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Meltwater

Score8.1 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.)

Categories & Use Cases

Who Buys & Uses Meltwater

Meltwater Reviews

What users are saying about Meltwater.
View all Meltwater reviews

A great tool for media listening and capturing online activity

Incentivized
Verified User
Analyst (10,001+ employees)

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

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

Incentivized
Julie CollinsView profile
Owner in Marketing at Julie Collins Consulting (1-10 employees)

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

Incentivized
Maya DeJoieView profile
Social Media Strategist in Social Media at Brunet-García Advertising (11-50 employees)

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

Incentivized
Sara SayedView profile
Senior Managing Director in Manufacturing at Maymo & Company (1-10 employees)

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

Social listening game changer

Incentivized
Altary Sherman
Director of Social Media in Marketing at Ideal Cabinetry (501-1000 employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Meltwater Explore for social listening. This platform lets me see what is being said about the brand and our competitors. It gives me a deeper search than a traditional Google one since I am able to monitor social mentions. The insights gained are valuable and the data retrieved is used in several departments throughout the company.

Pros

  • The Meltwater Academy
  • Quick customer service
  • Expert on-boarding representatives
  • Quick search results
  • Monitoring mentions

Cons

  • It takes a while to become proficient on this platform
  • Too many a la carte items for the sales teams, which starts to price out the client
  • Add more courses in the Academy

Return on Investment

  • Improved conversion rate
  • Brand awareness
  • Staying on top of industry trends

Alternatives Considered

Hootsuite and Sprinklr Social Engagement & Sales

Other Software Used

ClickUp, Hootsuite, Canva

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