ARInsights ARchitect vs. Meltwater

If you have an AR program across the globe and want to track all interactions you have with them, this tool is right for you. As you can imagine the tool is only as good as the data you put in, so you do have to make it part of your work day to input the data. Say a team member leaves and you have to jump in to cover for them, you are able to see all the interactions they have had with analysts

Incentivized

If you practice media relations in your role, Meltwater is helpful. You can do research to find relevant publications and journalists, build media lists, export them to share with a team or client and you can also keep notes on your campaigns. I like using it for research, although I do research outside the platform, as well, to be sure to be thorough (and some of the info in the database is outdated). I would say if you don't practice media relations, it's probably not as useful. There are other tools that do a better job if you want to search for media or social media mentions, for example. If you are looking for an all-in-one media relations tool that's relatively easy to use, Meltwater is probably a good fit.

Incentivized

• The Event Manager function is a great way plan, invite and send agendas to your analyst attendees.
• Projects - although needing more work - is a great way to track progress during an evaluation.
• Premium content is perfect for tracking mentions, sharing reports that are relevant to your constituents and reporting.

Incentivized

• Up to date contact information. It is actually relevant and active info, not always the case with others.
• The user interface is better than most tools. While not perfect, it's pretty easy to figure out how to get what you want.
• Their support is excellent. Anytime I've needed help I can call, but better than this, they proactively call and assist.

Incentivized

• We would like to see some project management functions to track RFI, log follow-up actions and assign tasks inside the team.
• I'd be good to see email open state in the analyst interactions tab.
• An easier way to report insights from interactions would be hugely useful.

• Their tracking system for media mentions isn't perfect - we have stumbled across several posts mentioning our company/product that were not picked up by the platform. While frustrating, we send these URLs to our rep and their tech team ensures that that website will be monitored moving forward.

Incentivized

As a freelancer I am unlikely to have the budget to use ARchitect on a regular basis I would however look at it seriously if asked by a client or if I was working in an agency with a significant AR practice I would look at it seriously.

Incentivized

We have had great success with Meltwater Buzz the past 2 years. The reporting has been great for our board reports, seeing the conversations going on between our followers helps us to learn who our audience is and what we can do better on our social media. The analytics we see on Meltwater Buzz we could not get anywhere else

Incentivized

It's super easy to use, and anything that I cannot figure out, their team usually helps me within hours of my asking!

Once you get some basic training it's pretty easy to use. I would like to see training manuals, or instructional videos to help me explore features I'm not currently using.

In the instances I have had issues its been a little tricky to figure things out, some of the videos are helpful but getting email responses are not great compared to online chat and I have found that the response rates have been more than a day in some instances which is not as responsive as I would like compared to other platforms.I have seen ARInsights have made a number of new hires in the area of account management so I am sure that will have improved the support provided

Incentivized

Our account rep at Meltwater went dark for a long time. Then, a couple of weeks ago, our new account manager reached out to set up a meeting. Apparently, they had a big shakeup in the company, and there were some personnel changes. Our new account rep was great in discussing the platform's capabilities that were available to us and even offered to schedule a follow-up meeting with his technical team to introduce our new social media team members to the platform and how it could help them with their jobs.

Incentivized

Again, really in-depth and helpful for a program that is really easy to use.

Walked step by step through program. Very informative on a program that doesn't require much training.

You are only allowed 15 users, so make sure you've identified who will have access to use the tool.

Prior to using ARchitect, we were using Salesforce. While we did have some customization added, it did not nearly have the robustness that ARchitect provides -- especially since it is designed for AR professionals. We've been using ARchitect for about 8 years and have never looked back. Some examples of vast improvements: 1. Analyst firms/bios. With Salesforce, we needed to maintain all analyst bios -- something that ARchitect does. 2. Analyst coverage. We used to track all analyst coverage by visiting multiple analyst websites and manually pasting into spreadsheets. We now not only get a feed of coverage that can be exported into Excel, but we can also customize reports by topic. 3. Reporting. Salesforce did not provide the same reporting capabilities that ARchitect provides.

Incentivized

Meltwater serves as an all-in-one platform, so it has benefitted us greatly in being able to service a variety of needs in one place. Having a streamlined platform is important to our team since it can feel counterproductive to visit a variety of products to service one client's needs. So, Meltwater has been essential in ensuring our needs are met through one destination.

Incentivized

• The Event Module has taken days if not weeks out of the prep process for big events.
• ARchitect is a great way to allow communication with peers, without the need for extra emails, ect, because everyone on the team can see what each other is doing and who they are talking to about which topics.

Incentivized

• Improved PR reporting, for sure.
• Competitor analysis for clients and ourselves.
• A great ability to track the news and understand particular news drivers for certain industries, allowing us to get our client in front of the media at or before the perfect moment.

Incentivized