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Olena Shabunina

Top 5 Meltwater Alternatives

Media monitoring tools are essential for understanding public opinion and brand image, managing crises, evaluating the effectiveness of PR campaigns, analyzing competitors, tracking industry trends and news, improving customer relations, and measuring reach and impact. They allow you to respond quickly to negative mentions, evaluate the success of strategies, get information about new trends, understand competitors' strategies, identify and resolve customer issues promptly, and control the information environment for more effective reputation management and strategic decision-making. 


Meltwater is by far one of the most popular media monitoring tools among users. This powerful product uses artificial intelligence to collect, analyze, and visualize large amounts of information from the Internet, helping companies to better understand their customers, track brand mentions, and make informed marketing decisions. 

Meltwater is popular with 27,000 customers worldwide and has won numerous awards.   

But despite its popularity, Meltwater is not the only quality product on the market. Many alternatives can become a worthy replacement and open up new opportunities for users.  


In this article, we present the top 6 products that are ideal for diversifying your experience of using media monitoring tools.


Semantrum as a Meltwater Alternatives

This AI media analytics and reputation management platform is the most comprehensive media monitoring solution for businesses tailored for your custom needs.  


If you want to deep dive into tracking the efficiency of your PR activities, and in your reports, you go far beyond standard volume metrics, Semantrum is the right tool for you. 


Semantrum interface

The platform has gained a positive reputation and 100% user trust. This is confirmed by the fact that Semantrum's regular customers include government agencies, major banks, energy and agriculture companies, pharmaceutical businesses, and other government and large commercial organizations. Throughout its existence, Semantrum has received numerous positive listing reviews and awards, such as High Performer on G2; Top Public Relations Company, Top Corporate Communications Company, Top Crisis Communications Company on Clutch, etc.  


Semantrum reviews


Semantrum review

Semantrum Pricing


The cheapest Light plan is best suited for small businesses and individual entrepreneurs with moderate media activity. It includes 24/7 real-time monitoring of mentions for 3 topics, an unlimited number of mentions in a topic, and interactive dashboards. There is also a Basic plan for medium-sized companies and teams and a Professional plan for large companies and teams with individual interactive dashboards.   


Key features of Semantrum:


  • Round-the-clock monitoring of mentions in the media, web sources, and social networks  

  • Detailed analytics, visualization, and tracking of dynamics according to your specific KPI.   

  • Tailored dashboards with custom designs and metrics 


Semantrum stands out for its simple interface without unnecessary elements and details, but if users have any questions, they can contact the support team at any time, which responds immediately. 


Semantrum review

Semantrum's useful features, combined with its affordable price, make it valuable for brands looking to expand their media presence and adjust their strategy. 


Muck Rack as a Meltwater Alternatives


Muck Rack is a PR tool that covers crucial aspects of the PR process, like outreach, a media database, media monitoring, and analytics. They name themselves as a centralized PR platform to help your team research, monitor, build relationships, and measure results. 


Muck Rack screenshots

According to the research on G2 Crowd, what people usually name as benefits of this platform:  

 

  • The quality of the database. Muck Rack says that they cover over 600 000 media outlets all over the world 

  • Ease of use. Users usually tell that the interface of this tool. Is pretty easy to work with it.

  • Helpful customer support.


 What people don’t like in Muck Rack based on their reviews:  

 

  • Outdated information 

  • Data inaccuracy 

  • Lack of search functionality 

 

Muck Rack Pricing: 

 

The pricing of Muck Rack is not publicly disclosed. However, some online researchers estimate its price as starting from $ 10,000 per year, with minimum commitments about the length of contracts. 


Meltwater vs Muck Rack 

 

When assessing the two solutions, reviewers found Muck Rack easier to use, set up, and administer. Reviewers also preferred doing business with Muck Rack overall. 


Reviewers felt that Muck Rack meets the needs of their business better than Meltwater. 

When comparing the quality of ongoing product support, reviewers felt that Muck Rack is the preferred option. 


For feature updates and roadmaps, our reviewers preferred the direction of Muck Rack over Meltwater. 


Brandwatch 

Brandwatch provides a wide range of tools for analyzing data on social media and the Internet in general. It allows you to track brand mentions, monitor hashtags, analyze user opinions, and much more. With this functionality, you can get a complete picture of your audience and improve the quality of your content.


The tool also provides its users with timely information about market trends, which allows them to promote themselves more effectively than their competitors. It also easily identifies any critical situations that may affect customers' perceptions of the brand and its services. 


Brandwatch screenshots

Brandwatch effectively copes with many challenges in the field of social media marketing, which is why it receives good feedback from users on the listings. 


Brandwatch review

The service has been operating in the market since 2010 and offers business monitoring tools, AI analytics, and customized reports on more than 600 metrics.  


Brandwatch monitors mentions of companies and their logos in over 100 million sources, including media, social networks, and messengers. Other features of the platform include automatic alerts for negative reviews, data history storage for up to a year, analytics for your industry, and trending topics and hashtags. 


Brandwatch pricing


Three tariff plans are available:   


Consumer Intelligence - For researchers and analysts - allows you to search for market information, analyze data at scale, and distribute flexible, automated reports and alerts across your business.   


Social Media Management - For social media managers - allows you to manage all your social media channels in one place and collaborate on content creation in one social calendar.  


Influencer Marketing - For influencer marketers - manages relationships with influencers at every stage of interaction and allows you to quickly search the influencer database.   


Unfortunately, the pricing is undisclosed.


Key features of Brandwatch: 

  • Track brands, their competitors, and industry trends across more than 100 million online sources.  

  • Create, schedule, and track posts across all networks, channels, and regions in one place. 

  • All-in-one social media management 


The choice between Brandwatch and Meltwater depends on your specific needs. If in-depth sentiment analysis and high data accuracy are important to you, then Brandwatch may be the best choice. If you need a tool with a wide coverage of data sources and automation capabilities, then Meltwater is worth considering. 


TVEyes 


TVEyes is a global search engine for television, radio, and online video and audio. TVEyes provides a TV and radio monitoring platform that allows users to search, browse, report, analyze, and archive US and international audio and video content.   


TVEyes is designed to be used as a research tool by marketing, PR, media communications and journalism professionals.   


TVeyes screenshots

One of the most important features of TVEyes is its ease of use. The intuitive interface makes it easy to search for keywords, track mentions, and analyze data without getting bogged down in complexity. Whether you're looking for specific news segments or need a comprehensive report, TVEyes delivers with accuracy and speed. 


TVEyes has been a leader in the field of broadcast data retrieval since 1999 and launched the first automated broadcast search and monitoring system.  


The company regularly garners many positive reviews on listing platforms.


Key features of TVEyes: 

  • High-quality tools for media monitoring.  

  • Powerful keyword search.  

  • Real-time email alerts.  

  • Editing and downloading clips.  

  • An unlimited number of full-length transcripts.  

  • Export reports with key metrics.  

  • Search by date or time. 


TVEyes Pricing: 


Prices are not listed on the website. For current pricing information, please contact TVEyes.  

A free subscription is available for a certain period.   


TVEyes offers easier access compared to the Meltwater platform. It is also easier to use and faster. Meltwater does not offer the same depth of coverage access as TVEyes.   


On review platforms, users complain that the media lists and news monitoring features in Meltwater were incomplete and inaccurate, and that features such as reporting, analytics, and press release distribution were useless. TVEyes, on the other hand, was described as a platform that allows you to stay up-to-date and not miss any important news. 


Critical Mention 


Critical Mention is a cloud-based media monitoring platform that offers solutions for searching and sharing TV and radio content, related metadata, and historical archives


The main features of Critical Mention include broadcast monitoring, online news tracking, and social media monitoring. It provides analysis to generate reports using custom templates, graphs, and charts and visualizes coverage in density maps and word clouds. Critical Mention offers solutions for global TV and radio sources, Nielsen markets, cable networks, online newspapers, magazines, trade publications, forums, and blogs. This allows users to share and improve the editing tool.  


Critical Mention integrates with media monitoring platforms to manage TV channels in different languages. It offers a variety of tools for visualizing ad-hoc searches, mobile-friendly reporting, self-service, and offline storage of local and national current affairs.  

What people appreciated most about the tool was its simplicity, convenience, the quality of the customized reports, and the ease of sharing these reports. 


Key features of Critical Mention: 

  • Integration of a Media Contact Database alongside the media monitoring part of the platform. 

  • Mobile-Friendly features. 

  • Real-time media monitoring of more than 2,000 broadcast networks. 

  • Customizable reporting with templates. 

  • Special search for mentions for the last 60 days. 

  • Video editing with the proprietary WordPlay feature. 

  • API availability for integrations. 


Critical Mention Pricing: 

Prices are not listed on the website. The cost of tariff plans is selected according to the individual needs of the client. However, the packages may include: 

  • Accounts for large PR agencies working with multiple clients.  

  • Scalable packages for growing PR and communications companies.  

  • Individual plans for individual brands and organizations.  

  • Special rates for non-profit organizations.   

  • Access to API for partners. 


If we compare Critical Mention with Meltwater, the latter loses out due to the greater complexity of its use and the need for a long-term period of learning and getting used to the tool. Another problem is that during new updates, old features get moved around and become difficult to find. Critical Mention, on the other hand, is easy to use and causes fewer problems for users.   


So, Although Meltwater is one of the most popular media monitoring tools, many worthy alternatives may better suit the needs and budgets of different companies. The platforms reviewed in this article - Semantrum,  Muck Rack, Brandwatch, TVEyes, and Critical Mention - offer a wide range of features for monitoring and analyzing brand mentions in the media and social media.  

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