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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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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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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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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
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Media Relationship Management
Cision Social Listening
Cision Communications Cloud Competitors
Cision Communications Cloud Technical Details
| Deployment Types | Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Unspecified |
| Mobile Application | No |
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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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!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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March 27, 2017
Cision Communications Cloud works well
We use Cision Communications Cloud (Trendkite)* to monitor coverage on some of our businesses, on trends, for bench marking, to learn about media that is influential within a certain field, on competitors, to evaluate issues and responses, and a variety of other issues that are of interest to us.
It is being used by me for across company use, by Eva (of Samskip Rotterdam) for Samskip global. It addresses the above mentioned problems.
*This review was written before Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.
*This review was written before Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.
- The Dashboard is lovely, interactive and fast and customization is also possible.
- It generally provides a lot of information and you are quick to figure out what is relevant and what is not in each case.
- Easy to generate reports, dashboards and searches (once you learn how to search properly). Usability is good basically.
- I really miss not being able to generate automated reports from dashboards. It would make things so much easier if I wouldn't have to that manually and simply add a list of recipients who receive a certain dashboard once a week.
- There are some issues with news not always turning up in the searches even though the search terms are there. We have not been able to address this.
March 21, 2017
Cision - Helping PR Professionals Everywhere Achieve the Right Vision for their Pitch!
One of the main things our department (Public Relations) does at HMSHost is work to generate press by reaching out to local and national media. We open new restaurants frequently (some proprietary brands entirely created by us, some well-known national brands, and some local chef-driven brands) and when we introduce new concepts especially we pitch them to media. The type of media depends on the brand but Cision plays a huge role in the process of finding individual media contacts that we need.
- User-friendly. Allows you to export lists in different forms depending on what you need them for.
- Covers a wide spectrum of media outlets (picks up a huge variety from obscure blogs to television networks to traditional print outlets).
- Provides the option to filter your search down to some very detailed criteria. The advanced search has many options to choose from to narrow your search and find the exact type of contacts you need/want to target.
- Some outlets slip through the cracks and aren't picked up by Cision. This is to be expected though.
- Sometimes I don't find the "outlet topics" to be accurate. Only on certain occasions though. I'll have personal knowledge of an outlet and see that it is labeled as having a huge list of topics rather than it's main ones. Sometimes makes publications come up inaccurately in searches.
- A few instances where the contacts are out of date (i.e. didn't work at the publication anymore).
March 08, 2017
Decent, Not Perfect
We are using Cision as a department to track daily media mentions as well as retrieve media contact information pertaining to specific topics our writers would like to pitch. We also run monthly reports using the Cision analytics, which we share across our sixteen colleges to display how each one is doing month to month in getting their information out to media.
- Keeping updated information on publications/writers. This allows our writers to pitch stories to the most appropriate outlets.
- The media monitoring is always updating with new hits for reporting daily.
- Creating "reports" on media in a particular location and/or focusing on a unique topic is quick and easy through the Cision system.
- Different export options of reports in handy, based on what type of information you need and how a user needs it to be presented.
- Easy to change keywords to fit search needs.
- Original contact for system setup did a great job. Very attentive.
- Not every article is automatically picked up. Some major papers get skipped some of the time, even when the proper keywords are present.
- Some articles/outlets are delayed in when the system retrieves them. Some articles come through from years ago, that do not match the date filter requirements.
- Building reports to graphically look how you would like is not easy to do as a user, without requesting customer assistance help.
- Customer service/account rep is not always the most attentive to your needs. It could take days or weeks to get a response sometimes.
- Expensive!
March 01, 2017
Cision PR is a great option for PR agencies
We are a small PR agency that uses Cision PR to search for media contacts and outlets, and to build media lists. There are 4 or 5 of us who use Cision on a regular basis. It helps us to find multiple contacts for a specific topic in an efficient way.
- The database is large and appears to be updated frequently. This gives us confidence that the contacts we find are the right ones.
- There are lots of ways to break down the search for media contacts, making it easy to hone in on a specific type
- The filters allow searches to be even more direct, by choosing to include or exclude certain things
- Although it's possible to search for outlets by circulation or viewership, you can't apply to this filter to another search - it would be great if this was possible
- We are in the process of looking at their media monitoring software, but so far it doesn't seem as good as other services, such as Meltwater
March 01, 2017
Worth the Investment
Cision PR Software is used to help aggregate media contacts, create press release distribution lists and also upload and send media content directly to media contacts. It is also used to connect to reporters and other media contacts through social media and track and follow media coverage based on specific topics and our organization itself.
- Cision is a relatively easy to use platform that is more-or-less straightforward to the user.
- The software has great customer service representation and answers questions quickly and easily.
- It is generally very functional at pulling media lists and sending press releases to those outlets/individuals.
- Cision is a relatively expensive platform.
- While there is Cision staff devoted to updating media contacts, the process is imperfect and there are times where media outlets and contacts are not updated in a timely manner.
- It would be great if Cision allowed for media tracking based on specific keywords and individual names so that we could do most if not all of our media outreach and tracking in one place.
February 22, 2017
Cision - A Powerful Public Relations Tool
Cision PR Software is used across our organization. As a powerful tool for public relations professionals, Cision is an invaluable database to help publicists on every level connect with media located all over the country and all over the world. Cision addresses the ever-present issue in public relations of the changing nature of journalists, media members, and where they are currently employed.
- Cision has an intuitive, user-friendly platform
- Cision makes it easy to tailor searches for media based on a wide range of categories
- Cision's ability to simply export information is a useful tool
- Cision's large amount of information creates lags in searches and exporting
- Cision sometimes has difficulty correctly updating contact information of journalists when they change jobs
- Sometimes it is difficult to save unique searches as defaults/add unique searches to a list of saved search methods
February 21, 2017
Cision Review
We use Cision within our department (other departments may use it as well, but I'm not sure) to obtain contact information (names, outlets, email, phone numbers, etc.) for media outlets that we want to pitch our books authors to. It allows us to search for people at certain outlets as well as discover outlets that we had not previously worked with.
- Good customer service
- User friendly
- Up to date information
- Sometimes slow and crashes
- The hits/analytics are difficult to learn
- It's difficult to change information, as you have to contact customer service
February 07, 2017
Cision is the best out there
I have a boutique PR firm specializing in publicity and we use Cision everyday to build and update media lists, and to verify contact information.
- Media contact information is the most accurate compared to their competitors.
- Beat descriptions are fairly accurate.
- Interface is relatively easy to learn, and whenever I get stuck, their customer support is only a phone call away. They've walked us through search steps many times.
- They must make it easier to search for radio shows that have guest interviews! Hundreds of morning and afternoon drive-time shows do interviews every day but there's no easy, accurate way to search for them on Cision.
- They must identify contacts who handle books at each outlet. Book review editors have been drastically cut, so it's no longer a searchable beat. We don't have time to read through the descriptions of every single editor for clues. It's a real problem and we wish Cision would step up.
February 06, 2017
Cision PR Software Helps Build Better Relationships
Cision has been a great tool for my team. I've used it in particular to keep a media list of ours updated and accurate. It has helped me personally to make sure our contacts are at the same position, with the correct contact information. When they are not, I can now easily find their new contact information. Cision has saved me time because I don't have to try and follow a paper trail of emails to find one person's contact information.
- Helping to build strong media contact lists, by allowing you to add people who cover the same beats
- Helping to keep current with contacts information
- Helping to maintain relationships with media contacts
- When a contact needs updating, it could be helpful if there was a faster way for Cision to update the info. or be alerted that someone is no longer at the same outlet.
February 02, 2017
Necessary expense, ROI unknown
Our boutique PR agency uses Cision PR Software to distribute press releases in a fast, organized, trackable manner. The best use is that we don't have to keep up to date on all the journalist changes, the lists are, for the most part, up to date in the system.
- Contact database
- User assistance
- Training on software
- Ease of monitoring software
- Training on producing graphics on monitoring
- Cost
February 02, 2017
Cision Helps PR Pro to Impress Clients -- and Attract New Ones
I'm an independent PR/Marketing consultant for businesses and non-profits of all sizes and types. These range from a 9 office Orthodontic office to a private school with 250 students, to a large commercial real estate company, and a new product launch.
I use Cision differently depending on whether the client's products or services will be of most interest mainly in the Boston or eastern Mass. area, the New England region, or nationally. Cision saves a lot time -- I can set the parameters for the types of publications or other media I want, and the specific job roles I hope to hit -- such as editors, reporters, show producers, etc.
I use Cision differently depending on whether the client's products or services will be of most interest mainly in the Boston or eastern Mass. area, the New England region, or nationally. Cision saves a lot time -- I can set the parameters for the types of publications or other media I want, and the specific job roles I hope to hit -- such as editors, reporters, show producers, etc.
- Not too complicated to figure out (after some self-taught training and some calls to the help line). Once you know your way around, setting up the media contact list for a specific job, pasting the story and attaching a photo - are all straightforward.
- All of my calls to the 800 help desk have been excellent. The customer service reps know the program, they offer advice on how others they have spoken to might have approached the problem, and they are patient - even with someone who's not technologically inclined.
- I like the way I can see a full report of who received my distribution and I can share that with clients. I like the report that tells me it was successfully distributed, and a day later, what the success rate was -- usually around 93% of the targeted recipients. Seems good these days with the 'musical chairs' as various media downsize and reposition themselves.
- I suggested this a few years ago: It would be great if the next step that the user needs to do (as they move toward distribution) was shown in a bold and/or different color. Maybe even number the steps. "You are on step 3 of 6," for example.
February 01, 2017
Cision PR and Media List Building are like Peas and Carrots
Cision PR was used by myself and others in a previous role to create and curate media lists to reach audiences in healthcare, technology, and the military community with the intention of pitching recent news. Additionally, Cision PR helped identify influencers at publications, blogs, and websites to share content with.
Cision PR was used by 3-5 people in the company and tremendously cut down on time trying to Google influencers, get their contact information, and learn more about their publication or website.
Cision PR was used by 3-5 people in the company and tremendously cut down on time trying to Google influencers, get their contact information, and learn more about their publication or website.
- Cision PR has a large database of the more popular publications and is making great strides in adding smaller, community outlets and lower viewed blogs that may have a loyal fan base.
- The software is intuitive for the most part and is powered by keyword searching which is common for everyone.
- The addition of social media handles for reporters and pubs is helpful to understand what they're reporting on.
- Including smaller pubs and community outlets would be helpful.
- Sometimes an outlet will have 5+ names for a contact. If there's a way to sort those based on who is likely to respond or uses the software daily.
- Searching via social media only for keywords, recent news, and reporters could further target influencers.
I have used Cision PR in the past three years, twice, for media clips. It's the main way we track media mentions for our organization. I also use it for media contacts as we have 39 offices spread out geographically and a service like this is the best way to find contacts in those markets. I also reported on our media coverage through Cision.
- Strong media database - updated frequently
- Good tracking capabilities
- Individualized customer service is poor
- Reporting mechanisms are cumbersome and difficult
- Social media coverage is very lacking
- Overall media database and searching capabilities are a bit difficult to use
- Location of user lists is difficult to find
January 31, 2017
Streamline your sourcing, pitching & monitoring for PR
We use Cision to assist us with our outreach efforts. I am a single user of the software as we are a small company and do not have other members on the team that would need to use it. Having it available to create lists on media in our industry has been great. It was something we did not have access to prior. We also use it to send out our press releases on the wire.
- Cision is very accurate at providing up to date contact information for contacts at media outlets. I am constantly getting updates or changes to my lists which is appreciated.
- Their profiles for media contacts is great as well. Having a full outlook on their social actions and being able to write in our personal notes on what they prefer is very helpful.
- I also like that they give you the option to get a PR Newswire account right within the platform. This makes it easy to keep all of your PR efforts centralized and in one place.
- While I know they have training available within the platform and you have an account manager - I think it would be better if it was more visible or a focus.
January 30, 2017
Cision PR experiences
Currently, we use it for web tracking of hot-button issues that reach beyond our current social media and email training. We need to know threats to our organization and rely heavily on Cision to warn us instantly of any issues involving our top membership figures or our field in general.
- Instant alerts on notable issues.
- Self-tracking data for easy presentation.
- Does not simply re-use existing social media data as other platforms try.
- Interface needs better design, [it's] not intuitive.
- Does not have an accessible dashboard, just raw data.
- Does not integrate with some social media platforms, requiring separate search software.
January 27, 2017
Great Media Database
Three Girls Media is my public relations and social media management agency. We use Cision on a daily basis to create media lists as well as research members of the media, and to send out press releases or pitches to the press. Cision also has the largest media database of its competitors!
- Building Media Lists - takes the guesswork out of researching media on your own.
- Easily send pitches - With the integrated email plan it's easy to send messages to the Media
- Detailed Info on Each Media Outlet & Journalist
- Cision is by far the most expensive software of its kind. I'd like to see better pricing for very small companies, perhaps w/ 5 or fewer employees.
January 26, 2017
Cision sizzles
Our client uses Cision PR media tracking software on a daily basis in their communications department. The daily media clips provide knowledge of external issues relevant to the organization, as well as tracking of the organization's news releases. On a periodic basis, searches are conducted on specific issues.
- The user interface is well designed and easy to navigate.
- Customer support has ben excellent.
- Cision has become a market leader providing news feeds for traditional print and broadcast media as well as social media.
- Because our client works within its industry and is also advocating for member interests, there are many search terms necessary. Unfortunately this requires sifting through many unrelated stories on a daily basis.
- While social media is important, quantifying and qualifying search results on a daily basis is a daunting task.
January 26, 2017
Great product to use for your news release distributions!
I use Cision PR to upload news releases for our firm, Cherry Bekaert. It is used by my manager and me. Cision helps us distribute firm news to media outlets throughout our current footprint.
- The software makes it easy to create and edit distribution lists.
- Cision saves us time when distributing news releases.
- Cision helps us schedule specific times when news releases should be sent.
- We have issues with copying/pasting our boilerplates at the end of news releases. The problem lies in the spacing aspect, wherein the boilerplate content somehow does not become separate from the rest of the news release. It would be great if we can create some space between the two.
- Better email templates would be nice. I think there's only one template we use.
- The ability to attach more than one image in emails. For instance, we often announce more than one new hire in a release, and it's difficult deciding which professional's head shot we should include as an attachment.
January 26, 2017
The best way to get your products in front of the right people
We use Cision in the communications department to send out press releases, make pitches, connect members of the media with our experts, reach out on social media, and keep track of when our experts are in the news. I cannot speak for the entire organization.
- Targets the right people for your organization's issue area or message.
- Useful analytics.
- Easy-to-use interface.
- WISYWIG editor somewhat painstaking to use.
- Some kind of list-cleaner function would be nice.
January 25, 2017
Best media database for PR pros
The entire accounts team at my agency uses Cision for media list building. It addresses our need to build solid, accurate and up-to-date media lists to use on behalf of our clients that range from major FinTech companies to nonprofits.
- The new Cision media building interface is incredibly easy to use and very clean. Love the update.
- The new edition also includes more detailed bios on each journalist-- very helpful for pitching efforts!
- In the past, we've been concerned about that accuracy of contact information-- with the new interface, it is clear that Cision is investing their time into providing the best contact database out there.
- I'm personally still learning how to use the new edition, and have not run into too many problems. It takes a little while longer to build your search, but that in turn leads to better results.
- Outside of the media database, the monitoring system still lacks metrics that go above and beyond tracking mentions.
- The analytics platform should be integrating with Google Analytics to show how articles are really performing!
January 25, 2017
Cision is hands down the best media database we have ever used.
Cision is hands down the most exhaustive media database we've ever used, and we use it daily. After trying several different media database services over the past 15 years of our company, Cision PR has proven to be the most accurate, reliable, and easy to use. At the end of the day, it makes my job as a PR professional easier and allows me to focus on more important work than mining for media contacts. It's awesome.
- Tracking down a good producer contact for a TV show.
- Reach info on media outlets.
- Knowing who to pitch.
- Not super fast to add contacts to lists.
- Somewhat clunky and time consuming to export lists.
- Saving lists takes a long time.
January 25, 2017
Cision for PR Pros
My past employer used Cision to find contacts and build lists around a particular topic. It saved us time from doing google searches to find the emails of reporters.
- Keep a detailed database of contacts
- Help to build lists of those covering a particular topic
- Monitoring and tracking services
- Updating contact information
- Not as user-friendly as it could be
- The cost for multiple logins
January 25, 2017
If you're in PR invest in Cision now!
Cision PR is currently being used by our North American Communications Team, and may be adopted by our global team at a later date. We have a number of communications initiatives, and Cision helps us to find the media that we are targeting, create media lists for personalized outreach and to send mass emails on rare occasions. We also just started using it to track our media and social media coverage. I don't have extensive experience on that portion of the software, but from what I have seen to date, it is useful to see who is talking about AkzoNobel on social media. I actually am currently waiting for the media tracking to be activated.
- Media contact research. If you are involved in media relations and need to contact reporters covering specific beats, it's nearly impossible to do it without Cision. The software literally saves you hours of work. Rather than using the Internet to research editors who may be covering your market, you just submit information on the topics you are seeking, and the database pulls up a list of editors in seconds.
- Personal profiles. Not all editors participate, but Cision interviews a number of editors to ask them how they want PR professionals to connect with them -- by phone, email, and there are still some who prefer fax. It's a very helpful service that helps you get relationships off on the right foot.
- Email distribution. I have used Cision's media research for the last 15 years, but just recently started using their email distribution to distribute press releases to key media. It's a great tool, and tracks which reporters open your email and who clicks on the links included in your news release.
- I'd like to see them bring back their old influencer profiles where they ranked reporters on their level of importance from 30 to 99. I realize people complained about it not being completely accurate, but it provided a good gauge on how important the media outlet or reporter is -- especially for blogs, where it's hard to determine whether they are worth the time to contact.
- This may be a little premature, but media tracking is part of our service, and we have not had the opportunity to track any of our media coverage to date. Social media is working fine, but we are still waiting for the media side.
- It needs to work with all Internet services. There is functionality that doesn't work with Internet Explorer, so I had to download Google Chrome in order to gain full functionality-- which wouldn't be a problem, but when you are working at a large organization, it's hard to get approval to download any software, including Google Chrome.
January 25, 2017
Cision PR, an effective PR platform
Cision PR helps us to have a professional and consistent PR program without paying an agency to do the basic block and tackling work. It is used by a junior operator on my marketing team.
- Execute PR
- Maintain journalist database and find new journalists
- Analyze performance
- Their customer support/account team is not the best. You can get an answer out of them, but takes repeated requests.
- Their reporting tools are good, but do require some up-front investigation and verification of accuracy.
January 24, 2017
Cision is Great for Basic PR Objectives
I work at a public relations agency, and we use Cision on a daily basis to build media lists and compile media placement/monitoring reports. Overall, Cision serves as our key source for gathering the contact information for key reporters, editors, bloggers and online influencers. The database allows us to compile strategic, targeted media lists for any PR campaign we develop.
- Cision is the best database available for compiling media lists, both for print and online outreach.
- Cision is excellent for quickly getting high-level information or metrics about a publication, whether it be for a report or presentation.
- Cision serves as a great starting point for compiling targeted editorial calendars for a PR strategy.
- One search parameter I would love to see added back to Cision (it was removed a few years back) is being able to create a media list based on the top 100 newspapers. Currently, you must vet out the top newspapers via the circulation parameter, which adds a time-intensive extra step.
- Users get locked out of lists too often, even when no one is currently logged in. The customer service team fixes the problem efficiently, but I call to address locked lists a few times each quarter.