Meltwater vs. Piano Amplifier

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Meltwater
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
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.)N/A
Piano Amplifier
Score 5.6 out of 10
N/A
A solution to amplify content with AI-powered social publishing. Used to grow and engage an audience through real-time data and machine-learning optimization, guiding users to content, and to just the right place in the social conversation. Socialflow was acquired by Piano in 2022, and is now a Piano solution.N/A
Pricing
MeltwaterPiano Amplifier
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
MeltwaterPiano Amplifier
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
MeltwaterPiano Amplifier
Features
MeltwaterPiano Amplifier
Listening/monitoring
Comparison of Listening/monitoring features of Product A and Product B
Meltwater
-
Ratings
Piano Amplifier
5.0
Ratings
43% below category average
Boolean keyword searches00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Filtering out noise/spam00 Ratings4.60 Ratings
Sentiment analysis00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Broad channel coverage00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Publishing
Comparison of Publishing features of Product A and Product B
Meltwater
-
Ratings
Piano Amplifier
5.1
Ratings
45% below category average
Content planning and scheduling00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Audience targeting00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Content optimization00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Workflow management00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Engagement
Comparison of Engagement features of Product A and Product B
Meltwater
-
Ratings
Piano Amplifier
5.0
Ratings
45% below category average
Automated routing and prioritization00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Customer interaction histories00 Ratings4.60 Ratings
Bulk actions00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Marketing
Comparison of Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Meltwater
-
Ratings
Piano Amplifier
5.1
Ratings
41% below category average
Lead generation00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Content marketing00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Paid media management00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Campaigns and promotions00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Channel coverage/integration
Comparison of Channel coverage/integration features of Product A and Product B
Meltwater
-
Ratings
Piano Amplifier
5.7
Ratings
39% below category average
Twitter00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Facebook00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
LinkedIn00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Google+00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Instagram00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Pinterest00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
YouTube00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Reporting/analytics
Comparison of Reporting/analytics features of Product A and Product B
Meltwater
-
Ratings
Piano Amplifier
5.1
Ratings
43% below category average
Campaign success analytics00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Real-time tracking00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Competitor analysis00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Account management
Comparison of Account management features of Product A and Product B
Meltwater
-
Ratings
Piano Amplifier
7.1
Ratings
12% below category average
Role-based user permissions & privileges00 Ratings7.10 Ratings
Mobile access00 Ratings7.10 Ratings
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MeltwaterPiano Amplifier
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User Ratings
MeltwaterPiano Amplifier
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(0 ratings)
5.6
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(0 ratings)
5.1
(0 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.5
(0 ratings)
5.6
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
6.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
1.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
MeltwaterPiano Amplifier
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
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SocialFlow is good on paper but in my personal experience it is clunky, doesn’t do what you want it to, and their support team doesn’t take your issues seriously. I wouldn’t recommend this if you work on tight timeframes as it has a scattergun approach to posting on Facebook. I would like to think that my experiences are due to me not having thorough training, but I am not sure if this is the case.
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Pros
  • 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.
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  • Unique algorithm does not just 'time' posts, it helps determine the optimal time for posts to be distributed. Its why all the major publishers like NYT, WSJ, Conde Nast, Mashable, etc. use SocialFlow to distribute its social content.
  • Dashboard gives insight into which posts perform best.
  • It's streamlined and simple and not overly or unnecessarily feature-laden.
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Cons
  • 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.
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  • Per-client customizations to differentiate themselves from competitors
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Likelihood to Renew
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
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Big bang for buck. My clients like the results and the insights.
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Usability
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.
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I give this rating as an outcome to understand competitor social strategy to improve strategic positioning. Drive improvement by benchmarking and serving to compete on content Identify trends, topics/themes, potential threats, etc. Improve campaigns by measuring and comparing audience reach, Interaction, etc. Measure engagement rate to analyze audience association.​ What themes/topics are generating higher engagement Insights to assist marketing teams in planning future campaigns
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Support Rating
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.
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I give this rating as overall support for Social footprint analysis to identify and benchmark the competitor's social presence. Extraction of retrospective data from identified social channels. Complex query building with defined subsets of keywords to gauge social buzz. Analysis of historic datasets with a detailed classification that offered insights into the marketing efforts and messaging patterns.
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In-Person Training
Again, really in-depth and helpful for a program that is really easy to use.
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No answers on this topic
Online Training
Walked step by step through program. Very informative on a program that doesn't require much training.
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No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
You are only allowed 15 users, so make sure you've identified who will have access to use the tool.
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
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.
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SocialFlow stacks up against others by : 1. Event registrations, participation and promotions, companies highlighting their sessions, speakers, and delegations of different countries drove the event-specific volumes 2. Using Twitter as the primary platform and mainly constituted mentions around registrations, participations, promotions of sessions/panels, and opinions on the same 3. Discussions around the event’s annual themes, the new ‘Davos Manifesto’ and posts expressing delight for being invited, participation confirmations, and comments on different sessions/panel promotions drove the positive coverage 4. During-Event and Post-Event periods saw companies shift their focus to highlight sessions and panel discussions aligned more toward business-driven themes
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Return on Investment
  • 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.
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  • It doesn’t post what we expect.
  • It posts things over and over again.
  • It’s not reliable for forward Planning.
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ScreenShots