If you’re a B2B marketer or comms lead, picking a social media analytics platform is like shopping for a new laptop—there’s a lot of noise, a few genuinely useful features, and plenty of stuff you’ll never use. This guide cuts through the sales fluff and tells you what to actually look for when sizing up platforms like Brandwatch for your team.
Who This Is For
You run or support a B2B team that needs more than vanity metrics. You’re looking for actionable insights, not just pretty dashboards. Maybe you’ve outgrown basic tools, or maybe you’re stuck in endless demos and just want someone to tell you what matters. Here’s what to focus on—and what to ignore.
1. Data Coverage: Go Wide, But Not Blind
What Matters:
You want to see the conversations that matter to your business. That means coverage across the social networks your audience uses, but also forums, blogs, and news. For B2B, LinkedIn is the elephant in the room—most tools claim to “support” it, but few do it well (thanks, LinkedIn API restrictions).
What to Check:
- Which networks are actually supported? Twitter/X, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, forums, blogs, news. LinkedIn? Usually just your own company posts, not the broader conversation.
- Historical data: Can you go back months or years, or just a few weeks?
- Global vs. local: Does it pick up conversations in your key markets?
- Depth of data: Are you getting just comments, or also shares, reactions, and mentions?
Pro Tip:
Don’t trust a long list of “supported sources.” Ask to see actual sample data for your industry and region.
Brandwatch Reality Check:
Brandwatch does well on Twitter, Reddit, and a lot of blogs/news. LinkedIn is limited (like everyone else, unless Microsoft buys them too). Historical data is strong, but getting data outside big markets can be hit-or-miss.
2. Search and Query Flexibility: Not Just Keywords
What Matters:
You need to pull up specific conversations, filter for decision-makers, or track weirdly named products. Boolean logic—AND, OR, NOT—should be basic, not a “premium” feature.
What to Check:
- Boolean search: Can you build complex queries? Nest terms? Exclude competitors or spam?
- Saved searches: Do you have to rebuild every time, or can you save and tweak?
- Entity recognition: Can it distinguish between “Apple” the fruit and “Apple” the company?
- Noise control: Can you filter out job postings, promotions, or irrelevant chatter?
Pro Tip:
If you can’t quickly isolate relevant conversations, you’ll drown in junk data.
Brandwatch Reality Check:
Brandwatch’s query builder is one of its strengths. Boolean is robust, you can get granular, and saved searches are easy. Entity recognition is decent, but not magic—it still confuses “java” the language and “java” the coffee sometimes.
3. Analytics and Reporting: Actionable, Not Just Attractive
What Matters:
Dashboards should help you spot trends, not just fill slides. B2B teams care about things like share of voice, sentiment shifts (especially during a crisis or campaign), and which content actually drives engagement with target accounts—not just raw likes.
What to Check:
- Custom dashboards: Can you build what you need, or are you stuck with canned reports?
- Share of voice: How well does it compare your brand to competitors or industry topics?
- Sentiment analysis: Is it accurate for your industry? (Tech sentiment is notoriously hard.)
- Segmentation: Can you filter by audience type, geography, or product line?
- Exporting: Can you get raw data out, or just screenshots of charts?
Pro Tip:
Ask for a demo using your data or industry, not generic “Coke vs. Pepsi” examples.
Brandwatch Reality Check:
Reporting here is flexible and visually solid. Share of voice and basic sentiment are reliable, but like all sentiment tools, it will miss sarcasm and industry jargon. Custom dashboarding is good, but exporting granular data for deep dives can be awkward.
4. Integration and Data Export: Play Nice With Others
What Matters:
If analytics live in a silo, you’re wasting your time. You’ll want to pull data into your CRM, BI tool, or even spreadsheets for real analysis.
What to Check:
- APIs: Can you get all your data out, or just a summary?
- Export formats: CSV, XLSX, JSON—whatever you need for your workflow.
- Integrations: Does it connect with Salesforce, HubSpot, Power BI, Tableau, Slack?
- Webhooks/Zapier: For automating alerts or workflows.
Pro Tip:
Don’t get boxed in. You’ll want historical exports at some point, even if you think you won’t.
Brandwatch Reality Check:
Brandwatch offers a decent API and some native integrations (Slack, Tableau, etc.), but some exports are limited by licensing tier. Bulk exporting can be slow for very large datasets.
5. Alerting and Workflow Automation: Cut Through the Noise
What Matters:
You need to know when something important happens—spikes in negative sentiment, a competitor launches, a key customer complains. But you don’t want to get pinged for every mention.
What to Check:
- Custom alerts: Can you set rules by keyword, sentiment, volume spikes, or specific accounts?
- Integration with comms tools: Slack, Teams, email—whatever you actually use.
- Automation: Can you trigger simple workflows, like assigning a task or logging an activity?
Pro Tip:
Set up alerts for the absence of conversation, too. Sometimes silence is the story.
Brandwatch Reality Check:
Alerts are robust and tie into Slack/email. Automation is decent but don’t expect full-blown marketing automation—this is more for flagging, not running campaigns.
6. User Access and Collaboration: Built for Teams, Not Lone Wolves
What Matters:
B2B teams are rarely one person. You need to share dashboards, collaborate, and control who sees what (especially with agencies or execs).
What to Check:
- User roles & permissions: Can you give access by project, brand, or region?
- Audit logs: Who did what, and when?
- Collaboration features: Shared annotations, comments, easy sharing of reports or dashboards.
Pro Tip:
If you’re using an agency or have multiple business units, don’t skip this. Permissions headaches are real.
Brandwatch Reality Check:
Brandwatch handles team access pretty well, with granular roles and decent sharing features. Collaboration is improving, but don’t expect it to totally replace your project management tools.
7. Customer Support and Onboarding: You’ll Need It
What Matters:
B2B tools are only as good as the support behind them. Complex queries, weird data gaps, integration headaches—you’ll run into all of these.
What to Check:
- Onboarding: Is there training or just a help doc?
- Ongoing support: Live chat, ticketing, phone support?
- Community/forum: Useful or dead?
- Professional services: Can they help set up advanced queries or integrations?
Pro Tip:
Ask for real support SLAs and talk to a current customer if you can.
Brandwatch Reality Check:
Support is generally responsive, and onboarding is solid for mid-sized teams. Don’t expect them to write all your queries, but they’ll help you get unstuck. Community is active but skews toward enterprise users.
What to Ignore (Mostly)
- AI-powered insights:
Most "AI" is just basic keyword clustering with fancier branding. Useful for volume, not nuance. Don’t expect it to spot every crisis or trend for you. - “Influencer” scores:
B2B buying rarely hinges on Twitter influencers. Look for real engagement from target accounts, not just big follower counts. - Overly pretty dashboards:
Nice for execs, but you need flexible data, not just eye candy.
Wrapping Up: Keep It Simple, Stay Skeptical
There’s a lot of marketing hype out there, but the best platform is the one that fits your real workflow and surfaces insights you’ll actually use. Don’t get distracted by shiny add-ons. Start with your must-have list, test drive with your own data, and make sure you can get your data out as easily as you get it in.
Pick a tool like you’d pick a new team member: reliable, easy to work with, and honest about what it can’t do. Then iterate as your needs grow. Happy hunting.