Cision Communications Cloud vs PR Newswire | TrustRadius

What users are saying about

Score 8.1 out of 10

Based on 443 reviews and ratings

Score 6.9 out of 10

Based on 16 reviews and ratings

Pros

Influencer research: I am able to quickly find the right reporter or editor for my pitch because Cision lets me know what they write about, their communications preferences, past articles, etc.
Distribution: I appreciate a template to help streamline my pitch and press release distribution that allows me to send my news to a targeted list of contacts without having to send individual emails. I can send out communications with just a few steps, in just a few minutes.
News search: I use Cision to scan for news and monitor for mentions of my clients. I also use this feature to keep tabs on topics and key terms of interest to me and my clients to stay ahead of emerging trends and stay on top of emerging discussions in my clients' industries.

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Content Strategist

Willow MarketingMarketing & Advertising, 11-50 employees

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It is very easy to set up an account on PR Newswire and get started. The dashboard is very intuitive.
Once you are ready to upload a press release, doing so it easy and the pricing structure for the different distributions are clearly laid out.
You can choose a distribution list or e-mail (or fax) your own distribution list, making it easy to target your release to different reporters.
Once a press release is sent up, PR Newswire follows up with visibility reports so you know how well your release did and if you need to do another or target specific reporters.

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Richard Angeloni

Director of Integrated Marketing Communciations

Brown & Toland PhysiciansHospital & Health Care, 201-500 employees

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Cons

The social component could be upgraded to more accurately collect metrics on ephemeral content.
Social listening is done in a completely different program than the media monitoring - combining the two would make report creation much easier and allow for a fuller picture of an incident across traditional and social media on the built-in dashboard section.
Social listening only tracks Twitter. Public Facebook comments would be key in seeing a fuller picture of how an incident or campaign is playing out on social media.

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Verified User

Employee in Marketing

Higher Education Company, 5001-10,000 employees

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Pricing could be better especially as it relates to a digital footprint
The ability to add multiple photos, video links, logos, etc., can be cost prohibitive
From an earned media relations standpoint, we find that journalists may not cover something once they see it on the newswire

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Vice President, Marketing Communications

rEvolutionMarketing and Advertising, 51-200 employees

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Likelihood to Renew

Cision Communications Cloud 8.4

Based on 16 answers

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.

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Vice President

NewmanPRPublic Relations and Communications, 1-10 employees

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No score

No answers yet

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Usability

Cision Communications Cloud 7.7

Based on 52 answers

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.

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Manager, Public Relations

Kawasaki Motors Corp., U.S.A.Consumer Goods, 201-500 employees

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PR Newswire 8.0

Based on 1 answer

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

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Richard Angeloni

Director of Integrated Marketing Communciations

Brown & Toland PhysiciansHospital & Health Care, 201-500 employees

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Reliability and Availability

Cision Communications Cloud 9.1

Based on 3 answers

Easily accessible 24/7.

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Verified User

Professional in Other

Public Relations & Communications Company, 1-10 employees

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No score

No answers yet

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Performance

Cision Communications Cloud 9.1

Based on 3 answers

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

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Founder and Principal

Susan Tull CommunicationsPublic Relations and Communications, 1-10 employees

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Support Rating

Cision Communications Cloud 8.4

Based on 321 answers

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.

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Verified User

Strategist in Marketing

Marketing and Advertising Company, 51-200 employees

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PR Newswire 6.4

Based on 4 answers

Overall, it's a great product, but it is very expensive. There are cheaper programs out there but they also do not hit as many top-tier outlets as PR Newswire does. I recommend PR Newswire when you have important news that may not get the attention it deserves, and that you want in the hands of top-tier outlets.

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Verified User

Account Manager in Marketing

Public Relations & Communications Company, 51-200 employees

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Online Training

Cision Communications Cloud 8.2

Based on 3 answers

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.

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Public Relations Manager, Florida Region

ComcastTelecommunications, 10,001+ employees

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Implementation Rating

Cision Communications Cloud 10.0

Based on 7 answers

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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Founder and Principal

Susan Tull CommunicationsPublic Relations and Communications, 1-10 employees

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No score

No answers yet

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Alternatives Considered

We selected Cision Communications Cloud (TrendKite)* because we liked its advanced analytics and visualization and the ability to find individual journalists' interests and target them with specific pitches. We also heard that TrendKite has best in class customer service and support. But we missed the content distribution capabilities of Cision and found configuring TrendKite for our day to day and ongoing use challenging.

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Verified User

Program Manager in Marketing

Higher Education Company, 1001-5000 employees

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PRWeb is now owned by the same company (Cision). It's a lower priced service that I frequently recommend to clients on a budget. It allows links, a photo, and so on for a reasonable cost. I used Business Wire for many years, but when I had a bad experience with customer service, I stopped. As a PR consultant and someone who frequently talks/writes about PR and recommends products and services, I feel it's never a good idea to alienate someone who can recommend your service -- or not. Now I always steer clients toward PR Newswire, as the two are fairly comparable.

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Michelle Messenger Garrett

Writer/Content Creator/Public Relations Consultant

Garrett Public RelationsPublic Relations and Communications, 1-10 employees

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Scalability

Cision Communications Cloud 7.3

Based on 1 answer

Easy to use, but still room for improvement.

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Verified User

Professional in Other

Public Relations & Communications Company, 1-10 employees

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No score

No answers yet

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Return on Investment

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

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Vice President, Marketing Communications

rEvolutionMarketing and Advertising, 51-200 employees

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PR Newswire saves us from having to maintain our own distribution lists for press releases
PR Newswire automatically sends all our press releases to a list of our beat reporters that we keep on file with them so that we don't have to spend time doing that
PR Newswire makes submitting edits to our releases easy

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Verified User

Employee in Corporate

Machinery Company, 10,001+ employees

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Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

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Free/Freemium Version

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Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Entry-level set up fee?

No

Cision Communications Cloud Editions & Modules

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Additional Pricing Details

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General

Free Trial

Yes

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

PR Newswire Editions & Modules

Edition

Newswire Digital	$199¹
Newswire Digital Plus	$449¹
Newswire State	$499¹
Newswire National	$799¹
Newswire Global	$1,649¹
Newswire Canada	$649¹
Newswire UK	$649¹
Newswire Asia	$649¹
Newswire Latin America	$949¹
Newswire Financial	$799¹

per release

Additional Pricing Details

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