NetBase

We use NetBase primarily to monitor our brand health but over the course of the last 3+ years that we have been with NetBase, our account manager/reps have helped us discover several other ways that the platform can provide intelligence. We now use NetBase for competitive analysis, crisis management/monitoring, and campaign performance. These are all areas that our organization had never before had insights to. It has also helped us become better connected with our different business lines/industries.

Over the course of the last 3 years we have been with NetBase, we have watched them expand the platform in ways we would have never imagined. They continue to expand their capabilities, and as a result, it has become indescribably less effortless for us to obtain insights and understand our customers, general consumer opinions and needs. Providing this data to our key stakeholders throughout our company is something that has never done before prior to using NetBase. We support the high level/ top of the organization who have control over how our field locations operate. These individuals are not in the social space from day-to-day, so part of what we set out to accomplish is make them aware of what is taking place in the social space. NetBase allows us to uncover insights we never had access to before, enabling us to provide strategic guidance on our social business approach on a multitude of levels, including crisis management, business development, campaign performance, and competitive intelligence.

Pros:
- Customer service & attention to your company, business objectives, and what they can do to help in accomplishing those goals. Account reps are genuine and do not come across as being sales-y (i.e., 'it's all about the benjamins'). This has been a driving factor for us. NetBase has really come a long way since my first exposure to NetBase 3 years ago. Keeping up with new features/functionalities over the years has been a challenge, but an even bigger challenge has been understanding how to maximize and use it in a way that helps our business. They are ALWAYS there to provide support when you need it, no matter how minor the question or issue, I can't speak highly enough about the customer service at NetBase. It is very hard to put it in words, but this truly is vital to us, and makes all the difference. They really do act as an extension of your team.
- Product releases (constantly rolling out new features, sending out bi-weekly email notifications, offering webinars post-release)
- Digital Channel Intelligence DCI
- Dashboard templates
- Speed/performance
- They listen to customer feedback and actually action it.

Cons:
User-friendliness of the reporting functionality is an ongoing issue that they are still working on (formatting of the widgets/metrics within the report and exporting to a PDF). This really is my only complaint about the platform, although this wasn't even an available feature when we first started using the platform.

We use Netbase for a variety of different needs.
Campaign tracking - When you launch a campaign, you can analyze it over time to [see] how things go. Disaster control - if something bad happens for you or your client, you can see in real time the things they are saying, so you can figure out how to fix it. Disaster tracking - if sentiment gets too low, you can set up an alert so you can immediately see what is going on in order to identify the problem. NetBase is being used in a number of different ways at my agency. We use it to keep track of our competitors; we use it to track our success for our current clients, and one of the most useful purposes is for new business. NetBase helps us discover what works and what doesn't for potential clients, and also uncovers patterns or opportunities, especially when it comes to social media.

Campaign tracking - When you launch a campaign, you can analyze it over time to [see] how things go.
Disaster control - if something bad happens for you or your client, you can see in real time the things they are saying, so you can figure out how to fix it.
Disaster tracking - if sentiment gets too low, you can set up an alert so you can immediately see what is going on in order to identify the problem.

NetBase is being used in a number of different ways at my agency. We use it to keep track of our competitors; we use it to track our success for our current clients, and one of the most useful purposes is for new business. NetBase helps us discover what works and what doesn't for potential clients, and also uncovers patterns or opportunities, especially when it comes to social media.

NetBase is well suited for research, new business, and diving into broad topics and finding subtrends.It also does a great job of getting to a deeper level of sentiment and behaviors/attitudes that some other platforms through NLP and the use of themes (with more accuracy). The highly flexible platform ensures that you can cut and filter your data in just about any way imaginable, and it's done very quickly. For research projects where historical data is important, NetBase can go back 2 years without additional fees (competitors often charge a fee for more than 30 days historical).

Pros:
Their NLP is very strong with the ability to distinguish subject in sentences and then apply analysis based on either the subject or sentence. Competitors lack strong NLP and often have lower degrees of accuracy.
The platform is highly flexible with dozens of ways to filter and cut the data. It is great for an analyst that really wants to deep dive into the data. However, the analysis done automatically by NetBase is also strong enough that less experienced users would still be able to gain insight with ease.
The customizable dashboards are perfect for client reporting and drastically reduce the amount of time spent preparing recurring reports and decks. These are also very flexible depending on reporting needs.

Cons:

I have a lot of experience with writing boolean queries in social listening platforms, and NetBase's option for boolean is not as user friendly. Getting familiar with the platform's more basic query structure when not using boolean also requires a slight learning curve (if you are used to boolean).
Even for all of it's strengths, it gets pretty pricey for only a handful of users. For an agency that requires multiple seats, this can add up very quickly.
If having 100% of data is necessary (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. Not a problem for some situations, but definitely a problem for others.