Livefyre (discontinued) vs. Oktopost

I was strictly the implementor of Livefyre (for my company only). That task alone was at least 3 weeks worth of work. From a user standpoint, Livefyre is a good product which is why this review is strictly about how difficult it was to implement. Therefore, if a colleague was to ask me if I recommend Livefyre, it's not a straight answer. Questions like, 'how fast do you need it?', 'how centralized is your user database?', 'do you want social login?', all come into question and were details that made my job not easy (hence, my review of 5/10 for suggesting it to others). Once implemented, Livefyre is a great product (notice my overall review is higher), but based on my experience with implementation, it certainly requires a senior developer's dedicated time and patience to set up exactly as desired. For smaller companies with small/simple user bases and websites, the process may be more straightforward, but from my experience, it wasn't out-of-the-box at all.

The product is very easy to use. And the features are very good. I have not experienced anything less appropriate. It works as I expect and empowers me to be a better promoter of my company's social media which is directly tied to our company goals. It functions as expected and I would not change the user interface.

Incentivized

• It's pretty flexible. There were only a few things we found that were too specific to our environment and could not be easily done.
• The out-of-the-box GUI design was decent. It was also configurable with limited custom CSS, anticipating the need for each company to customize the look and feel to suit their own needs.
• Basic interface is good, providing the necessary data points like total comment count. Visual effects are good too, with fade-in effects for new comments.
• They also provide back-end APIs to gather information about the "hottest" threads. We used this to construct our own "Hot Topics" section that could link users to the related article so they could comment themselves.
• Good support, even after implementation. They were always available by phone and even through realtime IM chats direct to their developers, skipping awkward non-technical middlemen.

• An all-in-one platform that organizes all content across multiple accounts.
• Provides consistent user experience help, representatives were quick to schedule phone calls or walk-throughs whenever we had issues.
• Easily accessible by the entire team, don't have to rely on one person to do everything or avoid being in the platform simultaneously.

Incentivized

• Obviously we all want it all free! So make it all free and woohoo!
• A complaint about the price point leaps is that they are pretty steep, goes from free to pricey real fast.
• The comment management tools although easy and fast are a bit limited.

• Make Google (G+) allow personal submitals through Oktopost. Let me make this clear, this is NOT an Oktopost problem, this is a Google problem!! But I put this down here because it is the only missing link to creating a total social media tool kit.
• When I first started there were very few support documents and learning resources. I think I was one of the first to sign up. Since then they have clearly been working on filling the learning center with information. Keep up the good work!
• The emails that start off with "My name is Mark Lerner, Director of Marketing at Oktopost.... ;-) Mike 50 emails later I know who you are. Introduce the wife and kids next please ;-)

We are planning to continue using Livefyre comments on several of our blog properties due to its simplicity, transparency and speed of operation. We are actively researching it's more advanced features for some other platforms that need higher end results. Keep up the good work Livefyre.

I don't think there is a need to change over to another platform. From the little that I've heard, Oktopost is comparable if not better than its competing products. We also have a great personal relationship with Oktopost's founders and team and enjoy collaborating in various forms with them.

It's really easy to implement that app but should improve some analytics.

Incentivized

Because in general is very good, the support team is always happy to help and you can ask them anything. They always have the solution. I also like the new functionalities that they are implementing; each month, we have something new. The end user platform is very easy to be used by the sales people.

From purchasing to implementation, the customer service/support was really perfect!

Incentivized

When I have sent in questions to support, I have received answers pretty quickly and they were helpful. However, I would like to see more information on the support page rather than having to contact them directly.

There is a lack of online training videos or documentation. They have a long list of FAQ's but I would prefer a quick YouTube video instead.

As I stated earlier, I would suggest doing a quick session with the Oktopost team in order to properly set up the account and make sure you are getting the full experience.

I used Disqus about 5-6 years ago, but I've wanted to try the Livefyre app, and it was really quite a good experience for me.

Incentivized

We use similar programs to Oktopost in our organization like Hootsuite, so we didn't really compare Oktopost against them, we just use them for different things based on familiarity and processes. There aren't any specific products that we looked to replace or compete, it was mainly looking for something that fit our needs at the time and Oktopost worked well, but we still do have people using Hootsuite as well who perform different tasks. They both have unique features and benefits that work well.

Incentivized

• The heavy work is already done given that we take the time to implement.
• Very useful insights and AI powered delivery.

Incentivized

• Ability to quickly and comprehensively provide metrics on all activities to internal users and external clients helps inform and direct immediate and long term posting decisions.
• Ability to integrate with websites and marketing platforms allows for an understanding of user interest beyond the awareness arena and into the conversion arena.
• Ability to quickly post allows for immediate input during time sensitive social discussions.