Meltwater

Pros

Meltwater is one of the top media databases for PR professionals

Cons

No media database is perfect in terms of either staying current with media members and/or as it relates to media monitoring. Can be expensive in terms of number of seats and/or tools used.

Pros

The dashboard for easy monitoring of our media and social coverage.

Cons

They charge separate pricing for everything, and it seems that every time I turn around they're rolling out a cool new feature they want to share, but it's always extra.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Meltwater

Reasons for Switching to Meltwater

Pros

The social listening / social media analysis tool was helpful (before we switched products)!

Cons

I didn't love the user experience of Meltwater–it didn't feel overly intuitive.

Pros

The platform seemed to deliver daily "monitoring" alerts on a daily schedule as promised. While not worth anything to our organization, the emails did come every day as promised.

Cons

As a product/platform, Meltwater was an overpriced, worse alternative to Google alerts and provided no semblance of quality monitoring results for our organization. Their reputation monitoring tool returned highly unrelated results from a majority of click-bait, AI-generated SEO websites. I can't think of how many times our team would look at the "alert" emails and laugh at both the quality of the results followed by the obscureness of the websites it was pulling content from. Separately, we set up basic Google Alerts along with Hootsuite and a handful of other free/inexpensive social media monitoring alerts, and the info from there was far better in quality and delivery than what we had received from Meltwater.In fairness, Meltwater was deployed by legacy employees who did not have a full breadth of understanding of the platform's purpose or potential. However, it appears that there was minimal, if any, implementation and launch support and/or validation from the Meltwater team that the monitoring results were what we were looking for.

Pros

The CRM tool is amazing at collating and managing all social media into a chronological timeline.

What I like most about this software is the interface. Very fluid and modern and easy on the eyes. It is also user-friendly, I was able to upskill many agents within 2 days maximum.

Cons

I do feel that the reporting could be a bit more specific or customisable. Especially when pulling agent reports, there is some information which I would like to see which is not there, so perhaps allowing a more in-depth customisable report functionwould be beneficial.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Meltwater

Pros

A fairly robust way of gathering all the news about our industry, company, and competitors all in one place. Quick setup after a couple of calls with our representative.

Cons

the boolean logic strings are difficult to configure at first. We had issues with languages/news that had nothing to do with our industry. Not easily possible to laser-in on the information that we would find relevant for mass distribution. They need to make some enhancements as the UI seems dated, and at times difficult to navigate.

Pros

Since I have been using meltwater for the past two year my favorite feature is the X (Twitter) analytics dashboard that gives us an analysis of mentions with demographic data on age gender and RT QT and many more apart from that the buzz alerts where in if there is a surge in mention it notified us via mail and in tool

Cons

What irritates me the most are the data download limit which limit to downloading 20K data at a time and the tool laggy interface which makes it lag more when the internet is slow

Pros

the deep analytics provided
Segregation of data city/state/country wise
different verticals and sections for campaign, monitoring, and others

Cons

to provide ease use of keywords, some social listening rules such as use of capital alphabets in boolean operators have been bended, but in long term, the professionals of this vertical can be affected due to this

Pros

I really like this platform, it's easy to use and it allows me to get valuable information about the performance of my campaigns and better understand my audience.

Cons

Well the price can be quite high for some businesses or independent professionals.

Pros

I like the social media analytics tools that allow me to monitor the online conversations that are impacting my brand and industry.

Cons

It would be ideal to have a higher update speed to be able to make more agile decisions.

Pros

We were able to work together more efficiently thanks to Meltwater, and we were able to locate the information we required from social media platforms with greater ease because of the organization provided by the tool. Meltwater's search function is quite adaptable, providing us with a plethora of alternatives for precise tracking of what we're looking for, where we can simply prepare the topic that we're waiting for to be published, and when it's published on social media. To make sure we're always on the ball, Meltwater will provide us alerts instantly. Meltwater has a fantastic knack for laying down the information gathered in a way that is simple to understand for anyone.

Cons

While the simplistic nature of Meltwater's charts is a source of frustration for me, I have faith that the Meltwater will make efforts to enhance them in future versions.

Pros

The thoroughness of coverage and the reach is far larger than other products and the ability to customize searches, add viewers

Cons

a few typos in search criteria setup from prior account managers - but nothing that affects its usability

Pros

Meltwater collects media information for me

Cons

I personally haven't had any issues with meltwater

Pros

The daily reports directly in my inbox are super convenient.

Cons

Twitter appears a lot on the reports, which is important because people are very vocal there.
But sometimes the reports show every single re-tweet in a huge disorganized list.
It would be great if the original tweet could be at the top, and all the duplicate re-tweets would only appear if we chose to 'expand' a list

Pros

I worked for a large automotive company and moved from NetBase to Sysomos due to cost and ease of use. Sysomos is certainly easy to use and fulfills the basic needs of a small to medium size business - I don't think it's ideal if you have to dive into analytics and provide in depth numbers. If that's the case, Sysomos is not for you.

Cons

I found that Sysomos wasn't delivering the analytics that execs were looking for and there was a lot of manual work that went into it.

The content planning side of the software seemed promising until I had to use it daily and dealt with glitches of the screen freezing or not being able to scroll up/down. When presenting content to client and using Sysomos, I was embarrassed.

Training was not great, there were so many things he missed out on and we found out later on that we were not using the software to it's absolute fullest due to poor training.

Pros

These types of tools are somewhat of a necessary evil in the PR space when it comes to looking up media contacts. Meltwater is no worse than its competitors and about half the time will have the accurate, current contact information of the relevant reporter we are looking for.

Cons

Unfortunately the other half of the time, there is no specific contact information or publications are not even logged in the Meltwater databases. Often, every contact at a specific publication will be listed with the same generic contact email that's listed on the publication's website, making Meltwater's services essentially useless. User is also quite clunky to just be able to search for media outlets/contacts.

Pros

Thanks to its reporting and analysis, I can create a strategy for myself by looking at the data and this application is free. Fantastic!

Cons

The application is not fast enough and there are delays.

Pros

It's a great, easy to set up and easy to use platform, even if you're only using some of the features occasionally. In a small team it's really important to be able to utilise time effectively and this is a great tool to achieve that and cost effective too.

Cons

Nothing really - it's easy to use and great for what our organisation currently needs.

Pros

Meltwater is fairly intuitive to use, though their reps will walk you through everything.

Cons

Seems there's always something new they want you to buy.

Alternatives Considered

Pros

Meltwater is user-friendly and a huge help in monitoring media coverage for our clients. I can also add missing articles very easily to added content for each client on the board searches.

Cons

The algorithm for searching each client can be difficult at first but by call your representative, they will go through the best algorithm for your client so, you can find media coverage with ease.

Pros

I have used several different social listening tools out there, and this is my favorite for many reasons. It's simple, customizable, visually appealing and provides meaningful results.

Cons

The customer service could be improved. With other tools, I have had a dedicated team who checks in with me, etc.

Pros

I love the ease of setting up and using this product. It's very visually pleasing and useful for supporting the overall life of a hashtag and event. The reporting is detailed and it's easy to see how far messages travel, and the impact it has within your audience.

Cons

I didn't love the customer service at first but it got better as we complained. I also think it could build in some more exportable quick reporting to help diversify the platform but it's restricted to what it can get from APIs from the various social networks.

Pros

Meltwater provides an in-depth media monitoring service with excellent analytics for reporting. I use Meltwater daily and having an automated media monitoring service with a personal account manager and live chat function is a great asset.

Cons

Customer service response times and reliability start to slow down during busy periods, like towards end-of-year reporting which can be quite frustrating.

Pros

Super easy to use; mobile and desk top; can set auto-alerts

Cons

The price is a little high; setting up the searches was fairly tedious but they help you through it.

Pros

Social listening tools are useful once you set them up. The insights for social media platforms are useful

Cons

Social listening tools are great in principle, but you need a comprehensive understanding of boolean search parameters, and although we were offered support from our account manager, this didn't actually come about

Pros

The social listening component of this management platform is top notch, as it allowed for us to search out mentions of our company (good or bad) on social without having been specifically tagged. That's great!

Cons

Frankly, the cost was a little on the higher-end for organizations that do not have a lot of extra budget for social media management and analytics.

Pros

The interface is easy to navigate around making the customer experience enjoyable.

Cons

There aren't many cons bar the cost for the little time it gets used.

Pros

The ability to export data to share with clients is fantastic.

Cons

Meltwater almost never "finds" all the news articles it should be locating. I find myself googling things and having to "add articles" to my lists every time I write a report.

Pros

I use this for news updates without our organization. Searching is easy across multiple mediums.

Cons

I haven’t delved deep enough to find much I don’t like. There was some difficulty in sending newsletters with formatting and link capabilities but we are in the process of figuring that out.

Pros

Some of their employees genuinely want to help (which is what I like best) however, Meltwater as a company doesn't give them the tools to do so.

Cons

Terrible customer support:

If you try calling Meltwater's customer support number often times they simply don't pick up.

No ownership:

One of their employees openly admitted to a high turnover rate of employees and as such, no one was willing to take responsibility for what someone who no longer worked at Meltwater had done.

Search results are not accurate:

I worked with three account representatives to get accurate results about my company and they never fully worked out. They both missed several key results (the whole purpose of using this service was so I didn't have to dig to find them) and they also brought in incorrect results.

Mediate database is out of date:

I used their media database several times and it was always difficult to use plus there wasn't updated contact information for reporters. I had better luck looking for emails and phone numbers myself.

!!They sneak auto-renewals into contracts and do not notify you!!

Even if you tell them you are not planning on renewing it has to be in written form or else they will force you into another year. I no longer trust this team or company to care for their customers.

Pros

The best part about Meltwater is how easy/user-friendly it is compared to our previous product (Cision), and our account rep is FANTASTIC. We had a terrible experience with switching reps at Cision and it was extremely clunky and took literal hours to pull metrics, but Meltwater has blown us away with how seamless it is.

Cons

I will say the media database is not as robust as Cision. It is clear where each company focuses. As a medical non-profit, we work with very niche publications, and many of them were not in Meltwater (or had staff missing) and had to be uploaded manually, which means you are in charge of knowing when the reporter changes companies.

Pros

Meltwater is very user friendly and an excellent resource to reach media contacts (broadcast, print and online) nationality and internationally.

Cons

Like all other public relation tools for media, Meltwater tends to have a good amount of media contacts that are out of date but that seems to be an issue accross the board. Price is high, but comparable to other similar software...but worth it if your company is trying to reach media on a national level or monitor your media coverage.

Pros

I use Meltwater primarily for its media database and PR distribution. The media data seems to be pretty well updated and when I request changes/additions, they are made very quickly.

Cons

As they have updated the software, I lost some of the key features that added value to how I use it. I wish you could filter search results better, gain better snapshots of individual outreach performance from the overall list, and create news searches based on specific media lists, to name a few.

Also, beware of their contract because there is an autorenewal clause no matter if your account rep has reached out to you beforehand or not. Make a note on your calendar ahead of time so that charge doesnt come as a surprise or ask them to remove it from your contract.

Pros

First of all, it is very simple to use, user-friendly and quite good for small and medium companies.
Data mining is very simple in it and one can extract data very easily. It covers almost everything like hashtag analysis, Demographics analysis and word cloud analysis. Data accuracy is also quite good than others. Data extracted from Sysomos has multilayer topics, it provides much information. In short, it is a very important tool for a newbie, it will help in understanding the basics of listening and monitoring

Cons

there was a time when it used to extract data from many sources but now it only provides a chunk from twitter. Sometimes it has issues with data accuracy and time zone and the last thing is that it provides a limited amount of data.

Pros

sysomos is a great combination of automated software that look into media outlets news in digital and keep a look into social media. Also, they have a robust database of latin america. Before wans't so great but they keep updating it. Now, it is hard to find adicional news outside sysomos.

Cons

i have problems sharing my monitors and querys with other users and customer suppport couldn't help me. Also time to timee they have a breach or something working wrong and you dont receive and alert by email and they are very slow to solve it. I have issues in the past with my clients because of this.

Pros

It's easy to use and offers a robust contact list for reporters and media outlets. The daily reports are also helpful in seeing media mentions and areas of interest.

Cons

The customer service and their business practices are just unethical and deceptive. I caution anyone who is considering meltwater to understand that they will be automatically renewed for the next year if they don't give 90 days notice. Where is this listed? In a URL you have to click on that's buried in your agreement they send you. They don't separate it out, highlight it, or tell you anywhere else. Their customer service and management couldn't care less that they dupe you into another year at thousands of dollars. I wouldn't give this company the time of day, let alone my business ever again. Avoid at all costs.

Pros

Nothing - it said our reach was over 200 billion - there are less than 8 billion people on the planet.

Cons

It is redundant and doesn't deal with reality.

Pros

Meltwater is easy to use and their employees pay a lot of attention to you as a client. Especially in the set-up stages, they are very attentive and schedule their follow-up effectively. The basic tools are adequate and their data seems to be reliable.

Cons

The platform for Meltwater seems to be very immature in terms of its development. It can send newsletters but you get almost NO functionality on analytics or member tracking. Like all other SaaS companies, everything is an add-on and it is not always easy to determine what you get for the price you are being quotes. The software simply feels rudimentary in design and immature in implementation.

Pros

Meltwater is very useful in being able to monitor what is being said about our company on a global scale on social media. I get an email every morning that shows me exactly who is saying what and on which platform. It links out to these references as well! From here I can take action and ensure that I'm staying ahead of any negative - and positive - remarks.

Cons

Meltwater's platform can be a bit tricky to learn. It's not a very simple platform - though it's relatively drag-and-drop, but you have to be uber-aware of how to put together the lists you need so everything will be monitored correctly. That's where the Account Managers come into play. So, on the whole, if you don't have a lot of time to learn the platform. I have no doubt it's easy once you get the hang of it, but I don't have that luxury!

Pros

Thanks to its interface and content, it is very easy and functional, saving time and work. And one of the plus aspects is that it's free.

Cons

Although it is incomplete, it gives sufficient information.

Pros

The breadth of features. Ease of use and flexibility. Daily email reports, customizable Dashboards, integration with analytics and social platforms, comprehensive media/influencer database and contact platform. Outstanding proactive service and support.

Cons

No real complaints about the software. It is very robust and even after several years, we are finding new beneficial ways to leverage Meltwater.

Pros

Meltwater is aquiring a lot of new companies which is giving their platform more functionality every day. It is not perfect when it comes to social platform API's and I tend to not trust the numbers but it is improving.

Cons

I tend to find a lot of errors within my social media reporting. My account rep has said its due to the restrictive api's of the social platforms which I understand. However, it makes social scheduling difficult as I have to use multiple platforms to schedule posts.

Pros

Robust social monitoring capabilities, easy to set up, really great customer support, easily customizable, and easy to export reports.

Cons

It's pricey, but with social media monitoring that is to be expected. In this realm, you get what you pay for, and Meltwater is worth the price because it just pulls in way more intel than any other solution available.

Pros

I liked that I could find mentions of my company easily.

Cons

Articles were repeated multiple times, so really did not give an accurate representation of the writings.

Pros

The integration of media database and monitoring was a plus.

Cons

The platform interface was difficult to interact with. The data was often lacking, both because of the publications missing from the tool as well as the way metrics were presented.

Pros

They have an extensive journalist database and their social media platform is great. Can connect several different clients' accounts and schedule posts and the metrics are great

Cons

Their sales team is extremely aggressive. Only hear from account reps when it's time for renewal and after you sign up they go silent when you have an actual issue.

Pros

This software is completely user friendly. It is easy to upload press releases and sent to various distribution lists.

Cons

Sometimes there are glitches or issues where if there is a lot of traffic happening via Meltwater which makes your particular information experience a delay. Usually, Meltwater staff are able to identify log jams pretty quickly.

Pros

I liked how robust the listening side of the software was. You could really dive into the results and pick up conversations that were happening around your brand that you otherwise would not have been able to see.

Cons

What I liked least about this software was that their social inbox was just Sprout Social. I was living within the engagement side of the software and saw little additional value. For those focusing solely on social listening, I recommend looking only at the component.

Pros

Sysomos has historically been a top choice for major brands -- especially in the early days of social listening. They were an earlier provider of advanced listening software that offered a lot of functionality to help forward thinking brands finally make sense of how social media conversations could help them market better. Even today, they have a wide range of features that, at least partially, integrate together

Cons

They've lost a few steps over the last 3-4 years. Couple a piecemeal corporate history (acquired by PRnewswire, then spun off as an independent operating entity) with an acquisition-based strategy for refreshing their product set and your left with a somewhat integrated grouping of product offerings from messaging to on-demand search to ongoing listening that, in theory, could help you centralize social media operations with a single vendor. In practice, none of their standalone solutions would survive alone in the wild against more agile, innovative competition. Even full-suite users find data consistency challenges continuing to surface alongside a continued requirement to separately log into several distinct solutions