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“Marketing is continuing to be shaped by the ever-evolving social media landscape as well as changes in content consumption. While discussions on social media impact are not new, the trends and strategies being deployed have evolved significantly over the past year,” says Upali Dasgupta, Marketing Director, Asia Pacific, Meltwater.

Meltwater, a social and media intelligence solution that analyses billions of pieces of content each day, transforming them into vital consumer and market insights, is attending the marcus evans CMO Summit 2024.

How is the social media landscape and content consumption continuing to change? 

Every year we see a progressive increase in the number of social media and internet users. There has been an explosion of digital channels, from chat and messaging to social networks, podcasts and music streaming. Overall, social media remains the most popular, followed closely by search engines*. The typical internet user now spends two hours and 23 minutes on social media each day. On average, 6.7 social media channels are used every month. All of this is creating more and more data points for marketers to analyse and use as input for their marketing strategy.

Three of the most notable shifts over the past year are: social media has become a brand discovery platform; brands are partnering with creators to co-create brand narratives; the consumerisation of AI.

What are some of the opportunities that CMOs can tap into?

Users spent more focused time on the internet and a large part of it on search engines and social media. For younger demographics, social media is the first port of call when searching for a product or brand. Brand discoverability on social media platforms has therefore been a big focus for marketers.

Influencer marketing is being adopted by a multitude of industries. It is going beyond lifestyle and fashion, and foraying into finance, insurance and even B2B. Marketers will need to find the right partnership that fits their brand values and resonates with their target audience for brands to foster deeper connections with their audience. We are seeing a new generation of content creators who are challenging the dominance of mega influencers. This shift towards less polished content will create an interesting dynamic in the influencer landscape, providing opportunities for brands to collaborate with a broader spectrum of creators.

The mass application of AI, generative AI in particular, across industries and functions can help drive substantial productivity gains. Integration of AI into the martech stack will enable ease of use and give quality time back to teams that are busier and less resourced than ever. Examples of these are content summarisation across media coverage, spike analysis to identify topics that are trending and writing assistants powered by AI to help create and edit content. 

What type of content are consumers increasingly drawn to? How can CMOs make sure to engage their audience, with content relevant to them? 

Every business wants to understand their customers better. Social listening can be used to gain a comprehensive view of online conversations, to understand content and topics that resonate with a brand’s audience. It can be used to identify the type of content that engages a brand’s audience and these insights can then be used to attract a new audience, boost brand perception etc.   

How can marketing use generative AI to get better results, predict AI trends earlier and create more reactive campaigns?

Meltwater’s annual state of social survey shows that 59 percent of CMOs in APAC plan to increase their use of AI in 2024 vs 38 percent who are on the fence, which shows there is optimism towards AI in APAC. We asked marketers how AI has helped them in their day-to-day role. Writing related benefits featured on top - both in terms of time saving and quality. But we also saw AI driving productivity through scheduling content, reporting, and improving the impact of campaigns.

Creating engaging content is one of the top challenges for social media practitioners. With most brands posting three to four times each week, it can be a challenge to consistently create engaging content in a scalable way. Meltwater’s writing assistant, powered by ChatGPT, helps marketers brainstorm, create, and improve upon their social copy, speeding up the writing process by up to ten times. The platform also has a DALLE powered image generator that uses a natural language text prompt to create royalty-free images. Both these functionalities not only help marketers save time and be creative but also save money by reducing the need to outsource content production. 

How is data-driven marketing transforming to insight-driven marketing? What does this mean for CMOs? 

As digital marketing technology matures, brands will be able to capture even more data points across multiple data sets, to help inform business decisions. AI can help transform large amounts of marketing touchpoint data into meaningful insights. Natural language processing and visual analytics will help marketers detect trends and understand customer perceptions in real time. Pattern detection algorithms and digital assistants will bring predictive power to the table and enable more accurate projections of ROI of marketing investment - the ultimate goal of every marketing team.  

* Source: https://www.meltwater.com/en/global-digital-trends