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Meltwater

Meltwater

Overview

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…

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

Meltwater has proven to be a versatile platform for a wide range of use cases, as reported by its users. Organizations have relied on …
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Yes and No

7 out of 10
July 08, 2022
Incentivized
I use the platform for media monitoring and reporting. It allows me to see the coverage of stories created by the University to meet KPIs …
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Expensive but efficient

6 out of 10
December 01, 2021
Incentivized
We use Meltwater [Media Intelligence Platform] as a search and monitoring tool within our marketing department. It allows us to see when …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Pricing

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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…

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://www.meltwater.com/en/pricing

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Alternatives Pricing

What is Brandwatch?

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.

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Product Details

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.)

Meltwater Technical Details

Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

Cision Communications Cloud, Agility PR Solutions, and Mention are common alternatives for Meltwater.

Reviewers rate Support Rating highest, with a score of 7.5.

The most common users of Meltwater are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(164)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

Meltwater has proven to be a versatile platform for a wide range of use cases, as reported by its users. Organizations have relied on Meltwater for media monitoring, allowing them to track media mentions for their own organization, competitors, and the industry as a whole. By utilizing keywords and sentiment analysis, users have been able to stay up-to-date on specific topics of interest, such as technological advancements or industry sentiment. Meltwater's comprehensive coverage has also allowed users to identify placements on obscure trade or science sites that don't show up in traditional search engines' alerts.

Additionally, Meltwater has served as an all-in-one solution for various marketing and communication needs. Users have utilized the platform for social listening, content management, reporting, public relations, influencer relations, and even newsletter distribution. The platform's ability to compile targeted media distribution lists has proved valuable for corporate PR efforts, while the clipping component has helped users generate comprehensive reports by compiling relevant clips. The user-friendly interface and extensive media contacts database have made Meltwater a go-to choice for organizations looking to streamline their marketing and communications efforts.

Furthermore, Meltwater has played a crucial role in enhancing brand presence and engagement on social media platforms. By utilizing Meltwater Buzz, organizations have been able to listen and evaluate diverse audiences across different regions and cultures. The scheduling capabilities have allowed users to plan and promote events effectively while the tool's social listening capabilities have facilitated tracking social mentions and engaging with a large social audience. Moreover, Meltwater's Media Intelligence Platform has provided valuable insights into influencer marketing efforts with its extensive influencer database.

Despite some users experiencing glitches or dissatisfaction after prolonged use, Meltwater has received positive recommendations from customers who appreciate its continually improving services. It has been praised as a great tool for finding influencers and managing influencer marketing efforts efficiently. Educational institutions have utilized Meltwater to educate students on digital analytics and monitoring online conversations, further highlighting its versatility. Organizations across industries have found Meltwater useful for monitoring media coverage, tracking online presence, compiling comprehensive reports, and staying updated on trends and topics of interest. Overall, Meltwater's Media Intelligence Platform has proven to be an indispensable tool for media research, outreach, distribution, and monitoring.

Convenient Email Reports: Users appreciate the convenience of receiving morning and afternoon media monitoring reports via email, saving them time and ensuring they are always informed about mentions of their company or competitors in the news. This feature has been praised by many reviewers.

Efficient Content Curation: The ability to archive relevant stories directly from the monitoring report and easily add them to company newsletters is highly valued. It streamlines the process of curating content for newsletters, making it more efficient for users. Many reviewers have found this feature beneficial.

Customizable Monitoring and Automated Newsletters: Users find it beneficial to be able to customize the frequency of media monitoring reports and set up automatic newsletters based on archived stories. This flexibility allows them to tailor the monitoring to their specific needs and automate their content distribution. Several reviewers have expressed appreciation for this customizable and automated feature.

  1. Limited database coverage: Some users have mentioned that Meltwater's database lacks coverage of non-traditional media sources such as bloggers and social media influencers, which are important for picking up niche content.

  2. Disjointed experience with integration: Several users have found that the platform does not seamlessly integrate with the Engage platform, leading to a disjointed user experience when using both tools.

  3. Expensive for non-profits: Some users feel that Meltwater is expensive for non-profit organizations, making it less accessible for those with limited budgets.

Users commonly recommend the following when using Linkfluence:

  1. Utilize training sessions: Joining training sessions offered by Linkfluence is advised to better understand how to effectively use the tool. This recommendation highlights the importance of investing time in learning the features and functionalities of Linkfluence.

  2. Define scope and choose keywords wisely: Users suggest defining the scope of use and selecting keywords carefully to avoid getting lost in the data. By narrowing down the focus and choosing relevant keywords, users can reduce noise and increase the meaningfulness of their analysis.

  3. Configure dashboards effectively: Users emphasize spending enough time on configuring dashboards in Linkfluence, especially when choosing keywords. This recommendation aims to reduce irrelevant information and enhance the accuracy of social media analysis.

By following these recommendations, users can make better use of Linkfluence's social listening capabilities, gain deeper insights, and improve their monitoring and analytic efforts.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-25 of 71)
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Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Meltwater Media is well suited for developing media lists and keeping them organized within a large database. However, it is not as suited for wider email campaigns or ongoing conversations with reporters. It is good for large email blasts, but not targeted pitching.
July 08, 2022

Yes and No

Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It's good to look at media coverage first thing in the day. Quicker than going through clips. Although Google also can often pick up these things too. As mentioned in reporting, you cannot have an analytics dashboard without a PDF of coverage. I like the analytics dashboards and the level of detail.
Maya DeJoie | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
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.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
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.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Meltwater Media Intelligence Platform's Meltwater Explore is great for following industry chatter and keeping up with brand influencers. As interesting as it is to find out what is being said about your brand, I find that monitoring the competition is valuable in seeing trends in the industry. As a content maker, monitoring content on Meltwater Explore has been a great source of inspiration.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Meltwater is suited for simplifying regular media monitoring activities. It is also relatively straightforward to utilize for beginners in the media monitoring space which is a great advantage. Meltwater Media Intelligence Platform also provides strong customer support.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Social media is rapidly changing, with more emphasis being placed on working with influencers and content creators. As we all know, there's one on every corner (or two or 50!) Klear, a service from Meltwater Media Intelligence Platform, provides our social media team with an easy way to navigate the saturated influencer marketplace by identifying content creators that best fit our clients' needs. This includes identifying metrics like engagement rate and estimated pricing to work with them that makes it easy to compare.
Kristen M. Kirst | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We have found Meltwater to support our strategic focus on the placement and promotion of key initiatives in the media for the university. We have also used the tool to help target news/media mentions we want to promote and share on social and our own university newsroom platform. There is room for improvement on broadcast news.
December 12, 2021

Jordan's Meltwater Review

Jordan Wilhelmi | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
My everyday day-to-day work is almost entirely accomplished on Meltwater. It is vital to have an all-in-one platform where you can compose press sends, build reporter lists to send to, and then collect reports on coverage of your work. I'm not sure what we would do if we didn't have Meltwater, as it would require us to be on multiple platforms and constantly [transfer] information between them. The only thing it is less suited for is if we need to do a super-targeted or niche subject search for reporters – I might just use Google or Cision for that.
December 01, 2021

Expensive but efficient

Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
For how expensive this program is, I'd recommend it only after serious thought and understanding of what your organization's needs and priorities are. If you don't currently have a way to track brand mentions and this information would grow your business, then I'd say make the investment or try it. Otherwise, I'd pass and look at other options [from my experience].
October 18, 2021

Good Value for the Price

Jenna Carpentier | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Meltwater Media Intelligence Platform is great for monitoring digital publications. My favorite part of Meltwater Media Intelligence Platform was the Daily Digest emails (again, have your customer success team set these up). Twice a day, I'd get an email that had a wrap-up of our media mentions and top stories from the day. This made it extremely easy to keep up to date on the main topics without having to constantly go into the platform. Additionally, you can set up alerts in case there's a sudden influx of articles or mentions of particular keywords. For instance, one thing we wanted to receive instant alerts on was if there was a bridge or building failure/collapse. Once the customer success team got the initial framework built out, it was easy to go in and make minor updates. Of course, they are always happy to help make the changes if you'd prefer. One thing Meltwater Media Intelligence Platform seemed to lack was the ability to monitor for print-based stories. It was able to pull them in if the article also lived online. But if it was only in print, Meltwater Media Intelligence Platform wasn't able to report on it. Therefore, we had to do print-based media monitoring manually. There were also quite a few publications pulled in that lived behind paywalls and we weren't able to actually see or read the articles. I know some of Meltwater Media Intelligence Platform's competitors offer better options for accessing articles behind paywalls. They have agreements with the publications that allow you to see the article since you're a paying subscriber to the media monitoring platform. Additionally, I liked how Meltwater Media Intelligence Platform was able to pull in Twitter mentions and comments. However, I'd advise against using it as your social media monitoring platform, as it doesn't do a great job at pulling in posts from the other social channels. They tried to implement a social listening portion of the platform, but we didn't have much luck when we did the trial of it. Instead, we just stuck with Sprout Social for all of our social listening and monitoring needs. Although, occasionally, Meltwater Media Intelligence Platform would pull in tweets that Sprout Social seemed to miss, so it was nice to have all of our bases covered from different angles to make sure we weren't missing anything.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Meltwater [Media Intelligence Platform] is perfectly suited for monitoring the news. It is not perfectly suited to understand sentiment. The audience insights are incredible, and that helps for marketing, but for media relations, it's all about capturing every single mention of the article to understand the context. I like that it can monitor all of social media - even deleted tweets.
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Meltwater [Media Intelligence Platform] could be a decent alternative for in-house or agency PR practitioners looking for reporting and research options. You really only learn about the platform's shortcomings when you use it, but fear not: they have a solution! [In my experience] the only issue is that you have to buy up into the feature that will solve the issue. [I believe] it seems deceptive, and the last thing any of us need is to do business with a company that's not up front with what they're selling.
Jackie Beckwith | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
The platform is excellent for a time-bound understanding of relevant headlines, and in fact, I utilize that capability on a daily, if not multi-day, basis. It is less appropriate when an organization has a need to send numerous wire releases because Meltwater [Media Intelligence Platform] allows customers only a set number over a specific time period.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
If you're a PR or Marketing firm and want to track media exposure for your clients, [Meltwater Media Intelligence Platform] [scours] the internet, TV, [and] radio to track down specific media hits. They also have an extensive media database for tracking databases for journalists/producers in both national and regional/local contexts.
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
The product is difficult to use and quite expensive compared to alternatives on the market. It does its job well enough once you learn to use it, but given the price, the low quality of customer service, and the sneaky implementation of hidden clauses in the contract, I can only recommend to anyone considering using this tool to stay away from this product. Overpriced, difficult-to-use software with little value to offer.
August 19, 2021

Meltwater Review

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
As with any product or service, you need to determine whether Meltwater is truly going to meet your needs. It has a lot of features and the add-ons continue to grow. If you do not have a way to track brand mentions and to search news outlets for information that is relevant to your industry, Meltwater is a great option to consider. If this is not important for your organization, it may not be needed.
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Don't expect for it to capture your industry's trade magazines. It only will do the big press like Forbes, USA Today, etc.

I am not sure what the Meltwater tool is well suited for. We are a medium sized company and it's turning out useless for us. I have actually used Meltwater for almost 6 years. There has been a HUGE decline in accuracy and support.
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