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Influencer marketing is evolving, and so is the way brands measure success. That’s why Meltwater is proud to announce a new partnership with YouTube, integrating YouTube’s Creator Partnerships API directly into our Influencer Marketing platform.

Introducing Verified YouTube Data in Meltwater Influencer Marketing

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

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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!

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

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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!

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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

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

Star players, big sponsorship deals, massive live events and a huge – and growing – fan base. Surely the time has come for esports to be regarded as part of the marketing mainstream in Britain?

It seems remarkable that there’s a form of entertainment which is already viewed as bigger than the UK video and music markets. Yet, marketers and advertisers remain largely unaware of it, or simply see it as a niche-market netherworld inhabited by stay-at-home teenagers and geeks.

Some experts even believe that esports, or competitive video gaming, could become more valuable than the movie industry as younger consumers, around the world, embrace a radical new era of digital entertainment.

According to the latest Esports Report published by Newzoo, which specialises in games and esports analytics, by the end of 2019 there will be 454 million esports participants worldwide and revenues of US$1.1-billion. This is up 26% on the previous year.

By 2020, it is estimated that the number of participants will rise to 645 million and revenue will be approximately US$3.2 billion. The number of people who play video games (not necessarily competitively and therefore not classified as true ‘video gamers’) is even higher, at an estimated 2.2-billion people.

“This is not just a few geeky kids playing in their attics. This is a generation that is redefining what is considered sport and what is entertainment,” says John Clarke, Global Brand and Marketing Communications Officer at Gfinity, the UK-based esports company.

In a May 2019 column written for The Drum magazine, he notes: “Brands need to understand the scale of this change because the danger is they underestimate the differences of this community of gamers – or make the mistake of thinking of them in terms of traditional sports fans.

The esports community is something entirely different. Quite apart from being hard to reach in more conventional ways, the level of engagement and immersion in the games they are playing or watching is on another level to that of a traditional fan. Hard to imagine. But true.”

Clarke continues: “Like it or not, esports and competitive gaming have become a way of life for hundreds of millions of young people. It will continue to grow; the only question is by how much and how quickly?”

Good luck to Fnatic Rising representing the UK in the League of Legends EU Masters vs Germany’s SK Prime right now in Leicester

According to the British Esports Association, the UK is the world’s fifth biggest market for games purchases, but has historically lagged behind many other countries when it comes to esports. But the association is working to change this and is pushing esports not as a rival to traditional sports, “but as a credible activity in its own right which can have positive cognitive and other benefits when done in moderation. eSports promotes teamwork and communication, develops communities and provides jobs”.

Not that British esports is insignificant. The ESL One Birmingham 2019 event which took place at the end of May, for example, had a total of US$300 000 in prize money  and attracted 13,4 million views across platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitch TV, a global live streaming platform for gamers.

This year also saw the start of the ePremier League, an esports competition based on the remarkably successful English Premier League. All 20 Premier League clubs hosted a live playoff round, giving two EA SPORTS FIFA 19 competitors, one for PlayStation and one for Xbox, the right to advance to the ePremier League Final.

The Grand Final took place in London in March, and the event was broadcast live on Sky Sports and the Premier League’s digital channels. Statistics published by Esports Charts indicate that the final attracted 9,63 million views.

“It [the ePremier League] has the potential to do so much for esports in the UK, providing jobs/careers to talent, providing entertainment for viewers and helping to spread awareness of competitive gaming and show everyone it’s a viable activity that’s here to stay.

I swear you’ll never see anything like this ever again,” said Dom Sacco, UK Editor for Esports News when the competition was announced last year.

Although it isn’t purely a UK-focused competition, the Formula One eSports Series has also proved popular. Conceived as a way to market a sport that has been struggling to reach a younger audience, it attracted more than 4 million viewers in 2018.

Seems to be that time of year again... Who is excited ahead of the new season? 
#f1esports

Brandon Leigh, a 19-year-old from Oxfordshire who won both the 2017 and 2018 Formula One eSports Series, is now signed up with the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Esports team. “They have literally employed me to play the game,” he explained in a recent interview. This certainly seems to indicate the level of seriousness that professional sports teams are now showing to their esports imitators.

“For marketers, esports promises access to the sought-after 18-34 male demographic, with over 100 million die-hard gamers playing each month and millions more following on free streaming platforms,” says Michael Goldman, a marketing professor at the University of San Francisco in the US. “Relative to the global online population, research suggests esports enthusiasts are more likely to have full-time jobs, have higher incomes, spend more on digital media and download more mobile games.”

So the potential is there. The question for marketers and their agencies, therefore, is how to leverage this to effectively promote their brands and products?

“Despite its rapid rise, esports is still a small fraction of the digital advertising market. The commercial sponsorship model that’s so ingrained in traditional sports, with the legitimacy that big mainstream brands can deliver, is yet to be adopted by esports,” observes Seb Joseph, Brands Editor at Digiday UK, an online publication covering the media and marketing industries.

In an interview with Joseph, Charlie Beall, Senior Consultant at London-based digital sports consultancy Seven League, noted:

“As a brand, it’s not always clear which is the best property with which to align yourself. You can sponsor players, who are often young and commercially naïve; a team, whose managers who are equally young and commercially naïve; or a competition, which have few trustworthy and established players. However, ultimately it’s the game publisher that controls the IP created around esports and the trouble is that they can shut it down at any point.”

Clarke believes that one of the key trends for brands to capitalise on is the growing desire of the target audience to extend beyond just watching tournament play, either live or via a channel.

“There is an appetite for new types of shows and competition formats, bringing more of an entertainment approach to gaming. More people on the esports channel, Twitch, watch live streaming of their heroes playing popular games than watching the ‘best of the best’ in live tournament play,” he writes.

The next step, he predicts, is the growing involvement of professional athletes from the worlds of football, NBA and NFL, as well as entertainers from the worlds of television, film and music who love gaming, pulling their game-loving fans into the broader esports space. This is where the opportunities for new ideas and content are endless – and where the white space exists for brands to play.

“Imagine you like playing the FIFA video game and you get the chance to watch one of your favourite Premier League stars like Dele Alli play the same game against his team mates or star players from rival clubs anywhere in the world. Or for that matter a music or entertainment star. The picking of the teams, the banter, the forfeits, innovative game-play formats and so on. The game-play is peripheral. The level of engagement is unbeatable. This is where brands can play and add value.”

Although global brand giants such as Coca-Cola, Red Bull and McDonald’s are already seizing the esports opportunity, there are hurdles that must be overcome in order to attract more big-name corporates, warns Jodie Fullagar, Managing Director of M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment in London.

“The industry is still largely unregulated, which is problematic for brands, particularly when large sums of investment are involved, and particularly for over-zealous in-house lawyers who, despite the best persuasive intentions of a passionate brand team, will ultimately make the call on risk,” he says.

The last word on esports as an emerging marketing opportunity goes to Clarke, who notes that some brands want to dip their toes, try a small-scale esports event and evaluate it through a traditional ‘media buy’ lens. Others believe in what is happening and are investing ahead of the curve for the long term.

“The winners and losers in this industry will be those who have their fingers on the pulse of the consumer and those that don’t. And while in marketing that is nothing new, the challenge is not to approach this industry by looking back at what has happened in the past, or through the rearview mirror. Foresight is needed. In the gaming world the rules are still being written and models created.”

Is the UK About to Catch the Global eSports Wave?

A lively panel discussion moderated by Meltwater’s Dino Delic at New York City’s Press Lounge in May yielded valuable insights from a handful of business communication leaders. Panellists included Emily Scarlett, communications head at clothing retailer H&M USA; Craig Carroll, founder and executive director at the Observatory on Corporate Reputation (The OCR); and Christel Ghattas, a corporate communicator at the media and entertainment provider Discovery, Inc. The discussion centred on best practices around risk and crisis management, as panellists spoke to issues introduced by Delic and answered questions from the audience.

The panel agreed that the best way to manage a crisis is to be open and authentic, and quickly explain what can and will be done to rectify a situation. Adhering to the company’s professed values is important. Even so, there will be some occasions where the best response is not to issue a statement at all, but to work quietly behind the scenes to resolve the issue. This includes scenarios where the perceived offence is negligible and the company has it in its control to apply a remedy.

Several of the discussion topics and the conclusions they inspired follow.

Authenticity is key to navigating a crisis, so tell the same story everywhere you operate.

Companies using the same name around the world can’t afford to be chameleons. Letting people know what your brand stands for earns you goodwill and trust and provides you with signposts on how to operate in times of challenge. If you profess to be all about people, decision-making should always put people first. Tell a consistent story. One panellist said her company prioritized moving from social media channels operating independently in multiple countries to a model ensuring greater consistency and control of the narrative. “There are so many moving parts, but our employee in India should have a good idea what our employee in Sweden will be saying.”

Everyone owns reputation management, so familiarize employees with your corporate values from day one.

The CEO is typically the face of the company and may be flanked by internal communication leaders in times of crisis, but every company with public-facing employees has an opportunity to demonstrate the company’s values in its day-to-day operations. The panellists agreed that there’s strength in numbers. Employee engagement is almost inevitable in the age of social media, so communicate regularly with employees about expectations and positive behavior. A solid grounding in the corporate values goes a long way toward investing trust in your workforce.

Use every available resource to gather and act on your information.

Panellists agreed that effective crisis management depends on allowing cooler heads to prevail. This means getting people on the line who know what actually happened, gathering the facts, and coordinating with your team to go public. Fulltime 24/7 monitoring of social and traditional channels allows you to follow any unexpected turns in messaging, along with their context. The more tools you have to work with, the better. One panellist remarked, “They say it takes 20 years to build a reputation and three seconds to lose it, and that’s a fact.” Another panellist notes that people’s memories are short today, and sometimes we can over-respond to a reputation issue. “We’re more invested in our reputations than all of our stakeholders are. Sometimes we can over-respond a little bit.”

Given its immediacy, social media can be your greatest ally in a time of crisis.

Waking up and finding your company in the spotlight for an incriminating photo could ruin most PR pros’ weekends. Rather than watch the situation spiral out of control, one panellist spoke of using social media to track down the photograph’s source. Buried beneath 500 tweets she found her answer. Social media not only allowed her to communicate that the company was looking into the matter, it later enabled her to explain the story behind the photo, part of an exposé the company was preparing for broadcast. Everything happened in a matter of hours. As one audience member observed, “Social media isn’t always the devil. It can also be really powerful from an advocacy standpoint.”

Media monitoring not only identifies vulnerabilities, it often guides you toward solutions.

To learn what you’re doing wrong, just look to Twitter. One panellist recalled how criticism of their fitting-room mirrors was a frequent topic of conversation. The solution was easy enough, but it took social media to bring it to the company’s attention. “Rather than perceive the criticism as solely a knock on the brand,” she said, “we looked at this as an opportunity to show our customers that we were listening and were willing to make things better for them.”

Look to create real value with your media reporting, and report in real time.

Finding ways to extract value out of your information-gathering practices and using the information in real time can keep a small issue from blowing up into a crisis. “Real-time insights that can affect decision-making are more valuable than a beautiful report afterwards explaining how well you did,” said one panellist. Another panellist warned against overreacting and over-communicating. While intuition often plays a key role here, the best decisions are typically grounded in facts and supporting data.

For further insight into risk and reputation management, you can download our ebook on the topic.

Risk and Reputation Management the Hot Topic at Press Lounge Gathering

Creating a good public relations campaign requires a strict adherence to timelines, meeting milestones and gathering of necessary collateral. It is also even better to stay alert and be wary of potential red flags that could lead to a PR Crisis – especially when they are often unexpected. 

In the case of the Samsung Galaxy Fold, everything seemed to be going according to plan. The Galaxy Fold would be the tech giant’s — and the world’s — first foldable phone in the market, promising mobile entertainment on a bigger screen with flexibility. 

Just like every other campaign, Samsung offered news agencies and tech magazines a first look at the phone. Journalists were given review models a week before the official product launch. In return, Samsung hoped to get a good word out on the Galaxy Fold.

However, Samsung’s first foldable phone couldn’t fold. Journalists complained about malfunctioning phone screens and did their job telling the world about it. 

Videos of cracked screens flickering away went viral on social media within minutes. That alone was damning enough to convince the world that the Galaxy Fold was too good to be true. 

Could this all have been nipped in the bud before it exploded out of proportion? Is there no moving forward after this? While Samsung takes its time fixing what needs to be done, there’s much to take away from the situation.

Good media prides itself on being extremely up-to-date, cutting through the chatter and sieving out the latest trends to write about. Similarly, a good PR agency has to be equally on-the-ball, if not more so, in order to manage the public’s perception of a campaign or product. 

During the week before the Galaxy Fold’s official launch, Samsung was ill-timed in their response:

Problems with the phone surfaced after just two days of use. It took Samsung a few more days to recall all of its review units, cutting short a full 10-day loan period for journalists. At this point, news of such problems was being published. 

They weren’t clear about what went wrong

Journalists blamed vague instructions on using the phone. Some removed a plastic film off the screen which was essential in keeping the Galaxy Fold foldable, mistaking it as a run-of-the-mill screen protector. Others had undetermined issues. Nobody knew what was going on, and Samsung gave little clarification. 

They weren’t aware of growing negative sentiment and uncertainty

The Galaxy Fold came with a pretty hefty price tag and it wasn’t helping with product perception, with the phone malfunctioning before hitting the stores. After the incident with the media, the official launch date was delayed indefinitely. In the meantime, stores were cancelling pre-orders for the Galaxy Fold. Several media outlets labelled the Galaxy Fold as frivolous and an idea that was ‘doomed’ from the start. Samsung launched new products during this interim period but hasn’t really gotten back to addressing issues about the Fold. 

Samsung’s wager on the Galaxy Fold was a make or break opportunity. It would put Samsung up as a formidable trendsetter in the world of consumer technology. The publicised failures of the foldable phone meant little to the company’s overall revenue but were damaging possibilities of improving brand sentiment. Coupled with the Galaxy Note 7 battery explosions of 2016, Samsung had a point to prove on its reliability and was risking consumer confidence.  

What could have been done better, and is there recourse to the current situation? 

Ideally, a PR team is expected to tackle such situations ASAP. The team should be in full activation in the field to spot developments and keep a check on social sentiment. The key is to identify problems before further escalation.

But crises always occur when least expected. Rather than react to incoming storms of bad press, it is much easier to formulate a response when one’s already plugged into what people are saying. Having eyes on specific media outlets or influential voices provide comprehensive understanding of the crisis at hand and help in detecting potential storms before they brew too long. 

While traditional media monitoring is absolutely necessary, it is also time-consuming. In crucial moments such as Samsung’s Galaxy Fold screen issue, every minute is significant to PR professionals for coming up with actionable plans. A PR team cannot control products or reviews. They can listen, learn, and act accordingly – and it’s wise to arm themselves with responsive tools for such purposes.

Things to consider before selecting a media monitoring tool:

Is it armed with access to multiple news sources such as newspapers, magazines, blogs, local forums and social media?

Besides Instagram and Facebook, is the tool able to track social media platforms such as WeChat?

How often are they innovating their service? E.g., adding new channels or upgrading features?

Is it easily accessible on the go? Is it mobile-friendly?

Can alerts be created for specific trigger keywords?
 

On top of being able to do all of the above, Meltwater provides access to over 300,000 news sources and updates users with news on a regional and global scale. PR professionals can simply look out for specific keywords or media, allowing more time to craft PR strategies.

In the case of the Samsung Galaxy Fold, journalists took to social media first to demonstrate flaws before writing up their reviews on their media platforms. The virality of such content contributed to the extent of the crisis as well. Meltwater’s Social Echo feature is one way to spot the virality of an article on social platforms. With this feature, you can easily track the engagement related to the article on Facebook, as well as the number of times the article has been tweeted or retweeted on Twitter.

While there’s no need to stay fixated on screens for constant media updates, anxious PR professionals can remain calm with Meltwater’s notification system. Alerts on various topics and keywords can be created and sent to the user throughout the day, in real time, via dashboards that are intuitive, to know what’s going on. 

Though the Galaxy Fold’s screen problem is unexpected, fast responding media monitoring could still help set off protocols in addressing issues that were sounded out as well as to stave off pending negative reviews and news.

Solution 2: Streamline your data and consider your strategy

Now that there’s an understanding of general media sentiment across the Internet, important questions must be addressed. What are the specific issues that are hotly discussed now? And how are competitors reacting to the situation?

Before laying down any strategies, consider categorising data for a better overview of the situation at hand. Dashboards allow users to customise data that has come through the platform and analyse it with the help of various metrics. 

For Samsung’s case, a combination of metrics indicating the range of sentiment, top social posts, topic momentum and story sources can help paint a brief, yet practical outlook on the crisis. This information is further customisable in various forms such as pie charts, word clouds or tables for better understanding. Comparisons can also be drawn between social media and news sentiment, for instance, allowing Samsung to pinpoint its target audience and issues to address when it relaunches the Galaxy Fold. 

A dashboard on Meltwater’s Media Monitoring tool

Is there still a public relations future for the Galaxy Fold?

Granted, this isn’t the first time Samsung has had to explain itself for faulty electronics. Exploding Galaxy Note batteries had the brand on edge, though they have since further pushed for better quality management – along with a slew of smartly-designed campaigns and videos to boost confidence in their product.

Despite the delayed reaction to what most would perceive as a blowout disaster, Samsung has once again proved that it is listening to its audiences. Noting responses that people would mistakenly pull out the protective film on phone screens, Samsung promised that it would look to create better messaging in its packaging. 

It’s a small step, considering that troubleshooting works for the Galaxy Fold is still in the works. On a public relations front, Samsung has to address the more significant issue: how is Samsung going to rebuild confidence in a product that had already failed before it even entered the market?

It may seem like a dead end, but with a sharp ear on the ground, this is one that still has a chance to develop into something successful. Samsung has still yet to determine another official launch – competitors are no doubt keeping a close eye on this. As it prepares for its next chance at pushing the Galaxy Fold, there’s still time to listen and prepare for a relevant and swift response. 

Samsung Galaxy Fold PR Disaster: An Embarrassment Or Opportunity?

On social media, a single incident can quickly create a crisis and be detrimental to a brand – not just in terms of perception but also in sales – which will be remembered for years.

While a company can try to improve its brand reputation through content and branding campaigns, the brand perception is ultimately shaped by the opinions and experiences of consumers. Marketers must, therefore, be extra vigilant to protect their brand when a crisis strikes, not only during but also once the crisis period has passed.

Before deciding your course of action in terms of crisis communication, it is essential to measure the impact of the crisis on the reputation of your brand, in order to be able to respond effectively. It is therefore essential to measure:

What is being said about your brand during this crisis on social networks

Perceptions of the brand during and after the crisis

Top Tip: For insights on how to navigate a world drowning in Fake News, access of free, on-demand Webinar on How to Protect Your Reputation in a Fake News World and learn more about brand reputation measurement.

In a crisis situation, it is therefore very important to react quickly and pay attention to every detail. A crisis watch is essential in order to alert us to the feeling of our customers, to guide our communication strategies and to enable us to identify new media to target.

So we can start by including a watch on both the press and social networks. Even if your brand does not have a great presence on social media, these are often the place where the crises are discussed, so it is important to stay informed of what is said.

How many messages and articles related to your crisis have been published? How much of your crisis does it occupy compared to your usual media coverage? What days did the message peaks take place?

The case of H&M Mexico is a good example. The brand experienced a global crisis in early 2018 when it put on sale a  designer sweatshirt disagreeing with the brand’s diversity values. Meltwater’s social media monitoring tool to analyze the coverage of this crisis at a local level allowed them to follow what the journalists said and react accordingly.

In times of crisis, your negative hedge will be much larger than usual. The challenge will be to return this rate of negative mentions to a normal rate. It is therefore essential to monitor your brand’s sentiment score throughout crisis management.

Following the evolution of sentiment over time will allow you to identify and manage peaks of negative mentions, which you can explore to identify relays and key topics related to your crisis. You will also be able to follow the impact of your crisis communication on your web mentions day by day.

The keywords contain clues as to how people perceive your brand during and after a crisis. Use  a social media monitoring tool  to quickly gather branding information so you can do it:

Identify the key topics: What are the common concerns raised? Do people associate your brand with the crisis?

Related Hashtags: It is not uncommon for customers to band together by labeling their complaints under a derogatory hashtag. Keep track of these hashtags over time for more information beyond brand endorsements or customer messages on social media pages about your brand.

In order to address the most appropriate response, it is important to understand what the media and the general public feel about your crisis situation.

What are the most common topics? Distinguish the impact of press and of social media because the content broadcast on these two channels can be very different.

This indicator will then be interesting to follow during your crisis management, to make sure that your answer is correctly integrated by your community, and to adjust if necessary.

Who are the main broadcasters of your crisis? Are they detractors or ambassadors?

By identifying media and influencers about your business, you can prioritize your communication. Determine the best way to show appreciation to the heroes and positive spokespeople during the duration of the crisis.

Which social media publications related to your crisis have the most impact (engagement, sharing, etc.)?

You will be able to identify influencers who are relaying your crisis, and opinions that arouse the most consensus in relation to your situation.

Does your crisis have a very local, national or international reach?

Because every content can be critical in times of crisis, it’s important to have a news feed updated at your fingertips in real-time.

Identify the impact of the crisis on business and customers

Of all the measures that companies need to focus on, the customer response to a crisis is ultimately the most important.

The feedback that customer relations teams receive in terms of calls or emails is the most direct feedback on the potential impact of a crisis on the current financial results.

Depending on the type of business, customers may be the best public to filter the noise they hear. If they ask questions, you will have a clear point of reference as to the extent of the problem you may be facing.

For consumer brands, customer engagement can be measured simply by the decision not to buy a product, so tracking sales in real-time is essential.

The conclusion to be drawn here is that the measures must be adapted to the type of business and relationship with the customer.

It is also important to monitor the impact of your crisis communication on the perception of the brand after the crisis has been minimised.

If your brand has completely recovered from the crisis and customers have forgiven and forgotten.

Whether it is appropriate to launch new content or branding campaign, or if your PR team is facing the crisis again.

Evaluate the “consequences” taking into account the time needed for the discussions related to the crisis to stabilise or diminish.

If the crisis is among the most important web search keywords related to your brand.

As for the case of Wonder Woman with ThinkThin, with their promotional operation co-branded. Unfortunately for thinkThin, it’s their brand name that has caused a disagreement with the audience’s expectations of the film. Presumably, if their bars had been named thinkHealthy, there would have been no near-crisis.

The mainstream media and social media condemned the film for about a week, and by the time it was released in June 2017, we found almost no mention of this ill-conceived partnership.

And although they did not cancel the campaign, neither brand promoted it on social media. Wonder Woman has become a huge blockbuster and neither brand has been boycotted.

Rebuilding your brand’s reputation after a crisis requires tact and good timing. It is therefore essential to write a crisis report in which you will analyze and mention the plan implemented to minimize the crisis. This will help you to:

Identify influencers who have stood up for your brand and who could become your spokespeople in your post-crisis campaign.

Detect key complaints that should be addressed in official communications

Determine whether your brand should continue as usual or better communicate by taking corrective action, based on the volume of crisis-related discussions, conversation keywords, and sentiment about your brand.

If you’d like to learn more about how social media monitoring tools can help you determine a crisis and keep your brand image up to scratch; request a free demo of the Meltwater tool.

How to Measure the Impact of a Crisis on Your Brand Image

When a very public mistake or mishap occurs within your organisation, a public apology – and a commitment to right the wrong – is in order. 

A swift mea culpa, coupled with some affirmative action to make good and ensure that the likelihood of such an event occurring again is minimised, is the correct approach and will generally help an organisation win back the favour of its customers. Moreover, if the response can be injected with a little humour (where appropriate of course!), so much the better. 

Here we have highlighted examples of winners and losers when it comes to public apologies in the aftermath of a PR crisis. 

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