NetBase Review

PROS: For more than a decade, it was a pleasure to be have taken part into the evolving social intelligence field. NetBase has shown its capability beyond just a social intelligence tool. So far, it offers some worthy functionality in today's market. This includes city geography and metro-level, cross-tabs, automated alerts, and Brand Passion Index.

CONS: In itself, the platform is sound. The only thing that should be included is historical data that's more than 27 months. Some platforms won't even have historical data. So the 27 months of data the platform can gain entry to is a plus.

PROS: There is no other platform that even comes close to what NetBase offers in analyzing sentiment and sentiment drivers. Whenever I need help with the product, I very much appreciate how helpful and knowledgable the Netbase account manager and social analyst team are. They are always available to help me out.

CONS: Occasionally I am overwhelmed by the incredible number of options for analysis. The dashboard feature is also really confusing to set up. But once you figure it out, it can be such a powerful tool.

PROS: Being able to make use of current industry themes and creating your own in driving comparisons has been most helpful. What makes the tool standout is how it can let you make your own dashboard with relevant views found to your listening objective.

CONS: It'd be great to be able to click on specific peaks and lows to observe conversations without going through filter edits on a certain day. While there are thresholds related with accounts, it's normal in utilizing a conversation sample. Sometimes 10% view isn't enough for a sample in landing such gems that you can respond to or acquiring a complete picture of the conversation made. It'd be nice if a step can be seen between the Decahose and Firehose sample.

PROS: This an intelligent and intuitive platform I have ever worked with. It provides great insight that we couldn’t be able to get without it. It is time saving-product, and helps us to reduce hours of manually analyzing comments and posts from every online source. We use the word clouds so we can combine them into the presentations. Thanks to its features we are able to dig deep into each comment in order to turn negative ones into a brand advocate.

CONS: I just want to see an integration with Pinterest.

PROS: I love how simple this platform is, everything is in one place, clean and easy to use. When I need something all I have to do is to enter into the query and the info is there, without waiting too much, the products I have used are way more slowly. Also, I love the visuals within the dashboards, showcase data is clear and in organized, charts are extremely useful if you know how to use them ( don’t worry, the product is easy to learn), when you want to compare brands then you will see the importance of the charts. I really like Netbase.

CONS: I have found some issue when doing the search, it’s complicated to define and categorize the terms accurately. Sometimes when I need a specific task it can be difficult to find proper queries. The free form query is different than in other platforms I have used.

PROS: NetBase is made for researching, for digging into brad topics, finding sub-trends and new businesses. It helps us get deep understanding of the sentiment and attitudes of the topics, comments and reviews. It is very flexible platform that allows us to cut and filter the data the way we want, and the work is done quickly. If you need historical data for some research project then NetBase allows you 2 years old data storage. They have really strong NLP that allows you to distinguish subject in sentences so you can apply the analyses based on the subject or sentence. The platform is very flexible and allows you to choose how you want to filter and cat data. Great tool for every analyst who wants deep insight into data. This product is for everyone, even for those with less experience, because you get analysis automatically from this platform. The dashboards are perfect and very customizable, it reduces great amount of time that is spent for preparing reports and decks. The platform is very flexible and it meets everyone’s needs.

CONS: I hate to say this, its option for Boolean is not user-friendly, if you want to learn its basic query structure you need a learning curve. To speak the truth, this tool is pretty pricey for some users, especially for agencies that require numerous seats. If you need 100% of the data then you have to enable the firehouse, because if you don’t do this then the sample is projected to universe count. It can be a problem for someone.

PROS: NetBase provides many different ways in which you can analyze the data. I like the unlimited number of topics and themes available and how you can get creative with them. Another thing I love is that you can create an authors-based theme to gain deeper insights into their behaviors beyond your brand space.

CONS: I don't have any dislikes. I wish though that social listening tools can categorizecompletely unstructured data into similar content and topics. Most social listening tools have a query-based set up, so if you miss a keyword, you might miss something.

PROS: You can get a holistic view of a conversation online through NetBase. Even though you will have to run multiple keyword sets, the final product can provide valuable insights if you if you know how to use it.

CONS: You can't get a full picture without supplementing it with other tools since it doesn't automatically pull in content from source such as Facebook, LinkedIn,etc. all at once. I also don't like that often times the most used terms, hashtags, and things are too obvious. It also seems that though sentiment may be a worthwhile metric, it typically only makes up such a small percentage of the total mentions or posts that it does not seem to be valuable.

PROS: Netbase is great in resolving business issues and inquiries. It can tackle matters ranging from campaign performance overviews to landscape investigation. The UI is user-friendly. They're constantly releasing enhanced and new features whenever there are platform changes.

CONS: While its frequent changes to features are of great use, it can be difficult to be an expert using this tool. This is largely a result of the evolving social media. But I feel training sessions done on a regular basis are important. It keeps you updated with what's going on with the tool and leveraging to its maximum capabilities.

PROS: There's nothing specific that I really like with Netbase. But since I'm a researcher, Netbase is what my primarily tool for carrying out research. I try to make use of it for clients as much as possible. It's insightful and you get to impart information to clients that they don't know about.

CONS: There are certain functional problems although there's nothing at the moment that I can rattle off in my head. I wish it's capable of mixing a couple functionality. I'm sure this will roll around soon. I'm already noticing how it's making loads better.

PROS: They offered me a number of ways in analyzing data. As long as you've gone through comprehensive training on what the tool is offering to unearth marketing insights. I love its unlimited themes and topics. You learn to be creative with them.

CONS: There's nothing specific that I hate. But if there's one aspect that social listening tools can do is by segregating data that remains unstructured into similar topics and content. A majority of listenin tools are set up in a query-based manner.

PROS: NetBase allows me to have a holistic view of the conversation. To uncover valuable insights you have to run various keyword sets, to remove things that are skewing so you can get the final product that if you know how to use it, it can be quite insightful.

CONS: In order to get full picture you need to supplement other tools, and this is because it doesn’t pull in all of the Likedln, Facebook or other sources. Additionally, I don’t like that the most used terms and hashtags are so obvious. I don’t like this because when I pull a Healthcare analytics and data there are lot of hashtags and terms #health etc. Also, in my opinion the sentiment metrics is only small percentage of the total mentions or posts that are not valuable.

PROS: There is not one specific thing that I like best about NetBase, Nevertheless, NetBase is my favourite tool to use to do my research work. I try and use it for my clients wherever possible as it provides very insightful data and you can tell clients things they genuinely wouldn't know otherwise.

CONS: There are some functional issues- although none I can think of off the top of my head. Maybe it could combine two functions for example, but I'm sure this will come, NetBase is constantly reviewing and updating its features while introducing new ones.

PROS: Netbase helps us to solve many business problems and questions, we are able to solve campaign performance overviews, investigating competitive landscape, social listening and many other. The interface is intuitive and user friendly, the constantly work on their improvement and release new features, they constantly improve the social platform.

CONS: I know that this tool is evolving, and they release new features that are highly useful, but the real challenge is that you need to become an expert to use this tool. It would be great if they could insert some training programs/tutorials/presentations so we can stay up-to-date with the product and to use it to the fullest.

PROS: We use Netbase as primary tool for tracking social activities in our organization. We really like its reliability for mentions and author counts. Text-analytics tool (for different word clouds for brands, personalities) is really helpful. I have to say that Netbase is growing and improving continuously, we constantly get more data and new features. The customer team is very helpful and always ready to help. We use its Pulse dashboards for reading data about important events.

CONS: I have found that is really complicated to access data outside US, especially data for state and city, while data for country is easy.

PROS: NetBase is suitable for any new business, research, exploring broad topics, and seeking out sub-trends. It's able to dive into deeper sentiment level and behaviors of other platforms via NLP and themes. The platform is flexible and ensure you're able to filter and cut out data in any way possible. It does this swiftly.

CONS: I've got a ton of experience writing boolean queries in social listening platforms. The option for boolean in Netbase isn't really user-friendly. Getting to know the platform's basic query structure when not opting for boolean can be a bit difficult to learn. Inspite of its strengths, it's still expensive for a majority of users.

PROS: Given the complexity of our business, NetBase is a flexible software that fits our specific needs so we can reach out to very specific audiences more effectively. In particular, it has a nice interface that lets us zero in on the information that we need.

CONS: It can be a bit of a challenge to filter out some of the noise, especially when I'm searching for business-to-business results. Understandably, getting social data only from B2B audiences isn't easy to set up. Perhaps future releases of the product will help.

PROS: NetBase has by far some of the best features for a social intelligence tool in the market, such as cross-tabs, geography to the city and metro level, the Brand Passion Index, and automated alerts Product support is another huge bonus as they took the time to ensure that everyone on our team understood the product and functionality. Its product development team constantly releases new features in a timely manner.

CONS: The platform is very sound but the only thing that I would add is historical data that is more than 27 months old. Then again, granted that most platforms do not even include historical data at all, the 27 months of data that the platform provides is already a bonus.

PROS: I love the emotional intelligence built into NetBase. It provides a level of insight that we otherwise wouldn't have been able to receive. It also saves my team hours of manually analyzing comments from a wide variety of sources online. The word clouds are so useful to incorporate in our presentations, letting us dig in to individual comments so we can reach out to those that have negative sentiment and turn them into brand advocates.

CONS: No major complaints. I would like to see Pinterest integrated into the platform in the future though.

PROS: NetBase is more than social intelligence tool, it offers features that are best in the market today, metro level and geography to the city, inclusive of cross-tabs, brand-passion index and automated alerts. This platform is used by our account manager to our analyst team. Onboard is smooth, useful and detailed. I have feeling that the team behind NetBase really care about their customer’s needs, because they always take time to ensure that the product and its functionality are understood by our team. They constantly implement new features. With Netbase unstructured social data is turned into helpful business intelligence that helps us to assist our clients when making an important business decision.

CONS: It would be great if they could implement historical data that is more than 27 months. There are many platforms that do not have historical data at all.

PROS: NetBase does a great job getting to a deeper level of sentiment and behaviors/attitudes The highly flexible platform lets you cut and filter your data quickly. Their NLP is very strong with the ability to distinguish subject in sentences and then apply analysis based on either the subject or sentence. Its customizable dashboards are perfect for client reporting and drastically reduce the amount of time spent preparing recurring reports and decks.

CONS: NetBase's option for boolean is not as user-friendly. It also gets pretty pricey for organizations with only a handful of users. Also, if you need having 100% of the data (e.g. for tracking a Twitter hashtag campaign or sweepstakes), you must enable the firehose. Otherwise the decahose is used and then the sample is projected to estimated universe count. This can be a problem in some cases.

PROS: I like the emotional intelligence embedded within the platform. This tool offers a nice insight level that wouldn't have gotten otherwise. It saved my team a lot of hours in reviewing comments manually. Word counts have proven their use to be included in presentations.

CONS: Nothing big to complain about. Although I'd love to have some Pinterest integration in the near future.

PROS: Its sound-byte functionality is extremely useful. Other third party social and media monitoring platforms I've used in the past doesn't have the same feature. This pushed me to frequently re-frame or refresh parameters of my search query. Netbase makes it simple in honing granular data points and giving clients a well-deserved service.

CONS: My real gripe with Netbase is how its dependent on decahose information in populating its dashboards as well as its widgets. Clients would frequently hunger for the firehouse, but at times, data can be limiting in terms of cost.

PROS: NetBase is the primary tool we use for social listening in our organization. We appreciate its reliability in delivering mentions and author count information. The text analytics, especially the different word clouds for brands, personalities etc. is useful as well. Their customer support is responsive and helpful.

CONS: It is difficult to drill down to local geographies outside the US (and posssibly Europe). While drilling down by country is easy enough, drilling down by state and city can be a problem.

PROS: I love the fact that I am able to use existing themes or to make my own in order to run comparisons. It allows me to create my own dashboards and to select views that are more relevant to my listening objective. Netbase’s LivePlus provides me with an insight I want activations in real-time.

CONS: It would be great if they could implement an option for click into peaks and lows in order to see what the conversations would look like without edit fillers. Also, they could make a step between Firehose and Decahose sample, you are able to use a sample of the conversation (decahose) but sometimes 10% view is not enough to find gems to get full picture of the conversation.

PROS: First of all, its service and customer team is one of the best team I have ever worked with. In our corporate office I am the only social media analyst, and what’s helpful for me is the fact that I can call our Account Manager at any time and to ask for recommendations, questions, to run a simple monitor. He always makes sure that everything works fine and that the tool it’s set up properly. The team is very responsive and very helpful. Also, I love this tool because of its user-friendly platform, its speed, customizable widgets and dashboards. They continuously work on their improvement and constantly release new features.

CONS: I have found that the sentiment analysis is not always accurate. In my experience, Dashboard, Topic and Analyze tabs are still confusing.

PROS: I won’t lie if I say that the Netbase is one of the best social listening and analytics tools in the market today. This product has rich interface with customized dashboards, analyze tab is easy to use and very quick tool provides you an insight of what’s happening and why. The global content sourcing is for every brand that needs coverage in countries like Russia and China, and some small forums in EU. You have API availability, documentation and SSO.

CONS: If you have a brand with large footprints you need to make separate queries so you can capture every content you need. Also, its NLP-based sentiment is not as accurate as they say (but this is same with other vendors). The real usage of Netbase is the ability to provide you with insightful conversation topics and every change in conversation.

PROS: NetBase has been by far one of the most intuitive and best solutions for social listening. We are able to quickly build queries in Boolean or assisted format and quickly dive into conversation insights. The customer service is also very amazing in helping us out.

CONS: This tool is great to find audience and conversation insights, but it needs a little more work on the measurement and analytics side. Nonetheless, I have truly enjoyed using this tool.

PROS: I love Netbase reporting capabilities! Reports are robust, customizable and comprehensive. I can easily export and share the reports. This tool offers great hashtag tracking options, option for tracking conversation, we are able to customize data ranges and add re-event topics to the social topic we track. We have great experience with this product.

CONS: I want to schedule posts outside of the given 5 minute increments, also I want to tag unique Twitter handles to photos that are published from the platform. I’m not satisfied with the demographics deep-dive ability. I wish I could put together comprehensive reports about the audience and segments that we are following by demographic and psychographic information.