Overall, my experience at Meltwater has been quite good.

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.

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

Meltwater has given me the ability to monitor what is being said about my company in one place.

It provides a very useful spread of information regarding everything that is being said about your company.

Not all packages are necessary and they will try to up-sell you. Granted that's just another part of business.

Tip to your sales team: stop being so aggressive and reading from a script it gets very annoying.

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

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.

Great option for press release distribution. I like being able to create targeted media lists and scheduling releases.

I like how easy it is to gather lists of relevant media in my area and field. Depending on who I want to target I am able to modify a list and make sure my release and information is reaching the right group of people.

My only cons come from the other side of the software. I receive a fair number of releases that aren't relevant to what I cover. It isn't a software error, it is user error with people not knowing how to create their lists.

I like that you can go up to 2 years back to get news stories

The social listening component is a little lacking, I would only recommend this for news stories/media stats

With nearly 10 years working in PR, I have had experience with Cision, Vocus, and Meltwater. There is no question that I will continue to use Meltwater in my career because it is most powerful, in my opinion. I also think that their PR distribution (which is integrated into the platform) is better than what the other players have to offer.

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.

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.

There are some cool feautres in Meltwater, like being able to search history by specific keywords and dates and exlcusions, and getting email notifications that we can set up for when certain words or our brand is mentioned. It also worked for us to schedule out social posts.

There are some complications in getting up social posts - sometimes it wouldn't properly tag the person we were trying to tag in our post, and you can't go back and edit a post after it's done to tag the person. Sometimes it almost feels like there are too many features that are difficult to learn to use, and not enough help to properly learn how to use the software. It shouldn't be that complicated.

I used the freemium likealyzer for social media. It was really helpful to analyze my client social media data and their competitor too.

The only cons is that there is some maintenance in the site for 3 days now.

An OK tool to use if you've been used to the platform. Recommend looking elsewhere to see if another tool can help solve your specific needs and problems.

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.

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.

We tend to use Meltwater in times of social media crises — and it cuts down on manual data compilation and creates easy-to-understand reports for all stakeholders.

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

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.

For the two years that we used Meltwater we increased our media sales and overall agent productivity. This lead to a decrease in our ques and many more satisfied customers. There are better products however Meltwater will definitely get the job done.

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

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.

Nice company, cares about their customers- but they have no true success garuntees.

It was fairly easy to use. I had a few training very light sessions and was able to figure out the rest after that. Also, the account managers are very personable and smart.

There is no guarantee that their database of writers will pick up your story, no matter how granular you get with your target list. I tried posting multiple articles that were about community service and one writer replied that they "might" look into it further. Even with AM's help, I wasn't able to hook a writer.

Meltwater has a veritable boatload of functionality that allows media professionals to track coverage, pull reports, and boost PR presence.

The only downside here is the learning curve. There's a vast amount of functions, but they can be difficult to remember. Ample training is needed to get a full grasp, but once that's compelte it's a really valuable tool.

We continue to renew our contract with Meltwater, because, compared to competitors, the service is financially feasible. The interface upgrades have also kept us happy. Overall, Meltwater helps us distribute news effectively and that's exactly what its supposed to do.

Meltwater has made A LOT of improvements to their user interface recently. Building lists has gotten a lot eaiser and quicker. I'm able to quickly scan and select thousands of contacts.

Meltwater's customer service leaves something to desire. In the four years that I've used the platform, my service rep has changed at least a half-dozen times. Each new person wants to connect to see how things are going, but most of the time they just try to sell us on something new. They are not concerned with understanding our business.

I don't see how any analyst tested this tool. Doesn't include what I consider basic functionality. Requires multiple unnecessary steps to analyze data.

Customer Service is responsive. Tool is very affordable.

Social Analytics are awful. Problems include:

I have to think that my issues with Meltwater are user error because I have heard good things about it, which is why we pay for it in the first place.

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

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.

Once I signed my contract, it took several weeks to even get a login. The payment terms I had negotiated were also thrown out the window. I like the idea of Meltwater, but I don't like the dishonesty and disorganization of the company nor do I like being deceived - maybe this is why it's so cheap.

Meltwater does the bare minimum of what you need it to do for media monitoring and reporting. The price is pretty low so in budget.

Sales and customer service are not high quality

I am releasing an important press release this week and our rep at Meltwater helped me learn how to create a media list and set up a newswire release.

I am impressed so far with Meltwater. It seems there are a lot of capabilities and I think it will really help with my PR efforts.

There are so many functionalities that it can be a little hard to create a media list, there are a lot of options. However, our rep helped me!

Media contact information and a database to determine the relevant reporters would be immensely helpful to PR professionals, unfortunately, there has yet to be a provider that does this in an efficient, accurate and updated way.

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.

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.

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

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.

As a social media monitoring tool Meltwater works perfect and helps to see the whole pictures what’s going on with your brand.

Meltwater is pretty easy to navigate tool and helps me to track many things in one place. The functionality to create different dashboards for different goals are very useful.

Well, it’s a more complex tool than I expect so needs time to figure out how it works or to use the help of the customer support. I’m a big fan of the explanation videos so if there are more of them would be great!

MW delivers better functionality than Cision and also allows me to work faster and more effectively

MW is quick and simple to figure out, and if there's a glitch, their chat feature can address your issue within minutes!

It would be great if I'd be able to organize and divide long lists of results for targeted journalist searches into shorter sub lists.

We've been a customer for 3+ years and use Meltwater on a daily basis. Initially, we were mostly using the media monitoring features exclusively, and that alone was enough value to justify our account. More recently we've also been using the Influencer platform for media research and outreach and that has also proven to be extremely useful. Much of our content marketing is driven by things we're able to uncover on a daily basis using Meltwater.

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.

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

We primarily use Meltwater as a social media monitoring tool. We're a global organization, so it can be difficult to have a full picture of how our business is being referenced across the world. But Meltwater solves that problem!

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.

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!

Meltwater really helps with media relations. It helps you target the right journalists for your news. If you do media outreach, you really need Meltwater.

What you can do with Meltwater you can't do with Cision. It's much easier to use and allows you to see who viewed your pitch so you can decide how to follow up. It makes media relations less of a thankless chore by helping you decide where to focus your efforts.

It's a little confusing to use. Once you have a tutorial, it's easier, of course, but I wouldn't say it's intuitive.

Overall, Meltwater has been an easy tool to use to distribute information and also see the analytics of how it's being received, opened, clicked, etc. We also use the tool to create a Daily Digest of hits that mention our business in the media or on Twitter.

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

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.

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.

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.

Used this to track client placements, as well as find contact details for reporters / editors. Easy to navigate, and our team could easily customize the specific dashboards.

Definitely can need some training to get up and working. We had our account managers come in to train up the team.

I use this software for both distributing press releases and monitoring media coverage and think the product is worth the investment if you are dealing with media on at least the national level. Only complaint is the sales staff (most likely by design of their business model) is on the pushy side to get you to renew you contact early and frquent attempts to upsell new products or features.

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

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.

Overall, I will never recommend Meltwater as a product or service. Their staff aren't knowledgable and their salespeople sneak auto-renewals into their contracts to keep people on as customers. As a company no one is able to take responsibility and they don’t offer genuine support for their customers

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.

Terrible customer support:

Our organization is a client of Meltwater's and found the service was not benefiting us. The reports, stats and information provided were not beneficial. I indicated to the account specialist, I wasn't sure we would be renewing when they sent me a confirmation for renewal on October 26, 2018. Their only discussion was about getting me best prices. I did not sign the renewal confirmation. Our services were to end January 14, 2019. At no time did they mention automatic renewal or that I needed to send a formal notice of termination. On December 7th, in response to their many emails asking me to sign the renewal confirmation I advised them we would definitely not be renewing - 38 days before the services were to end. For the first time, they advised me we were automatically renewed and they would be sending us a bill. They said it was "preset"

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

It is redundant and doesn't deal with reality.

Meltwater is providing excellent support and their media data and reporting seems to be very reliable. We have been able to use it to make some very productive media in-roads. The software seems to be underdeveloped but hopefully they will continue to add the features needed to make it a mainstream offering.

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.

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.