TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

Meltwater

Score7.9 out of 10

168 Reviews and Ratings

What is Meltwater?

Meltwater Media Intelligence platform is a set of public relations software tools for media monitoring, social media monitoring, and collecting brand insights. The four areas of functionality are Monitor, Analyze, Distribute, and Engage. (Note that this product combines features from the vendor Meltwater's former Buzz, Press, and News products.)

A great tool for media listening and capturing online activity

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Meltwater has definitely grown as a service provider, providing more features than it has in the past. I have been able to link certain notifications directly to a teams channel to push out alerts faster without having to use manual time to disseminate information. From Meltwaters explore function, I was able to quickly pick up on activity from a competitor that showed they were attempting to increase their online reputation score. Meltwater also notified me of an increase in media mentions (which I had noticed before, and decided to test if Meltwater would also pick up on it), and it was a good indication that the competitor is trying to increase interest with potential investors. The service REPs were helpful, but the newsletter function is still giving me some issues. If I can get this sorted out, then my ranking would be higher of the overall tool.

Pros

  • Picking up on media mentions
  • Capturing competitor commercials
  • Spike detection

Cons

  • Newsletter feature
  • Exporting information from the explore screen in a readable format rather than raw data in excel

Return on Investment

  • Faster access to data

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Klue and Crayon Intel Pro

Other Software Used

AlphaSense

Have been using this for a long time!

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use it for community search, so we run a query for Reddit forums or X feeds around topics our audience is talking about.

Pros

  • Detailed searches.
  • Email notifications of new Reddit feeds.
  • Easy to use interface.

Cons

  • Some AI incorporation.

Return on Investment

  • Positive in terms of workflow.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Emplifi Service Cloud

Other Software Used

Emplifi Service Cloud, Microsoft SharePoint

Decent tool, but, in my opinion, not a company you want to partner with!

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I do not recommend working with Meltwater. I currently use their Explore tool. While the tool itself is fine, I think the company's business practices are problematic. In my experience, sales reps will push you into signing multi-year agreements to avoid steep year over year price increases. In my experience, there is no flexibility to terminate early if your circumstances change or you are dissatisfied with their service.

Pros

  • Robust data sources
  • Easy to build queries
  • Nice visual representations of mentions/conversations

Cons

  • In my opinion, too expensive
  • In my opinion, contracts that lack transparency and are unfavorable to customers
  • In my experience, sales reps are not responsive

Return on Investment

  • I have not used this tool to generate revenue

Alternatives Considered

Brandwatch

An All-In-One Platform That Serves All Engagement Needs

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We were looking for a platform that served a variety of needs for our Engagement team. At the time, we were using different platforms to serve those needs and realized it would be better to consolidate if we could find something that would serve as an "all-in-one" platform. Upon discovering Meltwater, we felt assured our needs would be met, and they have been great to work with ever since. We utilize them for social listening, content management, reporting, public relations, and influencer relations. They have a great team who works with us closely to ensure our needs are met, and they are very responsive to our feedback as well. I'd recommend them to anyone looking for an all-in-one service to fulfill a variety of social media and public relations needs.

Pros

  • Social listening, their Explore tool provides us with access to a variety of analytics that gives us a solid snapshot of trending narratives across news and social media.
  • They have a variety of analytics that help diversify the metrics we report to clients.
  • Community management is made feasible and effective through the Engage tool.

Cons

  • They are actively working through enhancing their reporting templates so they are easier to use.
  • They are adding new tools that enhance analytics to better understand different audiences following a need for more audience insights.
  • The platform can feel like a learning curve with lots of different ways to get analytics, but they have worked to divide tools to have a particular focus.

Return on Investment

  • Time saved utilizing resources that pertain to our engagement work.
  • Time saved developing reports for clients.
  • Expanded our service offering based on Meltwater tools to service different client needs.

Alternatives Considered

Hootsuite, Sprout Social and Muck Rack

Best in Class Suite of Products

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Meltwater Media Intelligence to distribute press releases, to measure results, to create lists, and to locate journalists on various beats.

Pros

  • Maintain a current list of journalists
  • Press release distribution
  • Measuring results
  • Reports dashboards

Cons

  • Pricing
  • Sometimes additional charges
  • Aggressive salespeople

Return on Investment

  • Improvement in distribution
  • Media monitoring
  • Targeting
  • Reporting

Alternatives Considered

PR Newswire, Newswire and Cision PRWeb

Other Software Used

Cision PRWeb, Newswire