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Cision Communications Cloud

Cision Communications Cloud

Overview

What is Cision Communications Cloud?

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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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

Users have found this product to be incredibly versatile, with a range of use cases that cater to their specific needs. Customers have …
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Couldn't be happier!

10 out of 10
June 15, 2023
We use Cision for daily media coverage along with news release distribution on a situational basis. The platform allows us to skim through …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

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Pricing

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What is Cision Communications Cloud?

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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  • No setup fee

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  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Product Details

What is Cision Communications Cloud?

Cision Communications Cloud® empowers communicators with tools that help them reach the right audiences, deliver impactful results across traditional, digital and social media, and track a brand in one integrated solution. Automated analysis helps users report and translate campaigns into insights.

Cision Communications Cloud Features

  • Supported: Media Monitoring and Analytics
  • Supported: Media Relationship Management
  • Supported: Social Listening

Cision Communications Cloud Screenshots

Screenshot of Media Monitoring and Analytics are just part of the complete Comms Cloud. It combines deep data dive with a database of journalists and influencers, and a media relationship management tool.Screenshot of Track brand mentions in real time across the millions of online stories on the internet. Monitor millions of stories and breaking news happening daily across the web. Professional services consultants teams are in place to ensure best practices while setting up a monitoring account.Screenshot of Cision’s media and influencer relationship management tools include audience insights, combined with a pitchable database that enables brands to uncover the best media contacts and social influencers to reach their target audience.Screenshot of Identify the social conversations and influencers that are impacting a brand. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube monitoring capabilities track brand mentions across all major social channels. Analyze results for social mentions or campaigns on the fly with its reporting features.

Cision Communications Cloud Videos

Media Relationship Management
Cision Social Listening

Cision Communications Cloud Competitors

Cision Communications Cloud Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

CIsion Communications Cloud is used for identifying key media and influencers, connecting with audiences, monitoring traditional and social media, and analyzing outcomes.

Agility PR Solutions, Meltwater, and Muck Rack are common alternatives for Cision Communications Cloud.

Reviewers rate Implementation Rating highest, with a score of 10.

The most common users of Cision Communications Cloud are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(468)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

Users have found this product to be incredibly versatile, with a range of use cases that cater to their specific needs. Customers have praised its ability to streamline communication within teams, making it easier for members to collaborate and share information. Reviewers have also noted its effectiveness in project management, with the product providing a centralized platform for planning, tracking progress, and assigning tasks. Additionally, users have found value in its functionality for customer relationship management, allowing them to keep track of interactions and effectively manage their customer base. Overall, the product has proven to be a valuable tool for enhancing productivity and improving efficiency across various industries and professional environments.

  • Easy-to-use and Intuitive User Interface: Users have found the user interface of Cision PR Software to be easy-to-use, intuitive, and not overwhelming. They appreciate the well-designed and user-friendly interface of Cision Communications Cloud.

  • Exceptional Reporting Capabilities: Users highly praise the exceptional reporting capabilities of Cision Communications Cloud. They find the platform's reporting features to be interactive, detailed, and customizable. Many users value how these reports help them quantify the impact of media on their business and gain insights into trends. Additionally, users appreciate the media tracking capability of Cision as it aids in measuring PR results.

  • Effective Search Functionality: Users find the search function in Cision to be helpful and excellent for quickly obtaining high-level information or metrics about a publication. The detailed database of contacts in Cision is also highly valued by users who find it useful for identifying reporters and influencers. Moreover, they highlight that the new edition of the media building interface is easy to use.

User Interface: Many users have found the user interface to be confusing, clunky, and not intuitive, making tasks difficult and cumbersome to navigate. These issues have been mentioned by multiple reviewers.

Search Tools: Some users have experienced issues with the search tools, which sometimes fail to pick up all the coverage or include irrelevant content, requiring additional clean-up work. This has been a common frustration among users.

Customer Service: Users have expressed frustration with the customer service/account team, stating that it takes repeated requests to get an answer from them. Multiple users have mentioned difficulties in getting timely responses from customer service representatives.

Users recommend entering into a trial or limited agreement first to test the software's suitability for the company. They suggest leveraging the support team for training and assistance with any questions. Users highly recommend Cision for its usefulness in public relations and media relations, as it is considered the most comprehensive media list monitoring software available, providing accurate and up-to-date contact information. Overall, Cision is recommended for organizations that require up-to-date media contact information and extensive news coverage, and it can benefit organizations in various capacities. Users advise contacting a representative to receive a thorough explanation of the features and functionalities of Cision. They find Cision very useful for PR purposes and suggest setting aside time to onboard oneself with all the features and functionalities of the platform. Users also suggest comparing Cision against other similar platforms and considering the level of support needed. In summary, users believe Cision is the industry standard and a reliable software option.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(101-125 of 279)
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Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are a horizontal team, so it is used upon request by the whole organization. It addresses earned media problems such as share of voice against competitors, top readership, and tagging our agency secured articles.
  • Widgets - provide at-a-glance insights.
  • Key messages - allows us to sift through large amounts of data to determine what articles were on message.
  • Customer support is always prompt and knowledgeable.
  • Boolean is very sensitive.
  • Implementing filters across searches is difficult.
  • Sometimes it pulls in articles that are dead or once contained a link to what is being searched.
Well suited for earned media analysis. Not well suited to social behavior and crisis monitoring.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Cision Communications Cloud (TrendKite)* across multiple clients in various ways. I find that the most useful feature is the interactive PR report - it does take some time to set up a dashboard for each client and ensure that this is pulling in the right kind of content, however once this is set up it's very easy to generate PR reports that look sleek and have lots of functionality. We have had some difficulty setting this up in instances where we work with one division of a larger company, however, the Cision TK team are very helpful and are always willing to jump on a call to help solve any problems. We have also had a few issues with the platform not picking up some of the more niche publications in our industry, and with ad equivalency values for these not matching what we expect, however it is very easy to remove these values from your dashboard or report. We also use the social analytics feature to regularly report back to clients, which is very helpful in proving the value of our work to clients.


*This review was written near the time Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.
  • Interactive reports: comprehensive and easy to use.
  • Social analytics: good reporting.
  • Support: very responsive account managers.
  • Social functionality is slow to load and occasionally missing data.
  • Would be good to generate interactive reports for social as for PR.
  • Missing some niche publications.
Very useful for finding high-level pickups for an entire company, however, it is more difficult to narrow down the search when you only want to see news generated about a particular division of a larger organization.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Cision Communications Cloud (TrendKite)* for tracking competitors, share of voice, and brand sentiment, as well as earned media. We report these details up in the organization monthly, quarterly, and annually.


*This review was written near the time Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.
  • Very intuitive and interactive reports
  • Excellent support in creating reports as well as with strategy
  • Very versatile selection of tools for everything from social media tracking to generating contact lists
  • Does take some careful planning to set up reports correctly, but they help with that.
Cision Communications Cloud is great for lean marketing organizations or larger teams. I recommend you have at least one person on the team who has some ownership of the tasks and goals for using it. As with everything in marketing, know what your goals are so you can customize the experience to demonstrate those goals. If you're just winging it, your reports will be just as frivolous.
Hannah Key | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Cision Communications Cloud (TrendKite)* is being used by the brand engagement team who then distributes applicable information to various marketing teams and heads of leadership. We primarily brought on the platform to solve our reporting needs, of which it's provided a great solution. The social analytics it has provided has been incredibly valuable and the ability to build reports directly in the platform has been a huge time saver. What has really stood out the most, is how robust the system is while retaining a really user-friendly and clean interface.

*This review was written near the time Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.
  • Excellent customer service! The team is truly engaged with our brand and ready to help at any point.
  • In-depth analytics and reporting that will simplify and streamline your campaign management.
  • Straightforward, easy to use interface, that doesn't lack capability. If you've sat through as many platform demos as we have you know this isn't the industry norm. In a sea of platforms that all seemed to be the same, Cision really stood out to us!
  • I know that it's tougher with Facebook privacy rules, but deeper insight and tracking abilities for Instagram would be fantastic. The ability to track sponsored content or specific posts would also be great.
Cision Communications Cloud (TrendKite)* is excellent for marketing teams, specifically PR and social media teams that need to monitor and report on their efforts.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Cision Communications Cloud (TrendKite)* as our primary public relations tracking software. It is incredibly beneficial for our business to track our press mentions, features, and watch competitor trends. We build monthly PR reports, and 90% of the metrics come directly from Cision Communications Cloud. Representatives at Cision / TrendKite are attentive, assist us with any troubleshooting, and help optimize our user experience. I couldn't effectively do my job without it!


*This review was written near the time Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.
  • Great customer service.
  • Providing material for professional development in the field (webinars).
  • Reliable metrics and data.
  • Certain valuable tools aren't included in package.
  • It's pricey to upgrade.
I would highly recommend Cision Communications Cloud to anyone who needed to track PR metrics -- their widgets provide a lot of valuable insight!
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Cision Communications Cloud (TrendKite)* several ways to correlate press readership impressions and mention volumes with localized userbase growth, to provide a live feed in Slack of press pickup in market, and to monitor potential partners + competitors for relevancy at a market level.
*[This review was written before Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.]
  • Customer service: we love our account rep, Kyle, as if he was an extension of our team!
  • Search flexibility and accuracy.
  • Dashboards mean reporting automation.
  • Knowledge guide: so intuitive to learn basic Boolean search language.
  • Readership numbers, direct links, and SEO scores.
  • Duplication of readership numbers in syndicated press (artificially inflates total readership count).
  • Sharing of searches between team members + API integration.
  • Search type tagging: more streamlined would be better (fewer options).
Cision Communications Cloud has been so wonderful to use for exported + API integrated metrics to layer with internal data. As an analyst, it's useful nearly every day and gives me a wonderful context on how our PR strategy is driving growth across all major markets. I am not on the PR team though and I do believe Cision is used by that team for journalist vetting/pitching.
Justin Arnold | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use it in the Strategic Communications Department to monitor our media mentions. It's easier than Google Alerts, though we supplement Trendkite with those.
  • Monitoring media coverage
  • Ease of use on the dashboard
  • Good range of options
  • The search function is absolutely bonkers.
  • Using general search tags is bizarre and confusing.
  • Changing searches could be a lot easier.
Well suited to higher end corporations and orgs. It probably wouldn't be good to use it for smaller ones. Those who want the ease of use of a media monitoring software could do worse than Cision Communications Cloud (TrendKite)*. I've found it really helpful to find out how we're doing in both the paid and earned media space.


*This review was written near the time Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We utilize Cision Communications Cloud (TrendKite)* to track our reach in the media, compare ourselves to our competitors, and identify new areas of influence we might reach too.
*[This review was written near the time Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.]
  • Captures digital mentions
  • Tracks spread of coverage over social media
  • Organizes data into convenient metrics
  • Provides valuable earned media cost/value estimates
  • Poorly tracks TV mentions
  • Difficult measuring of radio mentions
  • Methodology for measuring social media engagement and trackback to website is difficult to understand, measure, and explain to c-level management.
Tracking share of voice against competitors is an excellent use of Cision Communications Cloud. Cision also provides a wonderful newsletter option, providing simple reporting features and impressive data sets that impress in the c-office and board room.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Aggregate media mentions of Black & Veatch, newsletter builds, share-of-voice measurement against competitors.
  • Dashboards and metrics presentations are well organized.
  • Newsletter builds are simple but elegant.
  • StoryKit functionality is helpful in amplifying key messaging.
  • Dashboard data loads too slowly.
  • Newsletter builds, while fairly simple, require jumping around between key sections of the platform.
  • Media mention aggregation is good but needs to consider lumping duplicate hits.
Measurement against competitors is Cision Communications Cloud's strong point. Being able to dice keywords, personalities and other factors and measure their impact in the marketplace is likely unparalleled. (I haven't seen every competitor.) The dashboards are a credible presentation of critical data that helps with upward management of our content.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Cision Communications Cloud (TrendKite)* is being used by our Corporate Marketing & Communications department, not the whole organization. We use it to listen and report on media mentions, competitor analyses, share of voice comparisons for different campaigns (seeing how we measure up in the "new energy" or "smart infrastructure" media space for example). We also generate an "In the News" weekly newsletter and personally I use it for social media tracking, and influencer identification and targeting. I wish I had more bandwidth to capitalize on the latter two functionalities more.

*This review was written near the time Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.
  • Visually appealing and user-friendly
  • The amount of data we receive and the customization options on the dashboards are great.
  • Ability to distill down from the dashboard widgets into what I call "the rabbit hole of info" is amazing.
  • It manages and scrubs for a ton of info, and this sometimes bogs down the speed.
  • The newsletter functionality was less intuitive to customize than we had hoped.
If you're a data nerd you are going to love Cision Communications Cloud. Wish I had more free time to really capitalize on all of the great functionalities for social in particular. If an organization emphasizes the importance of monitoring and listening to gauge media reach and impact, and tracking that performance over time, it's a great tool. Due to API limitations of certain social media platforms there are some limitations on what you can listen too, but that's not a Cision issue.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use it for monitoring and measuring the quality and content of coverage for our clients and prospective clients. We also use the platform to conduct competitive landscape analyses and to inform the creation of our pitching strategy.
  • It is very comprehensive in what it pulls in.
  • It allows for convenient slicing and dicing of the data after some practice.
  • The customer service is great.
  • There is a very steep learning curve for navigating the filters and setup.
  • It doesn't handle Medium.com well (it ranks every post on the site as very high impact by default even if a Medium poster has no followers).
Any company whose business requires media intelligence would greatly benefit from the tool. I wouldn't recommend it to a company that doesn't have at least one analytics person to own the onboarding process and handle the more complicated search creations.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Cision Communications Cloud (TrendKite)* is currently being used by the Dallas office to the best of my knowledge. We currently work with big accounts and it addresses many issues with keeping up with coverage and monitoring competitors.

*This review was written before Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.
  • Cleanliness of the dashboard
  • Accessibility of Account Manager
  • The trainings are a bit long
Cision Communications Cloud is well suited for larger companies who are consistently in the news an have consistent news going out to the media.
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use it to measure the impact of our press coverage though the audience reach and the AVE. We expected to be able to use it to monitor attribution traffic. However, either the technical connection to our corporate website was not correct or very few readers go to the corporate website as a result of reading an article. As a result, the value of press coverage as an awareness builder that drives contacts into the marketing demand gen funnel is not able to be measured through Cision Communications Cloud (TrendKite)*. This is an issue for us going forward as this is a key metric we need to be able to measure and improve - website traffic attributed to press coverage.
*[This review was written near the time Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.]
  • Nathan Walker, their technical contact, is a great asset to the company - he is knowledgeable and collaborative - he helped us set up dashboards at the beginning and refined them with our data scientist throughout the year
  • Technical integration with Adobe as a marketing analytics platform
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is available to all current clients. We have both clients using the full premium version and the standard version.
It looks to be used to:
1. Help with measurement
2. Provide marketing and competitor insight
3. Showing we take measurement seriously
4. Help us differentiate from other agencies
  • I love how you can find what general articles (not coverage related) people are reading before going on a client's website - this insight is really powerful
  • It's a really attractive showing different measurement metrics
  • Showing how coverage links to website visitors
  • The crawling for coverage can be poor and not always accurate
  • The paywall issue on some sights can be frustrating
  • The speed turning around some enquiries
I think I've already touched upon this, but for industry insight it is great.
Ryan Bennion | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are currently using Cision Communications Cloud (TrendKite)* to monitor our trends and monitor the impact of earned media, outreach, and influencer marketing. Cision Communications Cloud allows us to see the rank of the page and its monetary value. It allows us to determine the readership and whether we are captivating quality audiences or not.

*This review was written before Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.
  • Cision makes it simple to see in the dashboards. They are super user-friendly.
  • They allow us to measure by different statistics like Moz Score, Domain Authority, and Influencer reach.
  • We have enjoyed our account manager. He does a great job supporting and training us when we have questions.
  • You can download things to Excel to analyze specific data.
  • I feel at times that the influencers are inflated because of their followers. We have an influencer who has a huge following, but when she promoted our product, we didn't see a lift. Cision showed us that her post was supposed to be the most impactful, which is very subjective.
  • They don't allow you to DM influencers on an Instagram tool.
I think Cision Communications Cloud (TrendKite)* is well suited for those people who want to track mentions, reach, impact, and the sources of all those different inquiries. We do use another provider for mentions because I think that the technology might need some improvement, but TrendKite's merger with Cision was super smart, and I think that the platform is only going to get better (though it might also get a bit pricier).
Dan Lobring | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Cision is being used on behalf of our clients, as well as internally for our own agency PR efforts. Cision helps us pull distribution lists for outlets and reporters nationwide, and is especially helpful in markets where we don't historically activate. It also allows us to research journalists and outlets at scale and in a time efficient manner.
  • Cision is a great database of outlets, journalists and media contacts
  • Cision is a great tool to sort and create lists based on outlet type, reporter title and most importantly geography
  • Cision's user interface is intuitive and easy to use, whether you're pulling a list of thousands or researching one particular outlet or journalist
  • Cision doesn't always have niche outlets in its database
  • Cision doesn't always have accurate circulation, web or advertising cost #'s built into it's database
  • Cision doesn't have robust international capabilities as part of its core offerings
Cision is well suited for PR staffs, either at a brand or agency level, especially those that are actively executing outreach programs at a national, state or local level. Cision doesn't necessarily replace manual list development or building PR relationships, but it gives PR personnel a significant head start on where and with whom to begin targeted outreach.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is being used across the organization for those that work on the client account that we have contracted Cision (TrendKite)* for. It addresses the need for accurate, real-time media monitoring.


*This review was written before Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.
  • Provides comprehensive coverage. Crucial for companies/brands that are concerned with reputation management.
  • Strong keyword search capability. The vast majority of product and spokespeople mentions are caught.
  • Good support staff. Easily reached and responds quickly.
  • Blocking results returned from certain sites is difficult.
Well-suited for extensive media monitoring.
Less well-suited for brands/companies that do not get a lot of media coverage.
Dan Howard | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Cision Communications Cloud (TrendKite)* is being used by the Communications Department in order to provide monthly reporting on the destination's media presence. It enables the Board of Directors to quickly discern the brand's performance against stated objectives and to compare share of voice against our competitive set on a monthly basis. It provides earned media values so that the community recognizes the cost that would have been expended to achieve the media coverage generated.


*This review was written before Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.
  • Clear reports make it easy for any reader to recognize performance.
  • Story angle tracking enables the organization to track success against very specific campaigns.
  • Share of voice tools let the community know how successful the team has been versus main competitors tasked with the same objectives.
  • Search functions (for specific articles) are not straightforward.
  • Ad equivalency can be better measured - I believe it is currently being overstated and I am having to compensate by hand to deliver what I consider to be accurate results.
  • We still have a second tracking system in place because Cision doesn't cover every form of media we require to be reported.
When we launch a marketing campaign, Cision Communications Cloud is well suited to track the success of the campaign by tracking global media outlets and reporting where the campaign has been published. If I were seeking out a specific article, I would have more difficulty searching it in Cision versus other platforms. It really is about the trend of the conversation in general and that is valuable for us.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Cision PR Software is an invaluable tool to my PR firm. While only used by about five members of our entire organization, it addresses the needs we have as a public relations business. It is especially helpful as a tool for pitching reporters, finding contacts at specific news organizations, and updating staff and clients on daily news by topic.
  • The ability to pull lists of reporters - both national and international - is extremely helpful.
  • Getting industry news by client delivered to my inbox daily is a tool I highly recommend.
  • The lookup functions available when trying to find contact information is a tool I use on a regular basis.
  • The interface, at times, can be difficult to use.
  • Some of the functionality is a little buried in the interface.
  • Tracking press releases is not an intuitive feature. Some training is need on this feature to fully understand how it's used.
Cision PR Software is perfect for the PR practitioner. It has all of the tools one needs to get a job done for a client and to do it well. I especially like the media monitoring function for getting client news delivered directly to my inbox on a daily basis. It's also a great tool with incredible search functionality for finding reporters and influencers by publication, location, specialty, and other ways.

I don't really use Cision much for sending press releases or pitches. The system can be a bit bulky at times and I have other ways of tracking my emails internally.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
[Cision Communications Cloud is being used] by marketing professionals in one organisation in several regions (EU, US and APAC).
The main user is the Global PR Specialist, who is using Cision Communications Cloud (TrendKite)* to measure the impact of PR initiatives on a global scale.

The reason Cision (TrendKite) was selected is the fact the tool can measure publications in multiple languages on a global scale and get the direct point of contact.


*This review was written near the time Cision aquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.
  • Onboarding: good understanding of our business needs and setting up dashboards needed for that.
  • Dashboards: attractive visual dashboards and competitor analysis
  • Reporting: easy to share reports with a lot of functionality for non-registered users
  • Incomplete data: unfortunately each month [there are] still a lot of (highlight) publications missing, which at this point makes me not trust the data yet.
  • Reporting edit limitations: would appreciate if it was possible to also edit blank pages in the reporting area, so after a specific launch more info/pictures can be shared to give an impression of the entire launch. Now I still link to Cision Communications Cloud from a PowerPoint deck.
  • Print publications: not clearly visible as they are published in print.
I started extremely positive with all the support and training, but now I feel it is stagnating a bit since the reports seem incomplete. Hope (and I have trust) it will get fixed soon :)

Cision Communications Cloud is suitable to gain quick insights in several countries on news announcements, track performance against competitors and to have insight on the long term performance of our efforts. Good to see trends/peaks, however on a detailed level it is sometimes incomplete.
Katie Gallagher | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are using Cision Communication Cloud (TrendKite)* across our organization. Primary users are those working directly with clients to track news and show value added for our public relations efforts. As far as business problems it addresses, we feel that Cision Communications Cloud is allowing us to show clients the bigger picture when it comes to how PR is affecting their bottom line, including web traffic, competitor analysis and share of voice. It is also helping our team when it comes to crafting better pitches and understanding what coverage is getting more traction and why.
*[This review was written before Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision CommunicationsCloud.]
  • News tracking.
  • Competitive analysis.
  • Social tracking.
  • Influencer identification.
  • Pinpoint contacts.
  • Dashboard set up can be tricky.
I do think it works better with larger companies, where you have more resources and time to spend on training and using the tools. For us, it does a good job tracking news, and reports can be produced fairly easily. However, there does need to be some manual labor used to tweak reports and build accurate dashboards. Overall, it does give us a value add for both our team and clients.
DeAira Anderson | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our organization uses Cision Communications Cloud (TrendKite)* as a media monitoring/reporting tool. We use it daily to build news scans to share with clients, and quarterly when we are building our 3-month dashboard. We use the searches to build reports that show the share of voice, how our key messages pull through, and general numbers of coverage.
*[This review was written near the time Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now Cision Communications Cloud.]
  • Cision does a good job of providing various tools to measure your clients' media presence.
  • Cision (TrendKite) employees are great at helping whenever you need them.
  • Cision's filters are great!
  • Some of the searches pull irrelevant coverage, no matter how many filters you apply.
  • Cision Communications Cloud has an issue with recognizing scrolling webpages as separate pages, marking the same piece of coverage hundreds of times.
  • Some of the filters are not all-encompassing, like the Market Reports filter still allows some market reports, for example.
Cision Communications Cloud is well suited in coverage monitoring and providing various widgets to help further analyze said coverage. An example of this is when I'm cross-referencing Cision Communications Cloud with a simple google search for an organic milk client, I can see articles and syndication that google search engines omit due to duplication.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Cision Communications Cloud (TrendKite)* is being used to track the media coverage of and for Portland State University. It's being used within the centralized University Communications team. It is used to track mentions, sentiment and provide leadership with a dashboard of coverage. It is also being used to search out appropriate journalists and bloggers to cover research and other relevant news from Portland State.

*This review was written before Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.
  • Creates jazzy charts and graphs that help users visualize their coverage. For instance, you can track the number of mentions over time, sentiment and use of keywords and phrases in your coverage.
  • Allows you to target and get useful information (contact info, social profiles) about leading journalists. You can search by specialty and immediately find their relevant coverage.
  • Great support. They help users via phone and chat very effectively. Prompt, knowledgeable and always willing to dive in deep and find a solution.
  • Hard to complete basic configurations on your own. You basically have to be an expert in writing Boolean logic to set up the most basic searches in TrendKite. So realistically you need one of their staff to set up your account before it is even usable. Not at all a self-service product.
  • Interface and workflow aren't intuitive. You can tell this product was designed by engineers. The way you navigate through configuring it or doing searches doesn't originate from the perspective of solving a customer problem but from an odd workflow that seems to satisfy how their underlying systems do searches.
  • Could include a press release distribution module with the standard configuration of the product. We had a way to send out media advisories and emails to media outlets with our prior platform, Cision [before TrendKite], but don't with TrendKite [alone]. So we have to invest in and use a separate email distribution tool because we're unwilling to spend what TrendKite wants to charge for their new "extra" email module.
Cision Communications Cloud (TrendKite)* is great for a DIY shop that needs to track mentions and also wants information on journalists covering or interested in specific topics or beats. It also has great analytics visualization and cranks out nice, interactive reporting that works well with executives. But it doesn't have a built-in distribution mechanism and requires advanced skills to do even the most basic configuration of the product.
Buck Banks | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Cision Communications Cloud (TrendKite)* as a media-monitoring tool to create daily newsletters for clients and business associates. We also use the platform to track earned media on campaigns and press releases and to create reports for clients showing results. Finally, we use Cision Communications Cloud to monitor media for reputational management and crisis communications purposes.

*This review was written near the time Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.
  • Cision Communications Cloud does a great job at monitoring media worldwide — as long as you create effectively Boolean logic strings.
  • Cision's interactive reports look great and are easy to understand for clients.
  • Cision's widgets enable me to create reports that provide share of voice comparisons between my clients and their competitors.
  • Training/explanation of how to set up effective Boolean search strings could be better.
  • The online help chat function is great, but I feel like too often the help staff are focused on solving the problem and not explaining the solution, so could avoid a similar situation in the future.
  • I don't feel like my account representative is engaged with me to ensure that I am using Cision Communications Cloud to its full extent.
  • I don't feel like I've received sufficient training to use the UnionMetrics functions to their full effect.
Cision Communications Cloud (TrendKite)* is a great tool for public relations media monitoring and reporting. I have not used it for other applications. The integration of the Union Metrics results into the reports seems unfinished and not very useful at this time.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our 4-person public relations team uses Cision Communications Cloud (TrendKite)* to support and enhance our earned media tracking and reporting. We use it along with other media tracking services to organize and aggregate our earned media results. It helps us digitally track earned media including new-to-us data points of website attribution traffic and social amplification.


*This review was written near the time Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.
  • Cision offers an easy to organize system for tagging and organizing earned media clips
  • Cision creates helpful and visually-appealing reports to share with other teams and departments
  • We use different services for media monitoring (one for broadcast/online, and another for print) and Cision helps us organize earned clips in one place
  • It's not possible to add certain types of articles, including articles from online PDFs or e-editions/digital editions you can flip through. This doesn't allow us to have a truly accurate count of earned impressions
  • It's not possible to adjust impressions to fit our tracking goals (for example, we only count unique monthly visitors once even if we secure more than one placement on a website within the same month)
  • The custom slide format could be improved. Only being able to upload an image is limiting for slide content
Cision Communications Cloud would work really well if you focus on coverage for specific campaigns, or certain messaging. The messaging widget works really well for tracking phrases and mentions.
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