Brandwatch

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Brandwatch
Score 8.3 out of 10
Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
Brandwatch, from Cision (acquired February 2021) is an enterprise social intelligence platform that is designed to allow brands to listen and analyze online conversation to extract meaningful insights, inform their business decisions and understand more about the return on their marketing spend.
$800
10k mentions
Pricing
Brandwatch
Editions & Modules
Pro
$800
10k mentions
Enterprise
3000+
Unlimited mentions or Queries
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Brandwatch
Free Trial
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Yes
Entry-level Setup FeeOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Brandwatch
Considered Both Products
Brandwatch
Chose Brandwatch
Hootsuite visually looks better and has way more integrations/ suggestions/ areas to save copy/ resharing ability/plus Later is more affordable for small business owners but ideal for creatives to visualize and manually adjust feeds.
Chose Brandwatch
Sprout and Falcon have the same capabilities in regard to publishing and community management. Sprout's user interface is easier to deploy and more intuitive compared to Falcon. Both tools have clean UI's but their UX differs. Falcon's interface is smoother and its ease …
Chose Brandwatch
We like its level of detail in the analysis, as well as how it shows the results or report data with advanced, friendly and clear graphics that help in decision making. Although in some versions or licenses the price is higher, Brandwatch achieves better and more professional …
Chose Brandwatch
I have used all of the other main social listening tools and what they lack compared to Brandwatch Analytics is the ability to configure to the point you can actually build a social listening solution with them. I class the difference as being that these technologies are …
Chose Brandwatch
Ease of use and speed are the two most important attributes. Brandwatch is a comprehensive listening tool.
Chose Brandwatch
Crimson has some unique visualization that is not possible with other tools. The topic wheels, keyword network graph etc., are not available in other tools. The sentiment engine is also unique as you can customize the machine and automate it to your need.
Chose Brandwatch
The mention count is accurate in Brandwatch compared to others and features are user-friendly and easy to navigate.
The profile setup is easy on Brandwatch, and the best part of the tool is the ease of use. The tool gives the complete package for Social media Analytics, …
Chose Brandwatch
Falcon.io can categorize content, visualize the stages of a post, and use analytics to track when people are most likely to view and interact with content.
Chose Brandwatch
Stronger search database. Much better user experience. Useful right away.
Chose Brandwatch
Brandwatch was our first listening/consumer research platform. We chose Brandwatch over other tools we were looking into for the depth of its data, helpful customer service and success teams, and deep customization. The only hold-up we had was the number of hours the onboarding …
Chose Brandwatch
Compared to other scraping and information gathering tools, Brandwatch is by far the most comprehensive for our needs. Giving the information and guide we need to backup/support influence and identify issues at all levels from specific service issues to overall branding …
Chose Brandwatch
Union Metrics is easier to use and set up than other software solutions. It’s never glitched or lost data, and has been reliable even though algorithm and API changes.
Chose Brandwatch
A real edge for Brandwatch is how easy and flexible you can play around with data. It becomes more of a real analysis platform that serves different business objectives rather than visualization and informative output.
Chose Brandwatch
Brandwatch doesn't pull and organize information as accurately as the tools above do.
Chose Brandwatch
I think it's a far superior tool than Meltwater or TrendKite's social listening editions of their platforms. They are better suited to media coverage analysis and Crimson Hexagon hits the social media metrics you're looking for.
Chose Brandwatch
Relative to the other products, it felt bulky and difficult to use - even our directors were mentioning this. This combined with the fact it wasn't able to pull the metrics we needed for our reports had us reevaluating whether or not it was the right tool for our company's needs.
Chose Brandwatch
Before we originally signed up to license Brandwatch we shopped around and looked at Crimson Hexagon as the other main competitor. In the end, Brandwatch ended up acquiring Crimson Hexagon and will be incorporating some of CH's best features into their tool. So in the end we …
Chose Brandwatch
This is kind of a moot point now that they're in the process of merging, but Brandwatch is better at segmenting data, and Crimson Hexagon is better at finding the meaning/story/context in the data and doing it quickly. Both are useful functions and once they're completely …
Chose Brandwatch
We selected Falcion.io because they promised to bring many of the capabilities of our various tools together under one rood and provide more complete data that was easily accessible. They have not fully delivered on those promises, so we are in the process of ending our …
Chose Brandwatch
As mentioned earlier, Union Metrics is much more comprehensive as opposed to alternative Twitter analytic software like Buffer or Hootsuite. Because they are an official partner, they have access to granular bits of data that allow you to get a solid understanding on how users …
Chose Brandwatch
Union Metrics is by far the most affordable of the bunch, yet proves to be easier to pull a report than the other platforms we have used/are using. That said, there is little ability to customize these reports, which can at times be a bit of an issue.
Chose Brandwatch
Falcon is a much more robust tool, with significantly better scheduling and community management. Their Engage module is miles ahead.
Chose Brandwatch
  • We find that Brandwatch is the most advanced and easy to use platform versus its peers. The rules and categorisation of mentions is a great capability to have.
  • Also, its coverage of mentions versus its peers coverage is great and a tool is as good as its data. Being in Asia …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
Brandwatch
Small Businesses
Simplify360
Simplify360
Score 7.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Mention
Mention
Score 9.4 out of 10
Enterprises
Social Suite by Reputation.com
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User Ratings
Brandwatch
Likelihood to Recommend
4.3
(65 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(8 ratings)
Usability
6.1
(7 ratings)
Performance
7.0
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
4.1
(13 ratings)
Online Training
6.4
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.1
(2 ratings)
Ease of integration
5.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Brandwatch
Likelihood to Recommend
Cision
The user interface is great and is easy to use for social media marketers of all ranges. In regard to planning and scheduling content, it allows all users with access to the capability to view all upcoming on an actual calendar. For organizational purposes, this is great and mitigates any confusion that other team members may have. The tool seems to always be updating which has its pros and cons because once you figure something out, there's a switch and you'll need to relearn how things are positioned but overall, it's not a heavy lift.
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Pros
Cision
  • Clean, beautiful visuals that can be easily incorporated into reports to be used internally and externally.
  • Customization-- anywhere from the queries you create to adjusting individual report widget/components this tool is very flexible.
  • Excellent Customer Service and support. My Brandwatch rep is always open to hearing from me for questions and often reaches out to me to check in on my status or see if I would like to participate in beta programs.
  • Constant innovation. It seems like Brandwatch is constantly updating and adding improvements to their platform--especially with their 2019 acquisition of Crimson Hexagon.
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Cons
Cision
  • Very steep learning curve- good luck training casual users on the difference between a query, a rule, a category etc
  • Lack of access to FULL historic data is a serious drawback- populating that data takes a minimum of 24 hours and incurs additional costs
  • Volume limits mean you may have to build your query to exclude mentions that may be useful in getting the full context of the situation
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Likelihood to Renew
Cision
Brandwatch is a simple tool that is easy to learn and understand. Without any rigorous training, the team can learn to use it and interpret the results in an efficient manner. It saves a lot of work and helps the team to focus on other important time consuming tasks. I would like to continue using Brandwatch.
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Usability
Cision
I've invited quite a few of my colleagues to try Brandwatch, and all of them were able to use its features with no assistance, and most of these had never used a social listening/monitoring tool before, or even a digital analytics tool! Brandwatch is not only easy to use, but filters, widgets, menus and other options are in intuitive places - it just works
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Performance
Cision
Brandwatch craps out sometimes. Pages freeze, data doesn't populate for hours. It's fine if you're not in a hurry but something to keep in mind if you're working in real-time. It's not as bad as Talkwalker but it's impacted timely delivery of work for me, and one of the first things I teach when introducing the platform is the process for closing out and re-logging in to see if it unfreezes
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Support Rating
Cision
The Brandwatch Consumer Research customer success team is outstanding. Every member of their team has been wildly helpful and remarkably pleasant. These people go above and beyond to ensure you have all the tools and help you need to find success on their platform. I had several calls where we discussed difficulties users where having on the platform that resulted in an overall improvement in reporting across the board. They didn't just answer our questions, they dug deeper to find root problems and helped us build out dashboards to alleviate them.
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Online Training
Cision
good knowledge, great tips, although the program seems a bit disconnected. It could improve it they create more free webinars and a good content calendar and tackle little topics in each webinar. Their trainers are top notch and they know a lot about the tool but they fall a bit low on technical level understanding of how the tool actually works
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Implementation Rating
Cision
Not that I can think of.
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Alternatives Considered
Cision
If you're using it to monitor your brand's social presence only, or if you're in an agency and using it to monitor existing clients and provide reports to them, then this is a great tool and you're hard-pressed to find something better. But if you're wanting it more for new business and discovery, there are tools that do this much better, including Sysomos and Crimson Hexagon. So it depends on what specifically you're trying to do. My agency was already using this product when I arrived, so I did not have a choice in the matter, but I've evaluated both of these other tools. Crimson is similar enough that the slight increase in cost doesn't justify switching. Synthesio is the most expensive competitor in the market (no matter what they tell you), but you get what you pay for. If you can afford it, go with Synthesio.
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Return on Investment
Cision
  • At a high level, the biggest impact the Brandwatch Analytics has had is giving us the ability to quantify the impact of social media for our clients. In the world of social, ROI is defined and interpreted differently across clients (particularly where it's more difficult to apply traditional ROI) - so this may mean reporting on earned media for some, while for others it's measuring increasing engagements or social mentions over time.
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ScreenShots

Brandwatch Screenshots

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