We are highly satisfied with this tool and according to me, it is favorable in all aspects for the people that want to strengthen their links with the Publics either internal or external. It has the capability to manage relations and disseminates information to the business community. But it is not suitable when it comes to reports and its customer service.
Critical Mention is great for schools/businesses/etc. that want to know when they are in the news. Sometimes a brand's reputation can suffer greatly if you are not aware of an issue that was posted by a competitor or media outlet If you are not in the news a lot, there is no need for this product.
Proofing - Business Wire proofs every single release with great precision, and calls you to let you know if they think anything looks like it might be a typo. They are extremely thorough and also check with you about the way you want images or video laid out with the release so that the final presentation is perfect.
Customer Service - Business Wire has some of the best customer service I've ever experienced. They are available 24 hours a day, and always have someone manning the phones to answer your questions, proof releases, and make sure your release gets across the wire at the right time.
Interface - The Business Wire site is very easy to use, and saves previously used information and images like logos. This is standard for most wire services, but Business Wire does a good job as well.
Reach - BW reaches a very wide range of outlets, and its relationships with VentureBeat, Yahoo! and MarketWatch are great. Clients really appreciate seeing their releases in those publications.
Critical Mention's customer service is excellent. Any time we've had a challenge finding a clip or anything, they are on top of it and go above and beyond to make sure we have what we are looking for quickly.
The ability to create tailored clips of each mention and quickly share them is unparalleled.
The reporting feature is fantastic. It makes it very simple to pull detailed reports and share them with interested parties.
There have been a few times when a minor grammatical error has slipped by myself as well as the copy editors but it's very rare for this to happen.
The cost can get a bit high if your press release is long (as price is partially dictated by length) or if you want to add a logo, image, infographic, etc.
I believe the one frustration I have with searching in general that if the closed captioning is not correct on the broadcast end Critical Mention will miss that data. Which is not a Critical Mention issue and does overcome depending on the search. Also, it would be great if you wanted to capture a complete 30 minutes newscast, it could be done by using the search. The clips need to be about to handle 30-minute programs.
One nagging issue when using Critical Mention is that it does not save e-mail addresses when sending a report and this requires a waste of time having to type in e-mails that should be able to be pulled from the customers' contacts.
Also, it would be great if you wanted to capture a complete 30 minutes newscast, it could be done by using the search. The clips need to be able to handle 30-minute programs.
I gave this a 5 only because I do not make the decisions to renew. When I used this at my previous company, I also recommended to the decision maker to renew this tool as it was a crucial piece to the overall client objective
I gave it this rating because the Business Wire website is very user-friendly. Being able to navigate the platform on my own without technical assistance made it possible for me to quickly and easily submit news release distributions, which can be critical at times, such as during hurricane season when we need to get information out to the news media and our customers quickly.
The team members are very quick to respond and do their absolute best to help resolve issues quickly. I also like that I can have one of them proofread my press releases before they are distributed. It always helps to have another set of eyes on the content. There have been a few times that they've caught an error that nobody else did so it's worth the extra couple minutes that it takes!
Look, Critical Mention follows up on an or phone call immediately or in the AM the following business day. I have called them after hours and get a live person to work through any issues that may have come up. Support seems to be job one with Critical Mention.
Business Wire is very easy to implement. This isn't a requirement, but it's recommended that you begin to set up saved distributions for different clients so that you don't have to start over from scratch. Rather than doing all this work on the front end, you can just do it as you send out your first piece of news for each client.
I like both services very much, but I prefer the topics, trends, and companies that Business Wire prioritizes. I also like the resources that Business Wire offers such as the tools under the "education" tab. PR Newswire doesn't quite offer the same resources. Overall, I prefer Business Wire over PR Newswire. I have not tried other similar services.
Burrelles is confusing and outdated. Critical Mention works on the side of the account team and understands our needs better. I was able to share hundreds of outlets that I wanted to be included in my online search and Critical Mention added all of them in less than a day I was seeing better results in my searches. The possibilities with Burrelles seem limited while Critical Mention's online monitoring service really lets me craft reports the way I want to
Every week the department I am a part does dozens of searches on Critical Mention. We use it as our primary search engine for all things broadcast.
One negative aspect is that we do not know where Critical Mention gets their audience viewing numbers from so we just have to take it as their word.
Another negative aspect is that we are limited on the amount of time that one clip can be so we have to share several clips of the same show with our clients.
