CIsion Communications Cloud is used for identifying key media and influencers, connecting with audiences, monitoring traditional and social media, and analyzing outcomes.
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Media Monitor Pro
Score 6.0 out of 10
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Media Monitor Pro is a a media monitoring and analytics platform from Metro Monitor headquartered in Alabama.
I prefer Cision PR Software over Media Monitor Pro. Cision PR Software is more expensive, but offers more options and is a better overall comprehensive solution to media monitoring and reporting as it monitors television, print and online news. Media Monitor Pro only monitors …
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.
Media Monitor Pro is a great choice for smaller organizations, such as companies, nonprofits or PR agencies, that need to monitor television news coverage when a lot of television news clips are not expected on a daily basis. It offers competitive pricing compared to some of the larger players in the media monitoring space but without the "bells and whistles" of reports and analytics, but a smaller company wouldn't need those as much as a larger company that is in the news on television a lot. It's not as great of a fit for those larger companies, particularly when there is a crisis PR situation and the company needs to be tracking news media coverage constantly and have instant access to any and all clips.
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.
Cost effective - Media Monitor Pro offers very affordable and competitive pricing for television news media monitoring services.
Ease of use - it's easy to view clips sent in the daily emails and to edit, download and share them with others, even if they are not registered users of the Media Monitor Pro platform.
The scope of monitoring - Media Monitor Pro monitors the majority of local news television stations throughout the country, plus a decent amount of radio stations.
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.
Clip availability - quite frequently, the links to clips in the daily digest emails would not work. After clicking the link, you would be taken to the clip player and it would "load" for quite a while and then say the clip failed to play. I would have to contact the support team to figure out if it was an issue with the clip or why it wasn't loading.
Clip timing - often when you begin playing a clip in the player, it's not at the specific part that mentioned your company's keywords. That would mean I had to listen to a long clip/story to find what part was relevant to me.
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.
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.
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.
I prefer Cision PR Software over Media Monitor Pro. Cision PR Software is more expensive, but offers more options and is a better overall comprehensive solution to media monitoring and reporting as it monitors television, print and online news. Media Monitor Pro only monitors television news clips, so I have to also use another service to monitor for print and online coverage, then create my own reports from scratch using analytics and data from both platforms.
Media Monitor Pro had a negative impact in terms of timely access to some news clips. Although the reports are delivered regularly, the issues with clicking on particular clips and not having them play properly were frustrating and left us without key clips needed in crisis situations.
Media Monitor Pro had a positive impact in terms of allowing us to easily store and categorize clips through folders by topic and date.
