Help a Reporter Out (HARO) vs. Media Monitor Pro

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Help a Reporter Out (HARO)
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Help a Reporter Out (HARO) is a service owned by Cision (via the merger with Vocus) for reaching out to journalists.N/A
Media Monitor Pro
Score 6.0 out of 10
N/A
Media Monitor Pro is a a media monitoring and analytics platform from Metro Monitor headquartered in Alabama.N/A
Pricing
Help a Reporter Out (HARO)Media Monitor Pro
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Help a Reporter Out (HARO)Media Monitor Pro
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Help a Reporter Out (HARO)Media Monitor Pro
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
Help a Reporter Out (HARO)Media Monitor Pro
Small Businesses
Cision Communications Cloud
Cision Communications Cloud
Score 7.5 out of 10
Cision Communications Cloud
Cision Communications Cloud
Score 7.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Newswire
Newswire
Score 8.3 out of 10
Newswire
Newswire
Score 8.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Cision Communications Cloud
Cision Communications Cloud
Score 7.5 out of 10
Cision Communications Cloud
Cision Communications Cloud
Score 7.5 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Help a Reporter Out (HARO)Media Monitor Pro
Likelihood to Recommend
7.7
(11 ratings)
6.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Help a Reporter Out (HARO)Media Monitor Pro
Likelihood to Recommend
Cision
I believe I explained the main scenarios. Haro is a simple tool that 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. It's better suited for b2c or smb-focused companies for sure.
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Metro Monitor
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.
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Pros
Cision
  • 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
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Metro Monitor
  • 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.
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Cons
Cision
  • 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.
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Metro Monitor
  • 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.
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Usability
Cision
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.
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Metro Monitor
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Cision
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.
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Metro Monitor
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.
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Return on Investment
Cision
  • 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.
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Metro Monitor
  • 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.
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