Cision PRWeb vs. Help a Reporter Out (HARO), discontinued

Cision PRWeb is a wonderful tool for our team of communications professionals. We typically include media mentions over a given time period in our internal reporting, and appreciate the quick notifications whenever we are mentioned somewhere. It is also much quicker than manually curating media lists when you are in a hurry to send a press release. The platform allows you to integrate your social media channels, but I would not use it to pull definitive cross-channel reports on social media performance.

Incentivized

Help a Reporter Out (HARO) was (and today, HERO is) an incredibly valuable tool that effectively bridges the gap between journalists and PR practitioners, and it filled a need on both ends. A perfect solution to an ongoing industry problem. When I have a client that needs media coverage, and a lead is shared in the daily email that fits the client's expertise, it creates an opportunity that we may never have otherwise been able to identify.

Incentivized

• Identification of key and relevant media as a result of inputting key parameters
• Cision PRWeb provides actionable insights into media engagement
• Cision PRWeb provides a quick and easy platform on which to build and grow relationships with the media
• Cision PRWeb facilitates the entry into new vertical media markets.

Incentivized

• Pushes PR opportunities right to your desktop several times a day
• Provides media opportunities for just about every industry and if you monitor it regularly, on just about every topic you can think of
• Provides an easy way to contact reporters with relevant information
• Media outlets are verified for you

Incentivized

• Would be nice if they didn't charge extra for a release that has is submitted the day before it is scheduled to be posted.
• The option to upload a word document instead of copy and pasting all release content into a form would be nice addition.
• Uploading social media links a representative of a client is not so easy.

Incentivized

• I've noticed that some queries are incredibly vague to the point where they could or could not apply to me. I feel like they should implement more strict parameters on what the query has to include.
• Sometimes the outlet is marked anonymous which is not beneficial at all to those who are browsing queries. I think the outlet should be required as that is a pretty essential piece of information to consider.
• I think they email slightly too often. My inbox gets flooded with HARO emails and I'm not able to go through all of them because they get buried. Maybe explore a new strategy to organize the huge amount of queries that get submitted every day.

Incentivized

We are unlikely to renew PRWeb because I feel that the costs outweigh the benefits of the service. For a company like ours (small business with about 60 employees) we don't have enough press that warrants monthly coverage. We may look at using PRWeb on an as needed basis, 3-4 times a year for single submissions, but that would be the extent of it. I could see PRWeb being much more beneficial for large companies that are constantly needing to issue press.

Incentivized

Cision appears to go out of its way to make its user interfaces terrible. Like, literally every product they offer was anywhere from slightly better to FAR better in earlier iterations. No current iteration of any Cision product is the best iteration. The UX for Cision PRWeb is no different.

Incentivized

It takes only a few minutes to set up your account. Then, the rest is just checking the push emails, and responding to relevant queries.

Incentivized

I have only required support from PRWeb on two separate occasions and they handled my issues without any problems. I was a bit confused at first not sure if they had received my requests but shortly after I received responses and was able to move forward with my press release.

Incentivized

Implementation of PRWeb required very little of Strouse. It was a quick process and we were almost immediately ready to use the platform.

Incentivized

Cision PRWeb is a cheaper option among Business Wire and PR Newswire, but the ultimate outcome of what we pay them for (press release distributions) is essentially the same. That said, PR Newswire is also owned by Cision, so it suffers from the same bad user experience. I've also used EIN Presswire and eReleases (a PR Newswire reseller), both of which were not on the list of comparable products. For my money, eReleases is the single best option because of two things: spectacularly affordable price point, and awesome customer service.

Incentivized

They are different tools. While HARO pretty much gives you feedback on media opportunities you can pitch for and allows you to get in touch with the reporter, so you can get exposure and they can find people for their news. Cision allows you to syndicate your press releases. You need to have a written press release in order to use it.

Incentivized

• It was definitely a cost decision for us, but the ability to have access to their media database was by far the most useful and needed tool for us.
• For tracking media hits, it saved us time tracking the majority of hits. Where it didn't save us time was with smaller, more niche media.

Incentivized

• A hard thing to measure in terms of actual sales dollars, however, being able to provide fresh content is essential to any brand. When someone mentions they saw the published piece or it grows organically from social media, that is a win.

Incentivized