Emplifi vs. Sparkcentral (discontinued)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Emplifi
Score 7.7 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Emplifi offers a platform that enables brands to manage social marketing, commerce, and care. At the core of this platform is Emplifi Fuel — the outcome and enablement layer that connects all modules across marketing, commerce, and care. Fuel empowers brands to optimize the customer journey, unifying data, automation, and AI-driven insights to ensure every interaction drives meaningful business outcomes. The platform's core capabilities include:…N/A
Sparkcentral (discontinued)
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
Sparkcentral was a social customer care solution and cloud-based customer engagement platform that catered specifically to customer care teams within large enterprises, enabling them to deliver real-time social customer service. Sparkcentral was acquired by Hootsuite in January 2021. The product has since been discontinued.N/A
Pricing
EmplifiSparkcentral (discontinued)
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
EmplifiSparkcentral (discontinued)
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
EmplifiSparkcentral (discontinued)
Considered Both Products
Emplifi
Chose Emplifi
A better tool in terms of measurement
Chose Emplifi
Sprout Social, Brandwatch and Hootsuite
Chose Emplifi
I think that Emplifi Social Marketing Cloud is unique, has all in one super easy to use and if you are on social media work is a tool that you need to use no only the big brands, Emplifi Social Marketing Cloud is for everyone who want grow up in this industry and doesn't exist …
Chose Emplifi
Its so much better and more stable and easier to work with their team If you're on Agora you should switch, you wont regret it and you'll probably get a better price. I used to deal with Agora breaking in some odd way every week, and Emplifi Service Cloud hasn't broken in any …
Chose Emplifi
Emplifi's support is responsive and quick to act on our requests, which puts them above competitors in my opinion.
Chose Emplifi
Emplifi Social Marketing Cloud it's a more complete tool to manage social media content and data insights and analysis. As a global organization, we do not have so many issues with multiple users, permissions and we can have a big picture of all accounts - as well as their …
Chose Emplifi
Brandwatch has a bigger scope on listening outside conversations on Twitter or other channels such as Influencers. Emplifi Social Marketing Cloud has that ability but works best in helping us manage our own scope (eg. fanpages and accounts) like comments form our fans and brand …
Chose Emplifi
Kustomer is great for our Email and Chat tickets, but was less optimized for social media. It was less organized regarding incoming channel (including public comments with direct messages in the same ticket) which made it difficult to accurately reply to customers with the info …
Chose Emplifi
Emplifi Social Marketing Cloud is more complete in every way when compared to Facelift Cloud.
Chose Emplifi
We selected Live Advisor Go In Store because at that moment, it was complete and more useful. However now our brands are looking for something different, something that will help the Live Advisor to make things better and easier. We are looking for solutions more into 1 to 1 …
Chose Emplifi
In relation to Talkwalker, Emplifi Social Marketing Cloud has a better performance when we talk about our own publications. On the "open sea", TalkWalker has excellent performance and coverage.
Chose Emplifi
Emplifi Social Marketing Cloud is way more all-in-one, has more features and is very innovative compared to Sprout Social. There were a lot of bugs in Sprout, but they could include boosting posts (where it usually messed up, so in that way I understand Emplifi's decision not …
Chose Emplifi
I never used other similar products.
Chose Emplifi
Emplifi Social Marketing Cloud had more options, but it was a long time ago and I wasn't in the finance/ops team who took the decision. Also, the advocacy models are costly, why we are not using them still. I also think that the social listening option/ tool was very relevant …
Chose Emplifi
I feel that all three of these tools are great, and it may even come down to personal preference on minor things (such as the way certain information is presented or visualized) when determining which is best. For us, Emplifi Social Marketing Cloud's strong features come at a …
Chose Emplifi
The reporting part is much more fancy and easy to use than BRANDWATCH! However, I use more the ENGAGE and PUBLISH functions of BRANDWATCH because I'm more efficient with it.
Chose Emplifi
Emplifi seems to offer very standard products at a lower price than competitors.
Chose Emplifi
We have used Sprinklr to source UGC content as well, but found the platform to be much more time intensive when searching for the desired images. Additionally, Emplifi's UGC tool has incremental tools the other platforms do not provide, including the ability to share images on …
Chose Emplifi
We are assessing new functionalities to bring retail attention to our website. Within the scope of this vision we found a product in Emplifi's portfolio that could help us on moving in the right direction. At the moment is on hold because it is not a priority in our strategic …
Chose Emplifi
Emplifi seemed a better solution than the others that we trialled when looking for a solution. the reason we chose Emplifi (then Social Bakers) was its slick dashboards, and user-friendliness when it came to setting up dashboards and creating personalised tags on our content. …
Chose Emplifi
I'm able to fine-tune reporting more thoroughly with Emplifi Social Commerce Cloud.
Chose Emplifi
Emplifi is a more complete tool than others and they're more updated with trends (like scheduling reels)
Sparkcentral (discontinued)
Chose Sparkcentral (discontinued)
Comparing Sparkcentral with other platforms might be a bit unfair! the platform stands out in so many areas, to be honest.
Chose Sparkcentral (discontinued)
I like how more focused Sparkcentral is around customer care specifically, whereas Spredfast does a lot of things well but no one thing greatly.
Chose Sparkcentral (discontinued)
Pros:
1. Layout is more user-friendly than the previous platforms.
2. Real-time data on system issues where each user is able to see it and respond accordingly.
Chose Sparkcentral (discontinued)
Sparkcentral does what it has offered to do, where other software made empty promises, Sparkcentral delivers. They also inform us, anytime they are undergoing maintenance or when Twitter or Facebook has an API change, where in previous cases we would have to discover this …
Chose Sparkcentral (discontinued)
I have used Lithium and Spredfast platforms in the past for social care.
Chose Sparkcentral (discontinued)
I selected Sparkcentral because I am a social media engagement director, so engagement is top priority for me and Sparkcentral does exactly that. It's not focused on marketing, word clouds, etc. It's focused on the incoming social media volume of your brand.
Chose Sparkcentral (discontinued)
Sparkcentral is an innovative tool and it just works. It works better than other tools we've attempted to use. It's simple and intuitive.
Chose Sparkcentral (discontinued)
Sparkcentral is very organized and robust in terms of using it for customer service/tech support. It allows you to record detailed information about your customers, and provides thorough customer support histories which are very helpful as well.
Chose Sparkcentral (discontinued)
Sparkcentral is in an excellent place - they are the only true stand-alone social media customer care platform. We also provide support through Oracle RightNow (Chat/email), but the social add-on for that appeared to be weak. Hootsuite works fine for small teams of low volume …
Chose Sparkcentral (discontinued)
Engagor,Radian6,HootSuite Pro,RightNow,autonomy explore
Chose Sparkcentral (discontinued)
While it was more expensive, Sparkcentral blows other competitors away with their comprehensive tools and ease of use.
Chose Sparkcentral (discontinued)
A few months ago we decided it would be smart to look into back up options in case Sparkcentral ever had technical issues (it never has, but we like to have redundancies in place) and I could not find a company or product that offered all the features I love and have become …
Features
EmplifiSparkcentral (discontinued)
Listening/monitoring
Comparison of Listening/monitoring features of Product A and Product B
Emplifi
7.8
Ratings
1% above category average
Sparkcentral (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Boolean keyword searches8.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Filtering out noise/spam7.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Sentiment analysis8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Broad channel coverage7.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Publishing
Comparison of Publishing features of Product A and Product B
Emplifi
7.4
Ratings
8% below category average
Sparkcentral (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Content planning and scheduling7.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Audience targeting7.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Content optimization6.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow management8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Engagement
Comparison of Engagement features of Product A and Product B
Emplifi
6.3
Ratings
23% below category average
Sparkcentral (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Automated routing and prioritization6.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Customer interaction histories6.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Bulk actions5.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Marketing
Comparison of Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Emplifi
7.8
Ratings
1% above category average
Sparkcentral (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Lead generation8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Content marketing7.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Paid media management8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Campaigns and promotions8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Channel coverage/integration
Comparison of Channel coverage/integration features of Product A and Product B
Emplifi
7.2
Ratings
16% below category average
Sparkcentral (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Twitter6.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Facebook8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
LinkedIn5.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Google+8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Instagram7.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Pinterest7.00 Ratings00 Ratings
YouTube8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting/analytics
Comparison of Reporting/analytics features of Product A and Product B
Emplifi
7.6
Ratings
4% below category average
Sparkcentral (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Campaign success analytics8.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Real-time tracking7.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Competitor analysis7.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Account management
Comparison of Account management features of Product A and Product B
Emplifi
7.3
Ratings
9% below category average
Sparkcentral (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Role-based user permissions & privileges8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile access6.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
EmplifiSparkcentral (discontinued)
Small Businesses
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
Score 10.0 out of 10
Simplify360
Simplify360
Score 7.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
Score 10.0 out of 10
Front
Front
Score 7.1 out of 10
Enterprises
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Score 9.4 out of 10
Front
Front
Score 7.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
EmplifiSparkcentral (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(0 ratings)
8.7
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.3
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Online Training
6.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
EmplifiSparkcentral (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
- Very well suited to grabbing top-level and more in-depth social performance data, across campaigns and BAU activity. - Not as well suited for moments where you need benchmarking or context of your performance compared with a previous time frame. This can be a bit clunky to go back and forth with as it requires multiple dashboards or consistent manual time-frame changes.
Read full review
Sparkcentral has an extremely dedicated customer service team The platform UX is brilliant Reports are very detailed & easy to export The system is stable more than 98% of the time Queue management is extremely easy They need to work on a mobile app / making the website mobile friendly The ability to add more social media channels is essential
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Pros
  • Publishing - takes a bit of time, but publishing all content together makes planning and execution much more efective
  • Community - really simple one board collecting of all our social messages makes replying simple
  • dashboards - widgets and customisation allow for multiple dashboards tracking various campaigns and goals
Read full review
  • It's an excellent tool for collaboration. The UX is friendly and intuitive and our team loves the internal chat.
  • The workflow is seamless and provides easy-to-use features for the team and leaders to do what they need to do.
  • The integrated knowledge base is easy to manage, search and use.
Read full review
Cons
  • Would love more robust search parameters for labels. ex. search for tickets labeled 'Availability' AND 'United States' but excluding any that are only one of those labels
  • Ability to break conversations into multiple tickets; so labels can be more accurate if the same person reaches out again after 3 months with a totally different question
  • The social account quick view doesn't always load the follower count for people reaching out to us. it makes it slower to manager messages from high level creators
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  • Bringing back the option to see not only who is responding to a customers post, but actually seeing the response as they are typing it out. That was a neat feature to have.
  • It will timeout, which is a bit annoying sometimes but not a huge deal.
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Likelihood to Renew
the balance between quality and price si perfectperfect for agency that have many client to manage, because it helps us to save time (we don't have to plan content from every single account, only one click to look at different community and moderate...)it also help the team works: senior can review content direcly from emplifi; labeling DM/comments as done help us to track where a collegue stop and we have to startIt makes the content approval from clients very easy
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Sparkcentral has never given us a good reason to consider any other option. Aside from all the positive points I mentioned in previous areas of this review, something else that has really impressed us is their customer service (makes sense, they're a customer service company after all!). Any time we have a question or concern, we send them an email and we get a response almost instantly.
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Usability
Since the main use of the Live Advisor is on the website that doesn't have e-commerce capabilities, it has been challenging to attach an specific metric to Emplifi's solutions and their usability in our websites. The Live Advisor is helping us to deliver our unique sale proposition in digital channels, which is great, but it is difficult to assign a higher mark in usability due to the limitation just explained.
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The system meets all my expectations.
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Support Rating
Every time I've reached out to our account manager or even support in general, they've been there. I love the fact that I can always ask for help. Also, the chat function within the tool is helpful as well. It is something I always look for in a solution because when you're in the middle of working, and there is an issue, you can quickly reach out and get an answer.
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Incredible customer service team that replies back very quickly, follows up on the reported issue till it's resolved in a very timely manner.
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Online Training
The online training was fine but, in the end, the best way to learn any product is by actually using it.
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No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
The platform is so easy to understand that no "expensive consulting firm" is necessary to implement it!
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Its so much better and more stable and easier to work with their team If you're on Agora you should switch, you wont regret it and you'll probably get a better price. I used to deal with Agora breaking in some odd way every week, and Emplifi Service Cloud hasn't broken in any way in the almost a year we've used it.
Read full review
Sparkcentral is in an excellent place - they are the only true stand-alone social media customer care platform. We also provide support through Oracle RightNow (Chat/email), but the social add-on for that appeared to be weak. Hootsuite works fine for small teams of low volume customer care, but for a dedicated social care platform, we could not find anything else worth considering
Read full review
Return on Investment
  • Volaris was able to improve their positive sentiment by 7% in their user-generated content (UGC).
  • The optimization of content management workflows led to them becoming the second-most-popular airline brand in Mexico and the USA in 2022 according to Emplifi.
  • By tracking our content performance with Emplifi, we were able to improve our creatives and increase the total shares by 15% vs. previous the year.
Read full review
  • Providing customers the option to contact us via social media cuts costs for the company by lowering call in numbers and creating a more efficient way of assisting customers where they are.
  • Currently there is not an option to separate outside of business hours reporting for response time and within business hours. This can cause a pain point when reporting to other departments as it calculates a higher response time than the accurate one due to outside business hours.
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ScreenShots

Emplifi Screenshots

Screenshot of Emplifi Fuel Command CenterScreenshot of Emplifi Fuel ObjectivesScreenshot of Emplifi Unified AnalyticsScreenshot of social listening with AI-Powered Spike Alerts.Screenshot of the integrated social care interface.