in the year to June 2018 rose ten times faster than food sales as a whole.

Source: www.foodrevolution.org/blog/vegan–statistics–global/

Celebrities and film producers continue to push the trend, not least of all professional athletes like NFL quarterbacks Aaron Rogers and Tom Brady, whose mostly plant-based diets have now become legendary, dispelling the myth that meat is necessary for protein and strength. Other US celebrities from Beyonce and Miley Cyrus to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Al Gore have spoken out in favor of plant-based diets.

The slow and steady reign of veganism makes sense, as consumers collectively begin to grow more conscious of the dire effects of climate change and global farming on the planet. Last year, a group of scientists and researchers from the University of Oxford and LCA Research group released the most comprehensive study on food production’s environmental impact.

They noted that the single biggest thing we can do to reduce this impact is to consume less meat and dairy. The study showed that while meat and dairy provide just 18% of calories and 37% of protein, they occupy 83% of farmland and produce 60% of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Guardian Graphic | Source: Poore and Nemecek, Science

“A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use,” said Joseph Poore, at the University of Oxford, who led the research.

According to a 2019 snacking trend report from snack company Kind, the trend toward a more meatless lifestyle goes beyond concern for the environment: “The growing popularity of plant-based eating styles is driven by both health and sustainability concerns – along with a desire for new and diverse food options. We can expect to see more innovations highlighting nuts, extruded seeds, beans, water lentils and algae across categories such as snack bars, chips, meat-free burgers or sausages and dairy-free yogurts and cheeses in the year ahead.”

Other factors, like a general progression toward health consciousness and a healthier lifestyle, along with more affordable vegan options, have further prompted the movement.

Finally, firms are getting better at replicating the real look, feel and taste of meat with lab-grown varieties. Impossible Foods, the SF-based fake meat lab who has raised $400M in funding and whose wildly popular Impossible Burgers took the US market by storm, have announced development of a new meatless steak. Meanwhile, Dutch firm Vivera arrived on supermarket shelves in June, and 40,000 of its vegan steaks were sold within a week.

Case study: Carl’s Jr. makes a bet on the rise of the vegan

The “Year of the Vegan” began rising on social media and blogs around December, when trend predictions for 2019 started to pick up. Among major US fast food chains, mentions of veganism and plant-based meals over the last 100 days has risen significantly, with Carl’s Jr. standing out above the rest.

US Fast Food: % mentions of vegan-related topics (Oct 2018 – Jan 2019)

27.3% of all Carl’s Jr. posts on social media in the last 100 days spoke to vegan and veganism trends. This is in larger part due to the announcement of their new Beyond Meat Burger, a vegan addition to the menu that is being pushed hard in early 2019. Vegan eaters have caught on, as mentions of Carl’s Jr. overall began spiking significantly since the new option was announced.

Volume of social media posts mentioning Carl’s Jr. (Oct 2018 – Jan 2019)

Average sentiment score: social posts mentioning Carl’s Jr (Oct 2018 – Jan 2019)

Popular Carl’s Jr social media mentions (Oct 2018 – Jan 2019)

This post was originally published on Outside Insight. An online resource designed to help business executives understand the power of external data and the impact of forward-looking insights on the decision-making process.

Is 2019 the year of the vegan? Carl’s Jr and others are betting on it.

From the local arts scene in your community to global organizations, the focus of both art and marketing is telling a story and connecting with a community. And these 4 brands are giving a masterclass in beautifully-crafted content that you can duplicate yourself. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.

4 Art Organizations Killing it on Social Media

Brand Strategy + What Works: Beyond just the programs you receive during a Broadway show, Playbill is now the go-to source of everything theatrical. Having a great starting point with their brand’s signature yellow color and captivating stories, Playbill’s content is incredibly interactive and platform specific. You’ll find short videos on their Instagram, and show news on their Twitter.

How to Duplicate Their Success: Focus on producing content that people want to engage with and share, beyond “tag a friend who would love this!” Discover what your audience is passionate about, then start testing what they like to engage with. Is it quizzes or polls? Is it gorgeous photos or inspiring captions? Experiment to see what works.

What’s the most recent #Playbill you received? ✨ #FanFriday #Repost @bbb_broadway

Brand Strategy + What Works: The best local arts presenters know how to appeal to the tastes of their local community—and at the same time get them excited about what’s happening outside of their city or region. The Seattle Opera, much beloved by the city it calls home, is a world-class organization, bringing artists from all over the world to perform and stage some classic pieces like Wagner’s Ring Cycle.

Your health is our top priority. Therefore, Seattle Opera is following the newly mandated policies of state and local public health officials and canceling our public events scheduled through March 31, 2020. Learn more at seattleopera.org/publichealth⠀
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We are considering some livestreaming events during this time to continue to share opera with our community. What are you interested in watching or learning about opera?

How to Duplicate Their Success: Large organizations like operas, symphonies, and ballets will have guest artists constantly—not just singers, but designers, conductors, and writers. Seattle Opera shows the behind-the-scenes process of every show they produce, giving you the insider’s look as to how a magnificent performance is put together. Experiment with highlighting the amount of detail and manpower it takes to produce your product — it builds consumers’ trust.

Brand Strategy + What Works: A world-famous performance venue and cabaret, 54 Below presents solo shows, staged readings, and more in the heart of New York City. Tony Award-winners and parody musicals grace the stage daily, and the team at 54 finely balances the promotion of each event to keep their loyal fans satisfied.

How to Duplicate Their Success: 54 Below is great at making you feel like you’re front-row for the show (even if you can’t physically be there.) Their use of Instagram Live is top notch. Never giving away the entire show (usually only 10 minutes), they will stream select performances live to give viewers a great representation of the kinds of shows you can go see. Use Live streaming to your advantage, and give your audience an insider’s look into your product, team, or events.

Brand Strategy + What Works: World-famous Cirque duSoleil is known for their jaw-dropping performances in countries across the world. Performing in dozens of languages, this circus-themed company has continually broken barriers and wowed audiences. And their social media doesn’t disappoint either.

#KA Guitarist | A masterpiece that doesn’t miss a beat. 
Swipe 👉 to learn more about this character’s wardrobe! #wardrobewednesday

How to Duplicate Their Success: Cirque’s signature flair is instantly recognizable. Using their social accounts, Cirque highlights the costumes, makeup, sets, and more to visually draw their audience in with flashy colors and beautiful artistry. Find what part of your brand is visually-compelling for platforms like Instagram and focus on producing stunning content that aligns with your brand colors.

As you can see, top arts organization use social media to highlight their creativity and keep audiences engaged. To up your social media game, let us show you what an all-in-one media monitoring, media outreach, social listening, and social management solution can do. You’ll be able to spend less time managing your brand’s social presence, and more time focused on creatively expressing what your brand stands for.

4 Great Examples of Arts Organizations on Social Media

Ask anybody and they would have likely bought a product or visited a restaurant because an influencer endorsed it. This concept of influencer marketing is no longer a novel one as scores of influencers have found a comfortable place on social media platforms.

Previously, celebrity or mega influencers tend to take the spotlight. Now, you’ll find more tiers of influencers, namely, macro, micro and nano influencers.

In today’s digital age, with multiple social platforms taking consumer attention away from traditional media, it’s even more crucial to engage with your target audience on these platforms. The best way to do so? By working with specific social influencers to directly promote your brand, product or event to their legion of loyal followers.

The now infamous Fyre Festival is a prime example of utilizing iconic influencers to drive awareness and desire on a grand scale. While the event itself did not deliver on its luxurious promises thanks to extreme mismanagement, there are some pertinent pointers to learn from their influencer marketing strategy.

Below you will find insights into Fyre festival’s influencer campaign and learning points to design your own influencer campaign. Here’s a quick look at what we’ll cover:

Key considerations before diving into an influencer campaign

Managing your influencer campaign from start to end

Tip: Take a look at the top Instagram influencers for Coachella.

Marketed as the social event to be seen at in 2017, Fyre Festival was advertised as a highly luxurious, super exclusive music festival on an idyllic island in the Bahamas. However, with a lack of proper management and operational guidelines, the event quickly turned into a 24-hour catastrophe.

Nonetheless, while the founders were evidently at fault for failing to deliver what was communicated in marketing materials, their influencer marketing campaign was regarded as a success.  

The founders kickstarted the influencer campaign by working with 10 supermodels to create the vision of an uber-luxury experience of a lifetime. In totality, the supermodels boasted millions of fans and by engaging them, the team was able to spread the festival’s message in the widest scope possible.

To jump-start the campaign, Fyre Festival’s founders flew a band of high profile supermodels to the Bahamas for a glamourous photo and video shoot. What followed were visually stunning behind-the-scenes Instagram posts by models like Bella Hadid, Kendall Jenner and Emily Ratajkowski to announce the upcoming event.

This worked in the founders’ favour to build curiosity and trigger conversations online. So much so that media outlets and the supermodels’ fans were all pining to know what the supermodels were working on while in the Bahamas. As highlighted in the word cloud below generated by Meltwater’s Media Monitoring tool, topics covered in digital publications in the early stages largely hovered around the private island, potential music acts, VIP access and mentions of the supermodels promoting the event.

Considering this was a first-time music festival with tickets upwards of US$1,500, this was a great way to generate buzz. Once that hype built up across the supermodels’ legion of following, the founders widened their net by engaging 400 celebrity and macro influencers. Each one of them then uploaded a simple orange tile on Instagram in a coordinated move using the hashtag #FyreFest.

Spreading like ‘wildfyre’, this unified influencer effort on a single day and at a specific time was powerful enough to sell out general admission tickets for the event.

Ultimately, Fyre Festival’s well-constructed influencer campaign proved to be highly effective for a couple of reasons:

1. It drove a significant increase in mass awareness

If executed well with the right influencers, a coordinated move to promote a brand or product could reap tremendous results. In Fyre Festival’s case, according to a pitch deck, the team claimed to have reached 300 million impressions in 24 hours when the orange tile push kicked off. Additionally, Kendall Jenner’s post announcing the first headliner, G.O.O.D Music Family, claimed to have amassed 6 million unique impressions within 5 days.

2. It reached the relevant target audience

Thanks to the team’s clever selection of aspirational influencers, they managed to drive immense desire among their followers, mainly millennials with the capacity to spend. This goes to show it’s not enough to only consider if an influencer is a good fit for your brand. It’s just as important to identify if their followers are the target audience you want to reach.

For any campaign, the biggest indicator of success is often seen through conversion. For Fyre Festival, conversion through the coordinated campaign resulted in 5000 people purchasing tickets worth US$4000 within minutes. For a new and unknown event, selling out tickets in that speed was a mean feat.

Unfortunately for Fyre Festival, the reality did not match the lavish vision marketed. One lesson to learn here: before embarking on any campaign, always ensure there is a true product to promote.

At the end of the day, while influencer marketing can be a hugely effective method to directly reach your target audience and promote a new brand or product, it needs to be done with some thought. There’s no one solution that fits all as each brand will have a different set of objectives and influencers that will resonate with them.

Before launching your influencer campaign, here are some points to take into consideration:

1. Aim to select influencers who are a natural fit with your brand

To create a genuine relationship, it’s important to select influencers who are aligned with your brand’s vision and objectives. Start by asking yourself if the particular influencer will use your product or engage with your brand in their daily life. Taking the time to select the right influencer will make your message a lot more believable.
Do not make the mistake of selecting a general group of influencers because of their large following. In this case, you might risk losing credibility among their followers if posts appear to be a misfit or disingenuous

2. Look out for influencers with followers who align with your target market

Besides screening the influencers, it’s worthwhile having a look at the type of audience that engages with the selected influencer on their posts. If those fans fit your target audience profile then you know by working with the influencer, you’ll have a better chance of reaching the exact target market you want.

With the wide variety of influencers around, finding and selecting the best, most relevant influencers is often said to be the most difficult part of influencer marketing. If you’re going down the in-house route to select influencers and you don’t have some form of platform to help you, the task would quickly become quite challenging.

Common challenges when choosing influencers in a campaign:

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