Likelihood to Recommend It helps me save hours by devoting only half an hour in a month's worth of posting, in addition to that it is quite simple to use. Buffer for scheduling social posts well in advance, but I have begun using it instead of posting natively on the social apps themselves because it makes it super easy to post the same messages to more than one platform.
Read full review Meltwater is well-suited for agencies that have an engagement team who is looking to service a variety of client needs such as social media reporting, public relations outreach, and community management. If you're looking to have a platform serve just one need, you can still use Meltwater but will get more bang for your buck if you are needing a variety of tools.
Read full review Pros I can plan and publish content on social channels. Buffer's interface is quite tidy and generates the necessary facilities to save us time in publishing consistent content. It has a special price; it is pretty affordable. It has the possibility of integrating with other tools to improve its functions. Read full review Media research - you can search for relevant publications and journalists to add to your media list. Earned media coverage - you can search for coverage of your brand and find news stories that also include data that may be useful (how many people did the story reach for example). Building media lists - if you have no current existing list, you can build and export one in Excel for example. Read full review Cons Expensive Analytics: The upgrade you need to access your analytics is quite expensive, and I have come across other tools that provide the same or even more for a lesser priced plan. No Media Library: The one feature I have found on another social media planning tool that I wish Buffer had is a media library. This allows you to upload photos you aren't using right away to have them readily available when you do decide to use them. This is not a feature in Buffer. Read full review The dashboards are not user-friendly, customizable (color, font size, etc.), or worthy of presenting to a client. All of the insights from a dashboard get pulled from the platform and placed into a more client-friendly presentation. Paywalls for certain publications connected to who-knows-what. DowJones racket limits media monitoring capabilities and results in manual searches for a growing number of publications. TVeyes, the broadcast monitoring arm of the media monitoring capabilities, just needs TLC and to become more client-facing. Currently, the links produced to share clips look sketchy, and they have a relatively short shelf life. Read full review Likelihood to Renew I am giving buffer this rating because of a couple issues that it has compared to other platforms. It does not always post to instagram and you will need to go in an manually post. Also, one of the biggest qualms that we have with buffer is the price it costs to have robust analytics
Read full review Meltwater works well for our organization and has allowed us to meet our internal goals. We are always open to new products and services that may be able to provide similar or better features; however, our experience has been that many of Meltwater's competitors are not up to the task.
Read full review Usability We use Buffer for certain website content that should be shared on social networks, having this tool helps us to do it faster and easier since we can send the publications from the internet browser and the stack of scheduled messages. It is really fast and easy for all team members who share access to the account, so at the same time that we analyze the information that we can share, the message stack is prepared
Read full review 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.
Read full review Reliability and Availability Buffer is always on hand and very reliable, their software suite rarely has outages
Read full review Performance Buffer performs well on both desktop and mobile platforms. The one area as I have stated before is that it does not always want to automatically push to Instagram and the user will have to go do it manually. Buffer works very well pushing to other platforms. The instagram issue is the only reason buffer does not get a 10 on this section
Read full review Support Rating It really helped to my business to grow online. I was able to take actions mindfully as the analytics are damn good. Also used for managing clients social media accounts and it proved to be a best resource. Clients were really happy as they got high demand and growth on internet and the secret is Buffer. The user interface is really easy to understand and manage. Support is 24/7 available to help. Read full review 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.
Read full review In-Person Training Again, really in-depth and helpful for a program that is really easy to use.
Read full review Online Training Walked step by step through program. Very informative on a program that doesn't require much training.
Read full review Implementation Rating We were very satisfied with the implementation of Buffer. We had no issues switching from the platform that we were using over to buffer. Our staff did not even miss a beat when it came to posting content. It was an easy transition and I feel that is something that buffer has really done well. They have an "out of the box" usability platform
Read full review You are only allowed 15 users, so make sure you've identified who will have access to use the tool.
Read full review Alternatives Considered I also used Combin which is easy and free to use. However, Combin only posts when the computer is active and connected to the internet. So, posting while you are not actively using your computer at that moment is not possible, therefore Buffer is much more efficient as you can even post while being on vacation without working.
Read full review I was looking for a full-service option. I did some research. What really sold me was the presentation. They offered products that were helpful, and I wasn’t even aware of them. It is more expensive than the other products that are out there, but you get more. The other companies are good, but Meltwater Media Intelligence is more full service.
Read full review Scalability Buffer does what it say on tin as they say! you can always count on Buffer. Buffer can be scale to 25 social account with 2,000 scheduled post which is enough for most agencies or businesses
Read full review Return on Investment It has saved money by allowing us to automate our social using one person It allows us to connect one channel at a time instead of wasting money on larger account management tools We are making money, because it has already delivered several clients Read full review As a PR firm, we rely on the media databases that [Meltwater Media Intelligence Platform] supplies to deliver the media exposure that they expect from us. We utilize their tracking of media hits for our overall reporting to our clients. Both of these are advantageous in helping us to not only keep our existing clients happy but also to gain new clients (and, in turn - revenue), as well. Read full review ScreenShots