Brandwatch vs Talkwalker Review: Social Media Listening Tools

Brandwatch is perfect for agencies and medium-sized businesses looking for actionable insights from social and consumer data. On the other hand, Talkwalker is the go-to tool for medium-sized businesses that want to understand consumers’ needs, benchmark their competitors, and identify emerging industry trends.

Brandwatch is one of the most expensive social listening tools. You may want to use an alternative like Talkwalker. But will you still get the capabilities you’re looking for?

This review compares Brandwatch vs Talkwalker in depth to help you choose the tool that aligns with your needs, goals, and budget.

Brandwatch vs Talkwalker overview

What is Brandwatch used for?

Brandwatch is used to conduct consumer research through social listening, customer engagement, and media analytics. It analyzes data from multiple online sources using Iris AI and subject-matter experts, providing brands with actionable insights to power their decisions.

Brandwatch offers a suite of three products:

• Consumer Intelligence helps you understand your customers. Brandwatch analyzes consumer data from social media platforms, blogs, websites, and news sites to provide actionable market insights.
• Social media management allows you to identify, attract, and engage your customers across social platforms. Brandwatch offers social media management solutions like publish, engage, listen, audience, advertise, measure, and benchmark.
• Influencer marketing. The influence discovery tool lets you identify influencers, build relationships, and manage campaigns.

Brandwatch is best for agencies and medium-sized businesses

Brandwatch offers personalized products and services to agencies and medium-sized businesses, depending on their niche. Agencies enjoy custom services like unlimited channels, publishing tools, approval workflows, and seamless collaboration at scalable price plans.

The social media listening software serves industries like Technology, Media & Entertainment, Finance, Education, Pharma & healthcare, and Retail.

What does Talkwalker do?

Talkwalker provides consumer intelligence solutions through media monitoring and analyzing consumer data across numerous online platforms.

The platform uses three core platforms, Marketplace, Data, and Blue Silk™ AI to provide in-depth market analytics.

Talkwalker’s products include:

• Social listening helps you listen to online conversations and gather actionable insights to understand your customers.
• Media monitoring lets you discover industry trends, identify influencers, and improve customer relationships through real-time alerts.
• Social benchmarking lets you discover market opportunities by comparing your strategies with competitors and industry standards.
• Audience insights allow you to understand your audience’s needs by studying their likes and behaviors.
• Customer feedback analytics help you provide better customer service to boost customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention.
• Social content ratings let you measure your performance across all your social channels to help you improve your social media strategies.

Talkwalker is best for medium-to-large enterprises

Talkwalker is ideal for medium and large businesses because they have larger social media strategy budgets. So, they benefit from Talkwalker’s wide array of customer intelligence solutions. For instance, brands access Discovery.ai, a group of specialists who provide services like trend analysis, audience segmentation, and semiotics (understanding the use of signs and symbols in communication).

Plus, Talkwalker’s customizable pricing plans allow brands to choose personalized services that align with their goals and budgets. 

Talkwalker vs Brandwatch pricing

I came across review sites that claim that Talkwalker’s pricing starts at 9,600 USD per year. But that information might be outdated because you won’t find specific price tags on Talkwalker’s website. The same goes for Brandwatch since both platforms offer customizable plans. 

I also noted that Brandwatch and Talkwalker don’t offer free trials or freemiums. So the only way to understand what package works best for your brand is to book a demo with the platforms’ representatives.

Talkwalker pricing

Talkwalker has four pricing plans:

• Listen
• Analyze
• Business
• Premium

Note: I scheduled a call with one of Talkwalker’s agents and learned they only offer annual packages starting from 1,200 USD. 

Brandwatch pricing

Brandwatch offers three pricing plans:

• Consumer Intelligence: 1,250 EUR/month – 5,000 EUR/month
• Social Media Management: 1,250 EUR/month – 5,000 EUR/month
• Influencer Marketing: 750 EUR/month – 2,000 EUR/month

Note: I got information about the price ranges above after booking a call with a Brandwatch agent.

Brandwatch vs Talkwalker ease of use

Since I don’t have first-hand experience using Brandwatch and Talkwalker for social listening, my ease of use opinion is based on user reviews.

Most users feel that Talkwalker is easier to use than Brandwatch. The dashboard is clean, automated, and intuitive. For instance, you’ll find updated data on the centralized dashboard every time you log in to your account. So you don’t have to hover around your dashboard to view search results.

Below are user ratings on Brandwatch vs Talkwalker’s ease of use on different review sites.

Brandwatch vs Talkwalker social listening features

Talkwalker offers more social listening features than Brandwatch.

However, both tools have some similar capabilities. For instance, they offer AI assistants for topic suggestions, customizable widgets, and filters to sort out search results. Filters include media types, sentiment, country or region, and languages.

Both platforms also have an extensive network coverage of millions of online databases that provide unstructured data for analysis.

Below are the outstanding Brandwatch vs Talkwalker social listening features.

Brandwatch social listening features

Brandwatch offers these social listening features:

• Unlimited searches allow you to conduct social listening using different keywords as often as you want.
• Boolean operators let you narrow down your search results. Brandwatch offers 48 Boolean operators.
• Historical data is a year-worth collection of data to help you identify industry trends and discover new opportunities.
• Sentiment analysis helps you understand the perceptions behind people’s conversations, whether positive, negative, or neutral.
• AI smart alerts let you discover spikes or drops in mentions in real-time.
• Social box integration is a centralized inbox that helps you manage conversations from all your social channels.

Talkwalker social listening features

Talkwalker offers the following social listening features:

• Advanced Boolean catalogs filter out unnecessary mentions and spam to let you get only quality insights that matter to your brand.
• Customizable dashboards allow you to generate actionable insights from the collected data related to your brand and industry.
• Sentiment analysis shows how customers feel about your brand, the industry, or competitors.
• Influencer analysis helps you identify and collaborate with influencers in your industry.
• Visual listening lets you understand customers’ perceptions of your brand’s images and videos.
• Conversation clusters are a collection of topics showing how conversations connect.
• Real-time alerts of trends and mentions related to your brand help you identify and resolve potential crises. They also inform you of new marketing opportunities.
• Instant AI summaries are reports that condense insights you can share with your team.

We’ll discuss the key social listening features in the next section.

Brandwatch vs Talkwalker alerts

Brandwatch uses an AI assistant that automatically detects changes in mentions and gives smart, real-time alerts. I like how detailed the smart alerts are since they show the percentage increase or decrease in mentions and who influenced these changes.

On the other hand, Talkwalker’s Real Time Alerts tool helps you identify trends and issues affecting your brand. For example, it detects increased mentions related to your brand, allowing you to address crises and adjust your marketing or communication strategies.

Brandwatch vs Talkwalker boolean operators

Brandwatch and Talkwalker Boolean operators allow you to filter out unnecessary data and focus on what matters to your brand. 

Although Brandwatch has more Boolean operators (48), Talkwalker offers advanced Boolean catalogs to refine insights. 

Talkwalker vs Brandwatch sentiment analysis

Talkwalker and Brandwatch have sentiment analysis features to help you understand the attitudes and emotions behind customers’ conversations.

Talkwalker uses an AI-powered feature that uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) to pick out the emotional states in human conversations. Also, Talkwalker’s sentiment drivers show keywords around positive or negative brand mentions to help you spot shifts or potential crises.

On the other hand, Brandwatch uses rules based on Natural Language Processing (NLP) to conduct sentiment analysis. Its team of experts manually analyzes conversations to identify patterns in how people express their opinions. This analysis involves knowledge-based, machine learning, and customizable rules processes.

Brandwatch vs Talkwalker influencer tracking

Brandwatch offers more advanced influencer tracking features than Talkwalker. 

Brandwatch’s influencer Discover tool enables you to identify key influencers, build relationships, and manage influencer campaigns. This tool tracks over 30 million global creators to spot those influencers who advocate for your brand.

It also allows you to record and store influencers’ contact details, and monitor your communication with them. You can also measure and report on the performance of your influencer marketing campaigns.

On the other hand, Talkwalker’s social search tool lets you identify potential influencers. It gives insights into influencers’ reach, engagement, and post frequency to help you work out the most relevant influencers for your brand.

The smart theme cloud shows what potential influencers post more about to help you narrow down the best fit for your brand.

Talkwalker vs Brandwatch  competitor analysis

Talkwalker and Brandwatch have comprehensive competitor analysis capabilities.

Talkwalker’s social benchmarking tool lets you know how your social media strategy performance compares to your competitors. You’ll discover their areas of strength and weaknesses, helping you identify new opportunities.

Talkwalker’s competitor analysis provides comparison insights into the share of voice, sentiment analysis, customer demographics, and audience interests between you and your competitors.

On the other hand, Brandwatch’s benchmarking tool helps you compare your performance against competitors and industry leaders.

Brandwatch’s competitor analysis provides actionable insights into your competitors’ social media and content strategies. You’ll also see their share of voice, target audience metrics, successes, and failures.

Brandwatch vs Talkwalker trends tracking

Brandwatch and Talkwalker use AI-powered solutions and consumer data to conduct trend analysis.

With Brandwatch, you can spot trends around the industry, products, or services using historical data. Plus, Brandwatch’s consumer research allows you to identify trending keywords, hashtags, emojis, places, or people. You can also use Iris, Brandwatch’s AI assistant, to discover short-term trends or spikes in online conversations.

Talkwalker’s AI-powered consumer intelligence helps you identify and predict industry trends. Blue Silk™ GPT, Talkwalker’s AI, lets you identify shifts in consumers’ preferences by classifying trends into topics and subtopics.

You’ll also discover what factors influence industry trends like competitor activity, demographics, and politics. Plus, Conversation clusters help you identify emerging trends and themes from online conversations.

The trend analysis insights allow you to respond to trends that affect your brand. And you can make decisions that drive change. For instance, you can create marketing campaigns that address new market opportunities and target specific audiences.

Talkwalker vs Brandwatch reporting 

Talkwalker and Brandwatch use AI-powered solutions to generate data summaries.

Talkwalker’s Blue Silk™ GPT generates clear and condensed reports of analyzed data. These summaries are interactive and customizable. So you can personalize the reports depending on your role and share them with your team.

Brandwatch’s AI-powered assistant, Iris, summarizes and categorizes search results into reports. These automated reports give an overview of topics or themes that matter to your brand. 

So you can compare them, spot patterns, and share these summaries with your team for further action or to power decisions.

Brandwatch reviews

Brandwatch is a powerful consumer intelligence tool that excels in social listening. Users love that Brandwatch offers robust features, providing useful insights into their brands’ social performance. On the flip side, they dislike Brandwatch’s discrete pricing model, steep learning curve, and limitations when connecting to some apps.

Brandwatch positive reviews

What users like about Brandwatch

I have reviewed information on Brandwatch’s website about its products and solutions. And I like that the platform has robust social listening features that social media analysts in any industry will find valuable. For instance, Brandwatch analyzes data from a wide range of sources to generate insights. 

Here’s what other users like about Brandwatch:

• Interactive user interface
• Customizable dashboard and metrics
• Intuitive and robust Boolean search functionality
• Excellent customer support
• Advanced, real-time insights
• Deep data analytics
• Flexible widgets and filter options
• Vast coverage of social platforms

Brandwatch critical reviews

What users do not like about Brandwatch

I didn’t like that Brandwatch doesn’t offer a free trial to users who want to sample its products. Plus, I requested a demo of Brandwatch’s products but didn’t get any feedback until I made a second request 6 days later.

Below are some of the things users don’t like about Brandwatch:

• Limitations when connecting with some third-party tools
• Steep learning curve
• High prices
• Less intuitive sentiment analytics
• Overwhelming data

Talkwalker reviews

Talkwalker is one of the best social intelligence tools. Most users like Talkwalker’s robust capabilities, intuitive interface, and top-notch customer service. On the other hand, they dislike its limitations like the number of mentions per topic, integration to some apps, and data mining capacity.

Talkwalker positive reviews

What users like about Talkwalker

Although I didn’t get a free trial of Talkwalker, I have access to its free alerts and social search tools to monitor online conversations. I also like the website tutorials that give more information about Talkwalker’s products and solutions. Plus, I love the visual listening tool that lets you understand consumers’ perceptions of your brand’s visual elements. 

Here’s what other users like about Talkwalker:

• Easy to set up and use
• Great audience segmentation features
• Automatic sentiment analysis
• Robust visualization capabilities
• Many filters and widgets for narrowing results
• Comprehensive analytics
• Excellent customer support

Talkwalker critical reviews

What users do not like about Talkwalker

I didn’t like that Talkwalker has a discrete pricing model and no free trial. Also, Talkwalker’s representatives aren’t available 24/7 for a one-on-one call about the platform’s packages. I had to wait 7 days to talk to one of their agents.

Below are things that other users don’t like about Talkwalker:

• Limitations in the number of mentions per topic
• Expensive pricing plans
• Limited tracking on social platforms like LinkedIn
• Limited data mining capacity
• Some off-target mentions reports

Brandwatch vs Talkwalker customer support

Brandwatch and Talkwalker offer various customer support services, including email, in-platform chats, and phone support.

Although my interaction with both platforms has been limited, I experienced better customer support with Talkwalker than with Brandwatch. 

I requested a demo with a representative from each platform. Brandwatch acknowledged receipt of the request but didn’t schedule a specific time for the call. On the other hand, Talkwalker’s customer support immediately booked me for a call with one of their representatives.

Brandwatch customer support

Brandwatch offers the following customer support options:

• Email support
• In-platform chats
• Engage mobile app
• Blog
• Webinars
• Events
• Content
• Brandwatch Academy
• The Brandwatch Bulletin

Note: The last six options are part of Brandwatch’s resources.

Talkwalker customer support

Talkwalker has these customer support options:

• Email support
• Phone support
• Live chat
• Client help center
• Blog
• Webinars
• Reports

Note: The last four options fall under the Resources category in the company’s website.

Should I use Brandwatch or Talkwalker for social listening?

When comparing Brandwatch vs Talkwalker for social listening, Talkwalker is the better app. Its AI-powered solutions help brands understand the context behind online conversations and understand consumers’ needs. It’s ideal for medium and large-sized businesses looking for a robust social listening tool with a customizable price plan. Book a call with Talkwalker to get started on social listening.

Check out more reviews of social media listening apps on Quorage:

• Meltwater vs Sprinklr:Detailed Study
• Major Differences between Brand24 and Mention
• Why Brand24 Surpasess Owario
• Contrasting Features of Synthesio and Quid
• Why Brandwatch Outperforms Emplifi