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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Cision Communications Cloud

    Score8 out of 10
    N/ACIsion Communications Cloud is used for identifying key media and influencers, connecting with audiences, monitoring traditional and social media, and analyzing outcomes.N/A

    Khoros Service

    Score8.5 out of 10
    Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
    Khoros Service offers omnichannel engagement on publicly available channels like social, digital, chat, and voice, as well as owned online communities like Khoros Communities. The solution offers 1-to-1 and 1-to-many engagement with customers and consumers, bringing together automation through bots and human agents. Customer inquiries and support-related conversations can be routed and prioritized based on a variety of parameters, and the robust agent desktop solution…N/A
    Pricing
    Cision Communications CloudKhoros Service
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Cision Communications CloudKhoros Service
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
    Additional Details—Pricing is variable based on the needs of the customer.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Cision Communications CloudKhoros Service
    Considered Both Products
    Cision
    No answer on this topic
    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    Chose Khoros Service
    Khoros provides a full stack of digital solutions for the business. Khoros has moved away from just social engagement and now provides a full written channel solution.
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    92%
    Would buy again
    45 Answers
    89%
    Would buy again
    71 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    86%
    Delivers good value for the price
    32 Answers
    96%
    Delivers good value for the price
    50 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    90%
    Happy with the feature set
    44 Answers
    91%
    Happy with the feature set
    73 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    93%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    37 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    39 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    97%
    Implementation went as expected
    36 Answers
    96%
    Implementation went as expected
    44 Answers
    Best Alternatives
    Cision Communications CloudKhoros Service
    Small Businesses
    Help a Reporter Out (HARO)
    Score5 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    Critical Mention
    Score8 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Enterprises
    Meltwater
    Score7.6 out of 10
    Brand Embassy (discontinued)
    Score7.9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Cision Communications CloudKhoros Service
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.0
    (280 ratings)
    8.5
    (113 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.0
    (17 ratings)
    8.2
    (79 ratings)
    Usability
    8.0
    (54 ratings)
    7.3
    (7 ratings)
    Availability
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Performance
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.0
    (192 ratings)
    8.1
    (9 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Online Training
    8.0
    (3 ratings)
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    10.0
    (3 ratings)
    7.4
    (71 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    8.2
    (78 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Cision Communications CloudKhoros Service
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Cision
    For a small start-up, the cost-benefit to add lift to press releases [and] particular milestone accomplishments is definitely there with the Cision [Communications] Cloud. Much of what we do, by necessity, is done internally without the benefit of outsourced press folks, so the Cision [Communications] Cloud ease of use and reporting is very important.
    Incentivized
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    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    Less Appropriate Scenarios- A fintech company has highly specialized or industry-specific workflows that are not easily accommodated within the standard capabilities of Khoros Care. In such cases, the platform may be less appropriate for businesses with extremely unique processes that require a high degree of customization. Well suited- financial institutions face a high volume of customer inquiries related to account management, transactions, and security concerns. Khoros Care's security features, automation capabilities, and integration with banking systems make it suitable for managing customer interactions in the financial services sector.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    Cision
    • Their upgraded press release templates and ability [to] pull in an entire, completed release makes the [process] faster and easier, and allows for more graphics, such as company mastheads, [are done well].
    • The media tracking offers the ability to find relevant placements across the entire country.
    • The journalist database streamlines the process of finding relevant reporters to directly connect [to] on news releases that are relevant to their beats.
    • The process of setting up, creating, and distributing a release is seamless, easy to use, and not labor-intensive.
    Incentivized
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    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    • Tagging system - it's possible to add a wide variety of labels and categories
    • Search feature - being able to find users by conversation number, username, or keywords makes it easier to navigate old conversations
    • Easy system for assigning conversations to other users
    • When you claim a conversation, it gets removed from the queue. This is much more visually explicit than Khoros Marketing's queue, for example, where all content remains visible in the queue and a bookmark gets moved around to distinguish the point where other users left off
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    Cision
    • In the media influencer database, the classic Cision allowed us to do a zip code radius search to really drill down to the neighborhood level. That's because we do localized media advisories and press releases for events at neighborhood schools. One part of a big city like Chicago really doesn't care what's happening in another part of Chicago that's too far away. The zip code radius search was a feature in the classic Cision but not with the current Cision Communications Cloud. We've asked for this to be restored several times, but nothing's happened. In fact, we were told to use DMA — which actually goes wider in a search (bigger than a city), not more narrow as needed. This reflects a basic misunderstanding of what we need.
    • Another missing feature involves a merge field when sending out an email press release through Cision. This is the "select insert field" button in the upper right that's used to personalize a release with the media contact's name and other information. This is key for localization of the release. Many media outlets won't run a release unless it's local. While "county" is a feature in the influencer database when putting together a media list in Cision, "county" is not available to insert into a press release as a merge field. Counties are important because this is how many newspapers and health departments are organized and identify themselves. I've asked for this to be implemented, to no avail. As a workaround, we've had to use "contact city" or "outlet city."
    • After refining a media list in Cision using filters, I've had to download the list and take it offline to see the big picture, screen for duplicates, etc. While there is a button on the bottom left intended to help with this, it doesn't do the trick. That's because there may be multiple contacts with the same email address. In addition, one media contact may represent numerous media outlets, so this same contact could show up several times. It would be nice to have a better way to see the whole list online and eliminate both duplicates as well as those who previously opted out.
    Incentivized
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    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    • I would like to be able to see deleted comments/tweets so we can look into the issues.
    • I would like to be able to better customize dashboards for our exact metrics. Some things previously available in Spredfast are no longer available in Care.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Cision
    While I am happy with the product performance overall, TrendKite's recent merger with Cision is cause for concern. When we first signed on with TrendKite, I spoke with several users and the best response I received was that the company was a startup and we could expect there to be hiccups along the way as the company grew and the platform got more robust. That has certainly been the case. However, now that they have merged with Cision — a company that has grown too fast, has not focused on improving its product and has poor customer service — I have concerns that TrendKite will lose some of the qualities that have made it a great company and great product to work with.
    Incentivized
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    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    Simply, there isn't anything on the market that is quite as personable as Khoros Care. After using a few different client messaging systems, this program gave the closest feel to in-person interaction that we could get during the COVID-19 epidemic and is an important part of our agency still to this day in 2023.
    Incentivized
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    Usability
    Cision
    The flexibility and customization of Cision Communications Cloud (TrendKite)* is among its most important features. Changing the dashboards, using keywords in the saved searches to pull out the best stories and the integration with marketing automation tools gives me confidence that I will able to continue using this tool well into the future. The future implementation and integration of the media contact database will complete the suite, making list management and email marketing programs much smoother. *This review was written before Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.
    Incentivized
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    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    The ability to auto tag, manually tag, make notes, and "snooze" posts is extremely helpful. The efficiency of the work flow for agents is also a huge plus. It keeps agents moving quickly and prioritizing responses for the cases that need it most.
    Incentivized
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    Reliability and Availability
    Cision
    Easily accessible 24/7.
    Incentivized
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    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    No issues.
    Read full review
    Performance
    Cision
    Generally, Cision performs well day to day, but it's got some annoying bugs that slow down usage/require user workarounds which is inefficient. More seriously, a few months ago, as a result of a major system upgrade, certain critical functionality was not working and I was unable to use the service for more than a day when I had time-sensitive work to execute
    Read full review
    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    No issues.
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Cision
    For Cision TrendKite in particilar, support always responded, but it was sometimes slow. For some of our booleans and search queries, we would need help refining and excluding terms/phrases that weren't relevant to our client or campaign. This sometimes took 1-2 days just to get a response back, which sometimes was too late when a last-minute report was due. This was only with the support staff, not necessarily our customer success manager or sales rep.
    Incentivized
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    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    Khoros Support has always very responsive and helpful when it comes to getting my issue/inquiry addressed. Their ticket portal is great for tracking any open tickets and they can be updated via the portal or by responding to the email thread. Support reps are always extremely knowledgeable and care about getting you taken care of
    Incentivized
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    In-Person Training
    Cision
    No answers on this topic
    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    The team received training (from the same executive team member who has been supporting us) over the web and this was of very high quality.
    Read full review
    Online Training
    Cision
    The online training sessions available for the Cision Communications Cloud are helpful and informative. There's more than one option - initially, I signed up for the live webinar classes on basic functions and that is what I recommend other new users do as well. If I have specific questions or something I want to learn more about, I can search the online database and find article or online training videos to get the information I need.
    Incentivized
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    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    Cision
    There is no implementation at the customer's end so this doesn't really apply to my instance of Cision (possibly to all instances of it).
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    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    Implementing the platform was not a big hassle for our client, it was seamless and easy we just had to follow a few steps and it was done. Just scaling was a bit of an issue but it got resolved with time and a bit of effort at both ends
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    Cision
    It's a similar product. I think Meltwater sells itself as being a bit more niche, but I have not found many significant differences between Meltwater and Cision. Meltwater's sales process is a very high pressure and their prices are inflated.
    Incentivized
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    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    Khoros is more than just a platform for social publishing. No other competitor provides the in-depth moderation and social listening services that they do. If you're looking for a one-stop-shop of a platform for all things social, this is the tool to be using. Others are better in usability and innovative functionality.
    Incentivized
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    Scalability
    Cision
    Easy to use, but still room for improvement.
    Incentivized
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    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    Of course as the company grows owing to its growing customer base, they need to think of out-of-the-box solutions to offer its clients and customer satisfaction is one of them. Retention is very much needed in competitive environment like today and hence it becomes imperative for companies to find different ways to reach their client basis and fix their issues
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    Cision
    • Cision has a net positive impact on time savings for staff so we can be quicker to market
    • Cision has a positive impact on internal savings as it is used internally across multiple accounts and with the internal PR team
    • Cision is extremely useful when it comes to resourcing and conducting outreach in those DMA's where our agency doesn't have a physical presence
    Incentivized
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    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    • We have seen a positive shift of customers from reaching out to the Call Centre to the Social Care Team.
    • Monthly and Annual Reporting to keep track of performance and stats related to the team has been much easier to highlight areas for improvement (month2month and anually)
    • CSAT/NPS Survey results have increased via Khoros Care in comparison to the Call Centre.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots

    Cision Communications Cloud Screenshots

    Screenshot of Media Monitoring and Analytics are just part of the complete Comms Cloud. It combines deep data dive with a database of journalists and influencers, and a media relationship management tool.Screenshot of Track brand mentions in real time across the millions of online stories on the internet. Monitor millions of stories and breaking news happening daily across the web. Professional services consultants teams are in place to ensure best practices while setting up a monitoring account.Screenshot of Cision’s media and influencer relationship management tools include audience insights, combined with a pitchable database that enables brands to uncover the best media contacts and social influencers to reach their target audience.Screenshot of Identify the social conversations and influencers that are impacting a brand. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube monitoring capabilities track brand mentions across all major social channels. Analyze results for social mentions or campaigns on the fly with its reporting features.

    Khoros Service Screenshots

    Screenshot of a customer conversation in Agent view. Access past customer conversations and interactions in a single pane of glass.Screenshot of the analytic dashboard used to monitor key metrics across a service organization, such as available agents, time to first response, and agent handle time.Screenshot of Khoros Agent Assist. This feature provides agents with real-time recommendations, reducing the time needed to handle customer inquiries, deliver accurate resolutions, and train new agents.Screenshot of Work Queues under Rules and Routing. This allows admins to build rules around tagging to ensure timely and effective follow-up from agents.