Meltwater - Detailed Review
App Tools
Meltwater - Product Overview
Primary Function
Meltwater’s primary function is to provide real-time social media analytics and consumer intelligence. It helps businesses and marketers analyze social media data to make informed decisions, stay ahead of the competition, and engage effectively with their audiences.Target Audience
The target audience for Meltwater includes digital marketers, market research specialists, and large global organizations. It is particularly useful for brands that need to manage multiple social media channels, conduct competitive analysis, and gain deep insights into consumer behavior.Key Features
Social Media Analytics
Meltwater offers a suite of social analytics tools that track real-time data from various social channels, blogs, forums, review sites, and podcasts. Key features include trendlines to monitor topic popularity, word clouds to identify common themes, sentiment analysis to gauge public opinion, and emotional analysis to track emotional expressions in content.Audience Segmentation
The platform enables detailed audience segmentation by dividing the target audience into smaller, specific groups based on characteristics such as geographic location, age, lifestyle preferences, values, job title, interests, and personality traits. This helps marketers tailor their campaigns to resonate with different audience segments.Consumer Intelligence
Meltwater’s consumer intelligence suite uses AI to transform unstructured social data into actionable insights. It helps brands discover what customers think, want, and need by analyzing global data sources and identifying trends and patterns in consumer behavior.Social Media Management
The platform includes tools for publishing and scheduling social content, engagement and community management, social media listening, and reporting. It integrates all these components into a unified social media management tool, making it easy to manage hundreds of social media channels.Advanced Analytics and Reporting
Meltwater allows users to create custom dashboards, export data as spreadsheets, and use its API to integrate social media data into other applications. The platform also provides features to categorize and organize saved searches, set up real-time notifications, and integrate third-party data.Influencer and Competitor Analysis
Users can identify influential voices in social media discussions and analyze competitors’ social media marketing metrics to stay competitive. This includes understanding what consumers like or dislike about competitors and identifying key influencers respected by the target audience. Meltwater’s comprehensive suite of tools makes it an invaluable resource for businesses seeking to enhance their social media strategy, engage with their audience more effectively, and make data-driven marketing decisions. Meltwater - User Interface and Experience
User Interface
Meltwater’s interface is described as clean, modern, and easy to understand. Users often highlight the platform’s visual appeal and the simplicity of its layout, making it accessible to team members with varying levels of expertise.
Navigation
The navigation bar and home screen are intuitive, allowing users to easily move around the platform and access various features such as account settings, saved searches, and dashboards.
Ease of Use
Despite some users mentioning a steep learning curve, especially when setting up advanced features like social listening or media monitoring searches, the overall consensus is that Meltwater is user-friendly. The platform’s setup is relatively straightforward, and the interface is fluid and modern, which helps in upskilling new users quickly.
User Experience
Users appreciate the ease with which they can pull analytics and manage social media interactions. The CRM tool within Meltwater is particularly praised for its ability to collate and manage social media data into a chronological timeline, making it easy to engage with customers and track interactions.
AI Integrations
Meltwater’s AI-powered tools are a significant part of its user experience. These integrations help in data analysis, providing visualizations and insights that are valuable for marketing decisions. Users find these AI features helpful in staying ahead of industry trends and in making informed business decisions.
Learning Curve
While the initial setup and some advanced features may require time and effort to learn, especially for those unfamiliar with Boolean operators, the support resources such as Meltwater Academy, live chat, and email support are available to help users overcome these challenges.
Conclusion
In summary, Meltwater’s user interface is praised for its ease of use, modern design, and the support it offers through various resources. However, it does come with a learning curve, especially for more advanced functionalities.
Meltwater - Key Features and Functionality
Meltwater Overview
Meltwater, a leading platform in media, social, and consumer intelligence, incorporates advanced AI-driven features to enhance user productivity, efficiency, and insight generation. Here are the key features and functionalities of Meltwater’s AI-driven product category:AI Engine and ChatGPT Integration
Meltwater has integrated its AI engine with OpenAI models, including ChatGPT, to leverage nearly 20 years of investment in AI and the largest global dataset in the industry. This integration allows users to surface insights, boost efficiency, and generate content more effectively.Platform Assistant
The Platform Assistant is an AI-driven tool that helps users access insights and streamline tasks through simple, conversational commands. It provides quick responses to requests for brand monitoring data, competitive intelligence, or media analysis, enhancing productivity and saving time.AI Writing Assistant
This feature leverages generative AI to boost productivity and facilitate creativity. The AI writing assistant helps in generating content, making it easier for users to create high-quality content more efficiently.Insight Assistant
The Insight Assistant uncovers significant consumer and market information and patterns, helping marketing teams stay ahead. It simplifies the task of analyzing and identifying the drivers of conversations with completeness and relevance.Video Analysis
Meltwater’s AI engine includes advanced computer vision that captures insights from video content on social platforms. This feature identifies logos, celebrities, scenes, and objects, providing a comprehensive understanding of the online brand and aiding in crisis management and content ideation.AI Search Assistant
The AI Search Assistant is an AI-powered chatbot that simplifies the search query writing process. It helps generate brand and industry searches, expand or narrow searches, repair Boolean errors, and translate searches to other languages. This tool makes it easier for users of all levels to write high-quality searches faster and with less hassle.Sentiment Analysis and Social Reporting
Meltwater’s AI capabilities include sentiment analysis, which helps in analyzing customer sentiment and social media conversations. This feature provides actionable insights, enabling users to make more informed decisions.Influencer Identification and Collaboration
The platform includes features for identifying and segmenting influencers based on their work on specific brand initiatives. Users can engage and collaborate with influencers, maintain records of past partnerships, and analyze the performance metrics of influencer content.Content Creation and Approval
Meltwater offers tools for creating or editing social media assets, as well as automated content approval workflows. These features ensure that social posts are approved by managers or clients before publishing, streamlining the content creation process.Data Management and Analysis
The platform provides extensive data management and analysis capabilities, including the ability to capture over 1.3 billion new documents daily and apply 14 billion AI inferences. This supports over 240 languages and helps users find insights in a vast amount of external data.Campaign Management
Meltwater’s Campaigns feature is a centralized space to manage influencers, track content and metrics, and analyze performance. Users can revisit campaigns, access deeper insights, and ensure accurate reporting, managing campaigns confidently and precisely.User-Generated Content (UGC) Management
The platform allows users to schedule, publish, and optimize user-generated content. It includes features for creating terms and conditions to share with social influencers and configuring content usage and ownership rights within a centralized system.Content Filters and Performance Metrics
Meltwater provides content filters to see key topic areas an influencer posts about most. Users can evaluate the expertise, quality, and engagement of posts and view performance metrics such as reach, engagement rate, and EMV (Earned Media Value) per channel.Scheduled Reports and Dashboards
Users can schedule dashboards to be sent at preferred intervals, making it easier to report to stakeholders and eliminate the need for frequent logins. This feature helps in educating and informing stakeholders efficiently.Conclusion
These AI-driven features of Meltwater are designed to simplify data search and organization, accelerate user productivity, reduce time-to-strategic insight, and unblock creative barriers, ultimately helping users make more informed and data-driven decisions. Meltwater - Performance and Accuracy
Evaluating Meltwater’s Performance and Accuracy
Evaluating the performance and accuracy of Meltwater in the App Tools AI-driven product category involves examining several key aspects of their services and tools.
Performance
Meltwater’s performance is heavily reliant on its ability to collect, analyze, and present large amounts of data efficiently. Here are some points that highlight their performance:
Data Collection and Analysis
Meltwater uses advanced tools and AI algorithms to collect and analyze vast amounts of data from various sources, including social media, news, and other online platforms. This is evident from their integration of OpenAI models and advanced algorithms, which enable users to capture insights from billions of pieces of online data quickly and efficiently.
Synthetic Monitoring
For assessing application performance, Meltwater employs tools like Catchpoint for synthetic monitoring. This allows them to gather detailed metrics on application load times, network traffic, and user interaction, providing a comprehensive view of performance across different geographical locations and ISPs.
Custom Metrics
To address specific performance needs, Meltwater developed custom metrics such as Media Intelligence Time To Interactive (MITTI), which helps in measuring the time it takes for the application to become fully interactive and usable by the user. This metric is crucial for ensuring that the user experience is optimized.
Accuracy
The accuracy of Meltwater’s tools is a critical factor in their overall effectiveness:
AI-Powered Insights
Meltwater’s AI engine, which has been developed over nearly 20 years, provides highly accurate insights by analyzing vast amounts of data. This includes advanced computer vision to identify logos, celebrities, scenes, and objects in video content, ensuring a more accurate understanding of online brand presence.
Real-Time Data
The platform offers real-time alerts and sentiment analysis, which helps users stay accurate and up-to-date with current trends and conversations about their products or brands. This real-time data ensures that the insights provided are accurate and relevant.
Validation and Feedback
Users have reported that Meltwater’s analytics and reporting tools provide accurate and reliable data, which is essential for making informed decisions. For instance, users have praised the platform for its ability to verify PR analytics accurately, replacing less reliable previous tools.
Limitations and Areas for Improvement
While Meltwater’s tools are highly regarded, there are some limitations and areas where improvements can be made:
Data Overload
One of the challenges mentioned is the overwhelming amount of data collected, which can make it difficult to find key information. Users have noted that the dashboards can sometimes be complex, making it hard to extract the most important insights.
Learning Curve
There is a learning curve associated with fully utilizing all the advanced features of Meltwater. Users have mentioned that it takes time to get accustomed to the various tools and functionalities available.
Testing Frequency
In the context of application performance monitoring, the frequency of testing can be a limitation. For example, synthetic monitoring tests may only run every six hours, which can delay the feedback loop for developers making changes.
Connection Speed Variability
While using tools like Sitespeed to provide repeatable data, the connection speed is throttled to ensure consistency. However, this might not perfectly reflect real-world user experiences, as actual connection speeds can vary significantly.
In summary, Meltwater’s performance and accuracy are supported by their advanced AI-driven tools and comprehensive data collection and analysis capabilities. However, there are areas such as data presentation, learning curves, and testing frequencies that could be improved to enhance the overall user experience.
Meltwater - Pricing and Plans
Meltwater Pricing Structure
Meltwater’s pricing structure is not publicly disclosed on their website, which can make it challenging to determine the exact costs without engaging with their sales team. Here is a breakdown of what is known about their pricing and plans:
Pricing Tiers
Meltwater offers four main pricing tiers:
- Essentials: This is the basic package, suitable for starting out with general brand and market monitoring. It includes training resources to help users get started.
- Advanced: This tier provides deeper analysis tools and unlimited search features, making it ideal for businesses needing detailed media monitoring insights.
- Suite: This tier offers access to the full suite of Meltwater’s tools, including integrated tools across multiple products, advanced analytics, and a unified approach to managing insights.
- Enterprise: This is the premium option, which includes everything Meltwater offers, such as advanced AI features and specialized services to help make strategic PR decisions.
Features and Costs
- Each tier includes different levels of features, but the exact details are not publicly available. Users need to contact Meltwater’s sales team for a custom quote.
- The average cost reported for Meltwater is around $12,000 per user per year, though it can range from approximately $8,000 to over $25,000 per year depending on the number of features, users, and other factors.
Contract and Commitment
- Meltwater requires users to commit to an annual contract; there is no option for a monthly subscription.
Free Trial and Demo
- Meltwater does not offer a free trial. However, users can request a custom demo from the sales team to get a better understanding of the product.
Additional Costs
- The final cost of a Meltwater contract can increase due to additional fees for extra seats, customization, and training.
Given the lack of transparent pricing on Meltwater’s website, potential users must engage with their sales team to get a clear and customized quote. This process can be time-consuming and may not be ideal for those seeking immediate clarity on costs.
Meltwater - Integration and Compatibility
Integration with Marketing and Analytics Tools
Meltwater’s integration capabilities allow users to connect their Meltwater accounts with various marketing, web analytics, and other tools. For instance, using connectors like those provided by Improvado, you can automate the process of importing Meltwater data into your CRM, marketing tools, and web analytics software. This integration enables the automatic transfer of data to your preferred analytics software or marketing tools, streamlining your marketing efforts.
Salesforce Integration
Meltwater also integrates well with Salesforce, a popular CRM platform. The integration allows you to connect your Salesforce instance with Meltwater, enabling features such as creating Salesforce cases directly from conversations within Meltwater Engage. This setup involves configuring object permissions in Salesforce and adding the Meltwater app via the AppExchange, which facilitates responding to conversations within the Salesforce environment.
API and Data Access
The Meltwater API provides a comprehensive way to access and analyze data from the platform. It allows users to export or analyze earned media and fetch analytics for owned social accounts. The API ensures that data is consistently structured and accessible, whether you are using the API directly or through BI connectors that call the API behind the scenes.
Cross-Platform Compatibility
Meltwater’s platform is designed to ingest and enrich data from a wide variety of sources, including news and social platforms. This data is held in a central store with a consistent data schema, making it accessible across different platforms. While the primary access is through the Meltwater application, the API ensures that the same data can be accessed and analyzed on various devices and platforms, provided there are no limitations due to data provider agreements.
AI-Driven Insights
Meltwater’s AI engine, enhanced by integrations with OpenAI models like ChatGPT, further boosts its compatibility and efficiency. These AI-powered innovations help surface insights, boost efficiency, and generate content, making the platform more versatile and effective across different use cases and platforms.
Conclusion
In summary, Meltwater integrates seamlessly with various marketing tools, CRM systems like Salesforce, and leverages its API to ensure broad compatibility and access to its data-rich insights across multiple platforms and devices.
Meltwater - Customer Support and Resources
Meltwater Customer Support Options
Meltwater provides a comprehensive array of customer support options and additional resources to ensure users can effectively utilize their AI-driven products.Password Reset and Login Assistance
If you encounter issues with your login, Meltwater offers a straightforward password reset process. You can enter your email address on the Meltwater login page and click the “Forgot Password?” option to receive an email prompting a password reset.Support Channels
Users can connect with Meltwater’s product support team through several channels:Email Support
You can send an email to help@meltwater.com for assistance with any issues or questions.In-App Live Chat
Meltwater provides an in-app live chat feature, accessible via the “Help” icon in the top-right corner of the page, allowing you to get immediate support.Customer Community
The Meltwater Customer Community is a valuable resource where users can find answers and get help from both Meltwater Support and Community Experts.Training and Resources
To help users get up to speed with Meltwater, the platform offers various training resources:Tiered Trainings
These range from basic to advanced use cases, ensuring users can learn at their own pace.OnDemand Recordings
Users can watch recordings of previous Product Workshops to gain insights and skills.Help Center
The Meltwater Help Center is a central hub where users can find guides, tutorials, and answers to common questions directly within the app by clicking the “Help” icon.Account Management
For administrative tasks, users can manage their accounts and settings through the platform:Adding New Users
New users can be added via the “Account” tab under “Manage Users”.Account Settings
Users can view their account details, including the number of allotted and remaining searches, users, and dashboards, by clicking the “Account” tab.Additional Support
Meltwater also provides specific support for certain features:Approved Senders
For setting up approved senders for newsletters or outreach emails, users can navigate to “Account” -> “Approved Senders” and follow the instructions to add new email accounts.Daily Reports
Users can set up daily reports and find more information on this through the Help Center. By leveraging these support options and resources, Meltwater ensures that users can efficiently use their AI-driven tools and resolve any issues that may arise. Meltwater - Pros and Cons
Advantages
Powerful Media Monitoring
Meltwater is highly regarded for its comprehensive media monitoring capabilities, allowing users to track unlimited keywords, perform sentiment analysis, detect volume spikes, and use custom mention scoring. This makes it one of the best media monitoring tools available.
Thorough Reporting
The platform offers extensive PR reporting, including the ability to create interactive dashboards and access a team of analysts for more complex reporting needs. This helps in measuring and analyzing PR KPIs effectively.
All-in-One PR Platform
Meltwater can serve as a full-suite PR platform, enabling users to manage all their PR work from a single place. This includes media intelligence, media relations, social listening and analytics, social media management, consumer intelligence, influencer marketing, and sales intelligence.
AI Integrations
Meltwater leverages AI to enhance its tools, providing users with advanced insights and data analysis capabilities. This helps in staying ahead with industry trends and making data-driven decisions.
Global Analysis
The platform offers 360° reporting, providing a comprehensive view of your PR and marketing strategies on a global scale. This is particularly beneficial for large, global brands.
Disadvantages
Steep Learning Curve
Meltwater is known for having a steep learning curve, which can make it challenging for new users to get started without significant onboarding support from the team. Setting up searches and using advanced features can be particularly overwhelming.
Complex Interface
The interface of Meltwater can be overwhelming due to the vast array of tools and solutions it offers. This complexity can make it difficult to navigate and use efficiently.
Hidden Pricing
Meltwater does not publicly disclose its pricing, requiring potential users to contact them for a quote. This lack of transparency can make it difficult to budget and plan.
Missing Essential Features
Despite its comprehensive suite, Meltwater lacks some essential features such as a site, newsroom, or press release creator, which are important for modern PR teams.
Slow Channel Adoption
Meltwater is slow to implement new social media channels and support their full range of features, which can be a drawback in a fast-paced digital environment.
Irrelevant Social Listening Data
Some users report issues with irrelevant data from the social listening tools, which can create additional work and reduce the tool’s effectiveness.
Lengthy Data Processing Delays
There are delays in data processing, which can hinder rapid responses to social media activity or crises. For example, there can be a 2-hour delay in data updates.
High Prices
Meltwater is expensive, with costs exceeding $1,000 per month for basic capabilities. The pricing increases significantly with the addition of more features and user seats, making it less affordable for smaller budgets.
Customer Support Issues
Some users have reported subpar customer service, which can be frustrating when dealing with the complexities of the platform.
In summary, while Meltwater offers powerful media monitoring and comprehensive PR tools, it comes with significant drawbacks such as a steep learning curve, complex interface, and high costs. These factors need to be carefully considered before deciding if Meltwater is the right fit for your needs.
Meltwater - Comparison with Competitors
When Comparing Meltwater to Competitors
When comparing Meltwater to its competitors in the AI-driven media intelligence and social listening category, several key points and unique features come to the forefront.Unique Features of Meltwater
Meltwater stands out with its extensive source coverage, collecting data from over 6 million sources, including news, forums, and a vast media database. Here are some of its distinctive features:- AI-Powered Platform Assistant: This assistant helps teams complete tasks more efficiently across the Meltwater platform, allowing users to ask for help and quickly complete common tasks.
- Brand Analytics Tabs: These automate the analysis of brand insights from thousands of conversations and news stories, providing detailed analytics on volume, narrative, sentiment, and engagement.
- AI Journalist Search: This feature helps teams find the best journalists for any given story by analyzing the meaning and messaging of content, recommending the most relevant contacts.
- Media Intelligence Suite: This includes features like Custom Scoring, Spike Detection, Sentiment Analysis, Social Echo, and AI Overviews, which help in monitoring and analyzing media mentions and social media activity.
Potential Alternatives and Their Features
Sprinklr
Sprinklr is often considered a strong alternative to Meltwater. Here are some of its key features:- Global Coverage and Multilingual Support: Sprinklr offers extensive global coverage and support for multiple languages, ensuring comprehensive insights from diverse data sources.
- Customizable Dashboards and Alerts: It provides more intuitive and customizable dashboards and alerts, which can be scaled across teams.
- Seamless Integration: Sprinklr integrates well with existing tools like CRMs (e.g., Salesforce), BI tools (e.g., Tableau), and team platforms (e.g., Slack).
Mention
Mention is another competitor that offers:- Real-Time Monitoring: Mention is known for its real-time precision, which is a significant advantage over Meltwater’s occasional accuracy gaps.
- API and Compatibility: Mention provides APIs and compatibility with tools like Slack and Zapier, making it easier to integrate social media data into broader marketing strategies.
Quid
Quid offers:- Advanced Analytics: Quid is strong in providing advanced analytics and insights, which can be particularly useful for competitive analysis and market research.
- Integration Capabilities: Like Mention, Quid also offers seamless integration with other marketing tools, enhancing workflow efficiency.
Limitations of Meltwater
While Meltwater is a powerful tool, it has some limitations that might lead users to consider alternatives:- Accuracy Gaps: Meltwater sometimes struggles with real-time precision, which can be a drawback for brands needing up-to-the-minute data.
- Cumbersome User Experience: The platform can be cumbersome to navigate, which may hinder efficiency in fast-paced business environments.
- Limited Customization: Meltwater lacks advanced customization options for social media dashboards and reports, which can be a roadblock for enterprises seeking tailored solutions.
- Fragmented AI Integration: Meltwater’s AI capabilities, though improved through acquisitions, do not yet offer a unified framework for delivering insights across teams.
Meltwater - Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions about Meltwater
Q: How does Meltwater use AI in its platform?
Meltwater integrates advanced AI capabilities to enhance its media, social, and consumer intelligence tools. The AI engine, combined with OpenAI models and large language models (LLMs), helps users capture insights from vast amounts of data, including video content on social platforms. This AI engine processes over 1.3 billion new documents daily and applies 14 billion AI inferences, supporting over 240 languages.Q: What are the key AI-powered features in Meltwater’s latest updates?
Recent updates include an AI-Powered Platform Assistant that helps teams complete tasks more efficiently, Brand Analytics Tabs that automate the analysis of brand insights from thousands of conversations, and an AI Journalist Search that recommends the most relevant journalists for outreach based on the meaning and messaging of content. Additionally, there are updates to the Engage solution and the integration of ChatGPT to simplify Boolean search setup and generate concise content summaries.Q: How does Meltwater’s social media monitoring tool work?
Meltwater’s social media monitoring tool allows users to search, monitor, and analyze billions of conversations without keyword limits. It provides unlimited keyword search capabilities, enabling users to track brand mentions, hashtags, and other relevant keywords. The tool also includes social analytics to uncover trends and patterns, and it offers a 15-month archive of social data for historical analysis and year-on-year comparisons.Q: Can Meltwater analyze non-textual content?
Yes, Meltwater’s platform includes visual enrichments that allow users to gain insights from non-textual content such as images posted on news, blogs, and social media. Features include Optical Character Recognition (OCR), logo recognition, celebrity recognition, and object and scene recognition. This helps users analyze the context of images rather than just text.Q: How does Meltwater help in identifying authentic influencers?
Meltwater’s social listening tools help identify genuine influencers by analyzing their audiences and their central role in conversations that impact your brand. The platform can distinguish between influencers with real audiences and those with artificially inflated follower counts, ensuring that marketing strategies are targeted at the most relevant and influential individuals.Q: What kind of support does Meltwater offer its users?
Meltwater provides a 24/7 global support network to assist users. The support team helps with crafting search queries, analyzing social data, and using the platform’s features. This ensures that users can maximize the value they get from the platform and overcome any challenges they might encounter.Q: Can Meltwater be integrated with other tools and platforms?
Yes, Meltwater allows integration with third-party applications and Business Intelligence (BI) tools via its API. Users can also add third-party data through RSS feeds to be used in various Meltwater tools such as Newsfeed, Newsletter, Digest Reports, dashboards, and monitors.Q: How does Meltwater facilitate collaboration among teams?
Meltwater’s platform is built for collaboration, enabling teams to work seamlessly and efficiently. It allows users to set up regular reports, configure dashboards, and share access with team members. This ensures that all team members have the information they need and can access the features that matter most to them.Q: What kind of competitive intelligence can Meltwater provide?
Meltwater’s social listening tools help users understand their competitors by analyzing customer reactions to their products, marketing campaigns, and identifying opportunities they might be missing. Users can compare key metrics such as share of voice, sentiment, and engagement with one or more competitors.Q: How does Meltwater’s AI engine simplify data analysis and organization?
Meltwater’s AI engine simplifies data analysis by automating tasks such as setting up Boolean searches, generating concise content summaries, and automating tags for news and social content. This reduces the time needed to derive strategic insights and accelerates user productivity.