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AI adoption is no longer the challenge—trusted context is. Most organizations have AI tools, but many still rely on disconnected, stale, or unverified data, limiting the quality and trustworthiness of AI-generated outputs. Meltwater MCP brings trusted, real-time intelligence into AI assistants.

Your Best Context is Already in the Room

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?
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

It’s just another day at work, everything is going smoothly, nothing out of the ordinary for you to deal with, until… You get a Meltwater alert letting you know there’s been a significant spike in brand mentions! 

There’s no planned activity that could explain this, so the first order of business is to find out what has caused that spike so you can figure out what to do next. That used to mean spending a little time poking around Meltwater’s analytics tools to work out where all those brand mentions are coming from and what they’re about. But now, we’ve made it easier than ever to get to that insight. 

Meltwater customers now have access to our AI Spike Analysis feature, which will help you get to the bottom of that explosion of mentions in no time at all.

If you are not a Meltwater customer yet, you can get a free tour of our suite including our AI Spike Analysis feature today!

Let’s start by taking a look at the feature in action, using a simple example. In the following chart, you’ll see a trendline for online and social media mentions of the singer Taylor Swift, covering a 30-day period from late August to September 2023. 

In the top right corner of the chart is the “AI Spike Insights” button; users can simply click this on any chart, and if any spikes are detected, they will be highlighted with the little lightbulb icon (as noted on the chart). 

To decide whether a spike even exists, our AI will compare the selected time period to a much longer previous period in order to calculate a baseline volume of mentions, and then focus on any points at which the mentions are significantly higher than that baseline. A further stage of statistical analysis is then performed to confirm the level of confidence that any anomaly is a genuine spike, and then, where a high level of confidence exists, those spikes are highlighted. 

In the above chart, we can see there are three highlighted spikes, including a prominent one around September 13. Clicking on the icon above that spike will bring up an insights panel, containing more information. 

This shows us that mentions of Taylor on the 13th were seven times higher than average and that this spike was largely driven by increased mentions on Twitter rather than any other source. 

We can see that the #vmas hashtag appeared in around half of those mentions, which shows us that this spike was driven by her appearance at the MTV Video Music Awards on that date and that the sentiment of these mentions was overwhelmingly positive. The panel also shows us that a much higher-than-average volume of mentions originated from the United States. 

So, in just a few seconds, the AI Spike Analysis tool has given us a very clear idea of what that big spike in mentions is all about. Clicking on the “View more insights” link at the bottom will pull up an analytics side-bar focused on the date of that specific spike, so you can quickly delve into more detail if you need further context. 

This Spike Analysis tool is just one example of the many innovative ways we’re using AI in our suite of solutions to help our customers be more productive. We hope you find it useful!

If you'd like to see how it works, simply fill out the following form and we will be in touch to show you.

Why Are Your Brand Mentions Spiking? AI Can Explain

Every social media manager wants to get the most out of the content that they publish. But even the right Instagram content might not get the right reach if it’s not posted at the right time.

So when is the best time to post on Instagram?

The answer isn’t quite as simple as it may first seem. The best time to publish on social media depends on your audience, your followers, and their behaviours.

So while there is no definitive ‘perfect’ time to post on Instagram, there are peak times for brands in South Africa to publish content and give it the best chance to reach a broad audience.

The Best Time to Post on Instagram in South Africa By Weekday

Important Instagram Posting Insights for South Africa

Driving Engagement on Instagram in South Africa

The Influence of Instagram in South Africa

How Meltwater Helps You Find the Best Time To Post on Instagram in South Africa

Tip: Read our full guide on how to post on Instagram.

<table class="table-primary alternate-color">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Weekday</th>
<th>Best time to post on Instagram in South Africa</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center;">Monday</td>
<td>5AM</br>
11AM TO 12PM</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center;">Tuesday</td>
<td>6AM</br>
11AM TO 2PM</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center;">Wednesday</td>
<td>6AM</br>
11AM TO 12PM</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center;">Thursday</td>
<td>5AM</br>
11AM TO 2PM</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center;">Friday</td>
<td>6AM</br>
11AM TO 12PM</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center;">Saturday</td>
<td>6AM</br>
 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center;">Sunday</td>
<td>6AM</br>
 </td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

The graph below shows a South African brand with several Instagram accounts.

With a social media publishing tool, you can see you when your South African audience might be online:

The least favourable time to post on Instagram in South Africa is at 6PM in the week.

The best time to schedule your Instagram posts in South Africa is 6AM.

The best time to reach your audience online is mid-morning, especially in the beginning of the week.

Engagement begins to pick up while people are having their morning coffee and then increases towards the lunch break.

The below insights are based on global engagement rates, but South African social media statistics follow a similar pattern:

B2C companies achieve their best Instagram engagement on a Saturday at 11AM and at 1PM.

Instagram content published by media companies performs the best on Friday at 9AM.

Companies in the healthcare sector see the best performance on Tuesday at 1PM.

Higher Education content on Instagram performs best on Monday at 8PM.

Tech companies see the best engagement on Instagram on Wednesday at 10AM.

Nonprofits' Instagram posts perform well on Wednesday between 9AM and 3PM and on Sunday at 9AM.

To improve engagement on Instagram, it’s important to pay attention to your social media analytics. Make sure you are up to date with the best social media analytics tools to help social media performance.

To increase followers and drive overall engagement, a great strategy is to work with South African Instagram influencers in your industry. This increases your reach as your brand is introduced to a new audience through accounts that typically have a loyal following.

The Instagram algorithm typically rewards original (unique) content both as Reels and in the form of photos. If you have engaging content, increase your engagement by including calls to action in the caption, such as “Drop an emoji that best describes your mood seeing this!”

Find the best South African influencers to partner with your brand: The Top 10 South African Instagram Influencers, Top South African Fashion Influencers, Top Beauty Influencers in South Africa, Top South African Fitness & Sports Influencers, and The Top 10 South African TikTokers.

Far gone are the days of one-photo-only-posts on Instagram. The platform has grown into a massive marketing platform specialising in images, designs, videos, Reels, and live streams.

The Digital 2023 South Africa report published South African social media statistics and as of January 2023, South Africa boasted 25.8 million Instagram users (42.9% of the total national population).

Of these users, the average time spent on social media totalled to 3 hours and 44 minutes daily.

Instagram was the third most visited social media platform in South Africa, after Facebook and Twitter, and ninth most visited website overall.

Instagram has grown exponentially as a marketing tool. To get the most out of it, it’s vital that brands know the best time to post photos, Stories, and Reels in South Africa.

Increase ROI on social media marketing and social media management efforts

When is the Best Time to Post on Instagram in South Africa?

For global luxury brands, China - and its 1.39 billion people - is the holy grail.

China’s e-commerce industry is predicted to be worth $1.8 trillion Yuan by 2022, and a large chunk of this growth is expected to come from the fashion and luxury goods market.

Enter Xiaohongshu (“Little Red Book”), China’s most trusted social shopping platform.

Based in Shanghai, this innovative app helps over 100 million users - mostly younger women - to discover and review beauty and health products that can be hard to find in China.

This represents an amazing opportunity for global brands to build their market presence in China. It’s why big players like Chanel and Dior are paying so much attention to the platform and are including it into their social media marketing efforts.

In this post, we’ll give you the low-down on this amazing site. In particular, we’ll show you how global brands are jumping on Little Red Book in a big way, using it to help drive their growing presence within the Chinese market.

How Does Little Red Book (Xiaohongshu) work?

Who is using Little Red Book (Xiaohongshu)?

Which industries are Little Red Book (Xiaohongshu) best suited for?

How are global brands using Little Red Book (Xiaohongshu)?

What you can expect to see from Little Red Book (Xiaohongshu) in the future

Don’t miss out on this innovative platform

Created in 2014, Xiaohongshu, also known as Little Red Book, or simply Redbook, has grown to become China’s foremost fashion and luxury shopping platform.

And now, the tricky part: Little Red Book (Xiaohongshu) isn’t really a shopping platform at all.

Rather, it’s first and foremost a content sharing site, where users can post product photos with reviews and tips for other users to read, comment, and save to their boards - like Pinterest.

In fact, some have described the platform as being a product search engine, or “like Instagram and Pinterest sprinkled with a dose of Taobao”.

In contrast with other e-commerce platforms, Little Red Book focuses on a unique blend of trusted user-generated content, word-of-mouth advertising, and online community-building.

However you describe it, this curious mix has proven to be a huge hit with young urban Chinese women, who often struggle to find trusted sources of product information.

Little Red Book users can engage with platform content in three ways:

Liking the content - similar to Facebook’s “like” feature.

Collecting the content - saving it under a bookmark for future reference.

Commenting on the content - interacting with the post and the user.

Little Red Book focuses heavily on building trust and reliability between the platform and consumers, rewarding users for posting suggestions and advice to followers.

By posting regular, quality content, users can quickly attract significant followings, and can even earn commission by becoming influencers - more on this below.

In fact, the most popular posts on Little Red Book tend to be author-tagged lists of convenient, economical, or easy-to-use products.

The popularity of these kinds of posts shows the value of authenticity on the platform, with users rewarding influencers for realism, accessibility, and being relatable.

For an example, let’s turn to the following post - a user discussing the trials of finding products suitable for sensitive skin:

Interestingly, Little Red Book avoids many typical e-commerce practices. It doesn’t allow anonymous reviews or one-click ratings, for example, instead encouraging detailed, immersive product reviews known as “notes”.

The site also includes a high focus on security, with qualified brands and retailers having to submit an application before being accepted on the platform.

All of this adds up to a unique value proposition for the platform, in that users can share content, review products, and purchase items all from the same place.

Combine this with a strong focus on trusted communities of like-minded shoppers, and it’s not hard to see why Little Red Book has resonated so strongly with users.

Now, let’s take a look at who exactly is using the platform.

Little Red Book had attracted 100 million users by late 2018.

Crucially, 90% of these users are middle or upper-class women with higher degrees of disposable income. This is an incredibly lucrative market for global fashion and cosmetics brands.

Since its launch, Little Red Book has hit some amazing stats. For example, on June 6 2017, Little Red Book held a shopping festival to celebrate the anniversary of its founding, with sales revenue exceeding 100 million RMB in just two hours.

Co-founder and CEO Mao Wenchao has said that 70 to 80% of Little Red Book’s users are women. What’s more, over 50% of users are between the ages of 18-35, and are living in Tier 1 and 2 cities in China.

And it isn’t just online users who get to benefit from Little Red Book - the platform also launched a brick-and-mortar store in Shanghai in June 2018.

So, that’s a quick overview of the 100 million people using Little Red Book.

But which industries have the best chance of succeeding on the platform?

With its strong focus on the beauty and fashion markets, Little Red Book has set itself aside from other Chinese social media and e-commerce platforms such as WeChat and Weibo.

This content focus, plus the unique demographics of Little Red Book’s user base, make it a great fit for luxury beauty brands like Dior and Chanel, as well as high-end cosmetic brands like Fenty and Lancôme.

The strength of this market focus has also helped Little Red Book to secure $300 million USD in series D funding from investors, including e-commerce titan Alibaba.

A makeup listing on Little Red Book. Source: Creative Union

However, Little Red Book also features a lot of content about lifestyle products such as nutritional supplements. Posts concerning tourism and overseas destinations are also popular, with a lot of travel bloggers getting in on the action.

Helpfully, Little Red Book also features an “explore” section, letting viewers explore other users’ content on topics like fashion, food, and travel.

There’s also a “nearby” section to alert users to shopping experiences in their physical environment.

Tourism posts on Little Red Book. Source: Jing Travel

These features help show the versatility of the platform, with huge opportunities for global brands throughout the lifestyle and beauty industries, including cosmetics, clothing, and travel products.

Next, we’ll take a look at how global brands are using Little Red Book to drive sales.

Currently, there are around 8,000 verified brands featuring products on Little Red Book, including many major global brands.

Even Kim Kardashian is getting in on the action, creating an official account in late 2018 to help promote her makeup line, KKW.

In an effort to appeal to the local audience, a lot of global brands are translating their packaging into Mandarin, and are partnering with Chinese Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs)). This includes Chanel, Gucci and Dior, all of whom have all enlisted Chinese celebrities for their ads.

This kind of engagement can take a lot of effort at the local level, and potentially requires input from translators and production agencies.

In late 2018, Little Red Book also opened a “brand partner platform”, a feature aimed at connecting brands with influencers and KOLs to arrange for sponsored content.

Little Red Book’s brand partner platform. Source: Marketing To China

Using this service, companies on the platform can be connected with any of its 4,800 influencers by searching content tags. Companies can also view key metrics such as an influencer’s number of likes, average hits and comments per post, and fan counts.

Since the unveiling of this service, many global luxury brands (including YSL, Shiseido, and Fendi) have entered into official collaborations with KOLs, helping to drive additional interest in their products.

The platform has also invited actresses from popular television drama series to join Little Red Book as beauty bloggers, sharing their makeup routines to their audience of followers.

Little Red Book’s strong focus on content integrity has made it a lot easier for users to know when they’re viewing a paid ad, and when they’re viewing authentic content.

For example, influencers must register any paid promotional links with brands, and users failing to disclose paid posts can be reprimanded.

So, what can we expect to see from Little Red Book in the future?

Given the amazing growth we’ve seen from Little Red Book over the last five years, we can expect significant additional growth. However, as the platform continues to grow and evolve, it also has to face a number of problems.

One thing the platform is looking to address is the number of “window shoppers”: users finding products on Little Red Book, then purchasing them on Taobao or other apps instead.

To combat this, Little Red Book has stopped companies from inserting links within content encouraging users to visit other e-commerce sites. This helps to keep shoppers on the app. However, if users still want to shop elsewhere, they can.

Another problem is the complaint from some users that the site has become too commercial and no longer encourages the same originality from users. Given the variety of content that sets Little Red Book apart from other platforms, this will be important for the company to address.

Whatever the future has in store, global brands will want to make sure they don’t miss out on what Little Red Book has to offer!

Little Red Book has seen amazing growth over the past five years.

What’s more, it’s commitment to meaningful community interaction and user integrity means it's likely to attract a lot more users.

If you’re a global luxury or lifestyle brand looking to boost your presence in the Chinese market, it pays to take the time and effort to build your familiarity with this unique platform.

Once you’re ready, you can jump right in by establishing an official account, making your products available, and engaging with your community of fans and consumers.

What is Little Red Book (Xiaohongshu) and Why are Global Brands Jumping on it?

MarCom professionals have seen quite the evolution in their industry and the scope of their role over the past decade or so. On the one hand, reaching out to one’s audience has never been easier. But the complexity of the many media channels now available can make it difficult to roll out successful and cohesive marketing and communication campaigns. Understanding the definitions of paid, earned, owned, and shared media and their specific purposes is essential for modern marketing and communications teams.

In this blog post, we go over the concept of the PESO Model™ and explain how marketers can leverage the convergence of paid, earned, shared, and owned media to build integrated marketing campaigns. 

Gini Dietrich is the creator of the PESO Model™ concept, which we've outlined below. 

To learn how to leverage all four media channels, download the free Ultimate Guide to Owned, Earned, Paid & Shared Media. 

Owned, Earned, Paid & Shared Media Definitions

Leveraging Owned Media for Lead Generation

Leveraging Paid Media for Lead Generation

Leveraging Earned Media for Lead Generation

Combine All Four Media Channels For the Best Results

Integrating Earned, Owned, Shared, and Paid Media Into One Cohesive Lead-Generation Campaign

Let's start off with an overview of PESO definitions.

Owned media refers to any content that originates with you. 

Traditionally this has meant website content and newsletters, but the definition of owned media has expanded to include your brand social accounts as well.

Therefore you can split owned media into 2 categories: 

The content that you host (website and other resources such as in-app help articles)

The content that you share (newsletter & social media accounts)

The Meltwater Blog

Why Are Your Brand Mentions Spiking? AI Can Explain

When is the Best Time to Post on Instagram in South Africa?

What is Little Red Book (Xiaohongshu) and Why are Global Brands Jumping on it?

Owned, Earned, Paid & Shared Media Explained

ChatGPT Social Media Marketing Life Hacks

When Is The Best Time To Post on Instagram in The UK?

Meta's Threads: Our First Impressions

AI Generator for Social Media Posts

5 of the Most-Shared Pro-LGBTQ+ Articles of 2023 So Far

Instagram Marketing Examples: 20 Excellent Examples & Ideas from Top Brands

The 9 Best Branded Communities for You To Join

What Brands Can Learn from a Year of “Green” Keyword Mentions