CIsion Communications Cloud is used for identifying key media and influencers, connecting with audiences, monitoring traditional and social media, and analyzing outcomes.
Most of the tools we evaluated came with some kind of built-in dashboards, but none were are interactive or visually appealing as Cision's. Many of the tools offer what Cision does, but Cision just has a much easier user interface and drastically reduces the amount of steps it …
Purely from a media research (media list) database perspective, Cision provides the best, most robust results in the industry. Most important, however, is that the database is kept current. This is a big deal as reporters and producers tend to move around quite a bit. In …
I find Meltwater to be as user-friendly/easy to use as Cision, but the difference is in the number of metrics that Cision is able to capture and quantify (ie audience, UVPM, publicity value, etc). To be fair, I've also only started using Meltwater, but I prefer Cision because …
There has been consolidation in this industry, for example Cision absorbed PR Newswire, but Cision seems to have made itself stronger while still producing an effective platform for media monitoring.
Cision now owns Vocus, but when I used Vocus in the past, it just couldn't compare to what Cision offered. The database wasn't updated nearly as frequently, so reporter contact info was terribly out of date. I like the Meltwater product, but it still has some room for growth to …
Each of the above platforms had strengths and weaknesses in their own right, but each one had one or more critical components that others did not (including good customer service). Cision Communications Cloud seems to have more of what I need in terms of measuring various …
PR Newswire and Businesswire are familiar, similar products in terms of newswire distribution services. Many times it comes down to client familiarity with one service over the other, the cost per distribution, the reach of distribution, as well as other related fees, i.e., you …
I previously used Business Wire. We made the decision to switch to PR Newswire because we were not satisfied with the pricing and customer support we were getting from Business Wire. PR Newswire gave us a package of news releases, so we save money versus doing them individually …
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.
PR Newswire is a terrific solution for ensuring that news is distributed in a way that is findable and searchable. It also automatically ties the news to ticker symbols. It's not a useful or meaningful solution for actually securing news coverage. It still requires picking up the phone and pitching media.
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.
User-friendly - PR Newswire has a very user-friendly website that makes it simple and easy to get a news release set up for a distribution relatively quickly. You can also save your selections from a previous distribution to make it go even faster. Since I am pretty much always sending out my releases to the same distribution list, all I have to do is check that box.
Customer support - When you submit a release via the web portal, you have several options about when it will be released. I typically want my releases to go out as quickly as possible, but even then I know an account representative will take a look at my release and accompanying multimedia materials and give me a quick call to confirm and make sure everything is set before officially sending it out. It's a helpful step without making the process cumbersome.
Reports - PR Newswire provides timely and comprehensive reports, so it's easy to tell the where the news release went.
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.
The pricing structure is comprehensive, depending on how far you want your release to go.
Adding multi-media, such as photos, increases visibility quite a bit but PR Newswire charges extra for photos.
PR Newswire also charges an annual fee for storing your logo, which I think should be free for organizations that already have an account (and pay a membership fee).
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.
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.
PR Newswire is an industry leader and gives the user the ability to send out a press release, to a wide audience, very quickly and easily. The pricing is on par with other companies (perhaps they are a bit higher) but they do send useful "visibility" reports after a release is distributed, which is helpful when trying to explain ROI to C suite leaders. You also can email or fax your own distribution list, which is helpful and reduces the need for a media monitoring service
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
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.
Honestly this is probably the absolute worst part of the company. I had maybe 5 different emails from 5 different people when attempting to use this service, and I never knew who my account manager was and who the other people were.
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.
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.
PR Newswire and Businesswire are familiar, similar products in terms of newswire distribution services. Many times it comes down to client familiarity with one service over the other, the cost per distribution, the reach of distribution, as well as other related fees, i.e., you have to be a member of PR Newswire to use the service and then pay fees on top of that for individual distributions.
