In the world of business, reputation is everything and so knowing whether customers are singing your praises or trash talking your brand is everything. In 2024, there are a number of tools available which can help you to check out the word on the street for your business and, today, we’re going to be shining a spotlight on Talkwalker.
Tell me more about Talkwalker
Launched in 2009 in Luxembourg, Talkwalker is the brainchild of Christopher Folschette, a business consultant and holder of a Masters’ in Computer Science and Economics. In simple terms, Talkwalker is a consumer intelligence platform offering a comprehensive suite of tools to businesses to help them to generate valuable insights and metrics across online, social, print and TV & radio media.
Who uses Talkwalker ?
Talkwalker boasts an impressive 2,500+ customers – and some of these are in the big leagues. The platform’s clientele includes:
- Adidas
- HelloFresh
- Clarins
Talkwalker’s client base is predominantly in the USA although the company does have a worldwide reach and is available in a whopping 187 languages.
Starting your conversation with Talkwalker
If you fancy getting onboard with the movers and shakers listed above, here’s how it’s done:
Your first step is to head on over to TalkWaker’s website where you can schedule a demo to get the lowdown on how it works and what it can do for you. Hit the pink “Schedule A Demo” button, choose your date and time and enter your email address to receive your invite.
At this stage, you’ll also have the opportunity to ask any burning questions you may have by using the pink buttons in the bottom right hand corner.
Once you’ve completed your demo, you’ll be given instructions about how to sign up to become a bona-fide Talkwalker user.
What does Talkwalker track?
Quite a bit actually – this clever platform delivers insights by gathering information from:
- 10+ social networks
- 150 million websites
- 30,000 brand logos which appear in online images and videos
What’s the word on Talkwalker’s features?
Still with us? Great – because it’s time to delve into Talkwalker’s features – and there are a fair few of them so you may want to put the kettle on before venturing further!
Social Listening
No, we’re not talking about eavesdropping on that couple arguing in the pub – social listening is a vital tool for businesses which allows them to trawl the internet for mentions of their brand – the good, the bad and the downright weird. Talkwalker’s social listening tool is designed to allow brands to identify, analyze and understand mentions and conversations which shape the way that your company is perceived. It also then helps you to “devise initiatives that reinforce positive messaging and counteract negative narratives, enhancing your brand’s reputation”.
Social Benchmarking
Social benchmarking is all about comparing your brand to your competitors’ in terms of performance, activity and perception in order to figure out where you stand. Talkwalker’s social benchmarking tool helps you to do all of this, while analyzing industry standards – and then to identify new marketing and engagement opportunities to get your brand ahead of the pack.
Media Monitoring
The term ‘media’ can cover a multitude of sins and, in 2024, Talkwalker’s got you covered. The media monitoring feature is one of Talkwalker’s most popular and as well as the expected social media platforms such as Facebook and X (formerly Twitter), this clever platform also takes into account traditional media. For the uninitiated, traditional media includes print (for example newspapers and magazines), TV and radio and more. This is super-helpful for brands who are looking for a way to gain insights from across the board rather than just the digital world (even in 2024, there’s more to media than the internet!).
Audience Insights
While social listening and sentiment analysis give you an overall view of what people think of your brand, audience insights dig a little deeper. This invaluable tool lets you get to know your customers (and your prospective ideal customers) in a way that doesn’t require you to follow them home (which is usually frowned upon in polite society). Audience insights can help you to build a profile of your ideal customer in terms of gender, age, location, employment and interests. You can then use this profile to laser-focus your marketing and advertising efforts to make sure that your message hits home every time.
Customer feedback analytics
As the name suggests, this one is all about collating customer feedback through reviews and other methods and then taking a closer look to find patterns and discrepancies which will help you to pinpoint any areas of your business which may need refinement or alteration.
Blue Silk
The jewel in Talkwalker’s crown, Blue Silk is the platform’s trademarked AI and includes Blue Silk GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer). It’s what? You ask. This is basically artificial intelligence on steroids and is created to not only collate and analyze data but also to enrich and categorise it in order to produce the deepest and most actionable insights for brands.
Customer support
In 2024, reactive and efficient customer support is usually at the tippity top of most people’s wish lists when getting onboard with a new system. Talkwalker offers support to its customers via email, telephone or by virtual meeting (as we all like options) however, the platform’s customer support is not, at present, 24/7.
Reports
While all of this lovely information is great, it doesn’t mean much if you don’t understand it. Talkwalker offers standard and custom reporting as well as its patented “What You See Is What You Get” reporting for convenience and ease of use and fast and easy sharing. Talkwalker is the first reported platform to include a video recognition tool in acknowledgement of the fact that, in 2024, video is the chosen medium online for many many users.
What are Talkwalker’s integrations?
Great question ! While you want to take advantage of Talkwalker’s many features, you also need to make sure that it’s compatible with the other stuff you’re using so, here, we’ll take a look at Talkwalker’s integrations:
- Zapier
- Hootsuite
- Facelift
- Google Analytics 360
- Tableau
- Meta for Business
- ReviewTrackers
- Trustpilot
Talkwalker does also have plans for further integrations so it’s always worth checking back with customer support to ensure that you’ll be covered.
Talkwalker – The Pros and Cons
As good as a tool might be, none are perfect and so, in order to present the bigger picture, in this section we’re looking at the Pros and Cons of Talkwalker:
The Pros
It’s always best to start with the good news so here goes with the Pros of Talkwalker:
- User friendliness – Talkwalker users say that getting onboard with the system is fast and super-easy with intuitive dashboards which take you by the hand and guide you through in a logical and easy to understand way.
- Groundbreaking – Talkwalker has some great features which are more or less unique – such as the image and video recognition feature which is not yet available on many other similar platforms. Talkwalker is also known for its advanced use of AI, designed to provide results which are as accurate as possible.
- Customer support – As well as fantastic reactive support from real live personnel, including virtual meetings Talkwalker also provides tons of tutorials and guides which allow you to get started and to troubleshoot any issues for yourself quickly and efficiently.
- Dashboards and channels – Fans of Talkwalker rave about its easily customisable dashboards and variety of channels which help to provide a truly personalised experience.
- In-depth analytics – While there are many social listening tools available out there, Talkwalker’s analytics and metrics are considered superior by many of its users.
- Results – Talkwalker offers users a generous number of monthly results starting from 10,000 with the Basic Package to a cool one million with the Enterprise Package.
The Cons
It can’t all be sunshine and rainbows of course and, in this section, we’ll take a look at the downsides of Talkwalker:
- Price – Let’s start with the elephant in the room – at $11000+ a year, Talkwalker is anything but a budget tool. Because of the prohibitive nature of the price, Talkwalker may be out of reach for many small to medium sized businesses; many of whom are feeling the crunch at the moment as it is.
- Social limitation – Unfortunately, listening results from Facebook and Instagram are somewhat limited which can be a frustration. This is no fault of Talkwalker however as, due to privacy concerns, Facebook has a policy of limiting what is passed through its API’s (Application Programming Interfaces).
- Complicated – As you may expect from such a sophisticated tool, getting the hang of it may take a little time and effort.
- Occasional slowdowns – Some users report that if they ‘try to do much all at once’ the system will tend to slow down or, worse, present them with ‘the spin of death’.
Putting your money where your mouth is with Talkwalker
So, our spidey sense tells us that the next thing you’ll want to know is how much Talkwalker is going to cost you. Your wish is our command and, so, here goes with Talkwalker’s pricing:
When it comes to flashing your cash, Talkwalker offers several different packages and these are:
Listen $11000 per annum
With unlimited users, the Listen package is perfect for small businesses and startups and offers custom alerts and reports, IQ apps and Talkwalker’s trademarked Blue Silk AI application.
Analyze $ Custom / on request
As well as all the goodies from the Listen package, including unlimited users, the Analyze package hands over 2 x volume for deeper insights, social benchmarking and custom dashboards and KPI analytics.
Business $ Custom / on request
For the supercharged, medium to large company, the Business package has it all – all the bells and whistles listed for the other packages plus 20 x volume, holistic perspectives and consumer intelligence insights.
Each and every one of Talkwalker’s packages includes professional onboarding, access to online training and training videos and tutorials, periodic strategy reviews and regional customer support. Talkwalker does not, however, offer a free trial at the moment.
Are there any alternatives to Talkwalker ?
Yep – quite a lot of them in fact and, in this section, we’ll take a peek at some of these alternatives:
Sprinklr
New York based Sprinklr is one of Talkwalker’s major competitors and boasts some pretty big names as clients including Capital one, L’Oreal, Prada, McDonalds and Samsung. Sprinklr costs $299 for the Basic Plan and the Enterprise Plan price is listed as “Custom” – which usually means big bucks. While Sprinklr offers some of the same features as Talkwalker, the overall consensus is that the set up, ease of use and overall user experience of Talkwalker is superior. Sprinklr offers a free 7 day trial.
Brandwatch
Launched in 2005 as Magpie Search & Alert, Brandwatch is something of a veteran of the sentiment analysis world and is used by a whopping 50 million people every day including Carlsberg and Toyota. Offering an ‘all in one social media management’ service, you can get on board with Brandwatch for between $1000 and $1750 per month. Brandwatch offers a free demo but not a free trial and in terms of user reviews, Brandwatch is even Stevens with Talkwalker with an overall 4.5 star rating.
Meltwater
Founded by Jørn Lyseggen in Norway in 2001, Meltwater offers media and broadcast monitoring and serves some prestigious clients including BBC Worldwide, Penguin Random House and Thames Water. When it comes to price, you’re spoilt for choice with Meltwater as the platform offers four different packages. Meltwater’s website is decidedly cagey when it comes to revealing prices but internet sources indicate that the tool is priced at around $8000 per year for a comprehensive monitoring package.
Sprout Social
Hailing itself as ‘the most intuitive social media platform on the market’, Sprout Social was founded in Chicago in 2010 by Justyn Howard and currently boasts a client base of 30,000 and employs around 1141 people. The platform specialises in all things social media including monitoring and listening and offers its users four separate packages which are priced as follows – Standard, $199 per month – Professional, $299 per month, Advanced, $399 per month and Enterprise, price on request.
The Review
So, we’ve told you about Talkwalker’s features, we’ve clued you in on the Pros and Cons and we’ve introduced you to its competitors – but what’s the verdict?
Although, as we’ve demonstrated, there are lots of different options available when you’re looking for social listening for your brand – but they’re not all created equal. Unfortunately, some social listening platforms have failed to evolve to the changing times, leaving their clients feeling frustrated.
Talkwalker, on the other hand, boldly goes where no social monitoring platform has gone before. As well as being user friendly, the platform delivers great customisation features for a truly personalised experience. With 187 languages, Talkwalker is also committed to being a global brand.
To boldly go – with AI
While Talkwalker’s products and solutions are impressive on the whole, it really comes into its own with its AI capabilities. With so much competition out there, Talkwalker’s use of AI, via its Blue Silk feature, really is its secret weapon and quite easily puts it head and shoulders above the competition in terms of results. The platform also excels when it comes to customer support – something which is of paramount importance to a great many businesses who find themselves frustrated by long waits and online forms.
If Talkwalker has its downsides, they’re pretty measured ones. Yes, the price is fairly high but this is balanced by its advanced capabilities. Similarly, those who mention that the system can be ‘complicated’ will understand that this is a by-product of the fact that Talkwalker has some pretty sophisticated capabilities. Thankfully, the significant number of tutorials and guides available are enough to get most people up and running with Talkwalker in just a short amount of time.
The verdict
While Talkwalker’s price and complexities may mean that it’s not suitable for smaller businesses and startups (who, quite frankly, probably won’t need such a powerful tool), it’s ideal for medium to large sized companies who rely on solid, accurate analysis and metrics. There’s no doubt that Talkwalker should be considered an investment and, as such, businesses who are looking to get onboard with this tool would do well to also invest in comprehensive training for their employees to make sure that they get the absolute most out of this extremely impressive platform.
