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.
Couldn't be happier!
One of the better media monitoring products in the marketplace
Cision Communications Cloud Keeps Skies Sunny
The best media database software there is, but room for improvement in other offerings
Easy to use, and has what we need!
PR Simplicity with Great Reach!
[In my opinion,] Cision is becoming too expensive compared to competitors.
Cision Communications Cloud is great, but needs better podcast information.
Cision Communications Cloud: Perfect for Start-up Visibility
Cision Communications Cloud makes it easy to connect with journalists nationwide!
Media Release Made Easy!
More effective, centralized and streamlined communications.
Cision Communications Cloud: An Easy-To-Use and Helpful Solution for PR Measurement
Cision Communications Cloud is the Right Choice
Cision Communications Cloud Review
Awards
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Reviewer Pros & Cons
Pricing
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.
Entry-level set up fee?
- No setup fee
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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Product Details
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- Competitors
- Tech Details
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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
Cision Communications Cloud Videos
Cision Communications Cloud Competitors
Cision Communications Cloud Technical Details
Deployment Types | Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
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Operating Systems | Unspecified |
Mobile Application | No |
Frequently Asked Questions
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Reviews and Ratings
(468)Community Insights
- Business Problems Solved
- Pros
- Cons
- Recommendations
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.
Attribute Ratings
- 7Likelihood to Renew17 ratings
- 9.1Availability2 ratings
- 9.1Performance2 ratings
- 7Usability53 ratings
- 9Support Rating192 ratings
- 8Online Training3 ratings
- 10Implementation Rating3 ratings
- 7.3Product Scalability1 rating
- 9.1Vendor pre-sale1 rating
- 9.1Vendor post-sale1 rating
- 7.2Cision Communications Cloud User Experience10 ratings
Reviews
(1-25 of 144)Cision Communications Cloud: Perfect for Start-up Visibility
- [We can] use keywords, topics, and "talked about" words to successfully target appropriate journalists.
- [It makes it] easy to compose personalized outreach to targeted journalists.
- Reporting and evaluation [are] top-notch for our follow-ups.
- Word processing software could be a bit easier to use, other than that, the whole platform is top-notch.
- 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.
- It would be nice if the option existed to add more than one image as an attachment to a release distribution, particularly when you have multiple headshots of people being referenced.
- Integrating TVEyes was a wonderful touch, but they are missing some of the search flexibilities TVEyes offers on its own.
- Font changes and spacing have some minor issues in the body of press release templates.
*[This review was written near the time Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.]
- Easy and attractive reporting capabilities.
- Intuitive platform, very user-friendly.
- Ability to measure results (like share of voice) that you couldn't do manually.
- Time efficiency - takes the manual labor out of a lot of measuring and searching for journalists.
- Hard to get your boolean/search query accurate.
- Slow customer support from the technical side (not from the Sales side).
- Media database is mostly updated, but not always
Cision Communications Cloud is the Right Choice
*[This review was written near to the time of Cision's acquisition of TrendKite. The former TrendKite product is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.]
- "Talking About" option on media database
- Widgets on Cision Communications Cloud and SEO value
- The platform is easy to use
- Customization of Cision Communications Cloud reports
- Cision Communications Cloud customer service
- Not all placements are picked up or a lot of times the wrong placements are included.
- Although you can add in placements/coverage - it does not always end up in your report.
- If you want wire coverage (e.g. - PRNewswire, PRWeb, Businesswire) it won't capture the coverage if it is behind a firewall or taken off the site so you need to capture a report the day it runs or it skews the results if you are creating monthly reports.
- Now that TrendKite has merged with Cision not as many ebooks, resources and content is available - TrendKite used to have a great resource section.
- Cision customer service isn't as responsive as Cision TrendKite's customer service reps
Cision Review
- Media monitoring.
- Media searches.
- Social monitoring.
- Better geographical searches.
- Require more HARO details.
- Require more Ed Calendar details.
Cision: still the most robust platform available
- Great at providing a full list of contacts for each outlet we're trying to reach.
- TrendKite provides great insights for coverage, especially in terms of reach and SEO.
- Robust system that provides what many others cannot.
- Would like more features to flag contacts as inactive.
- Would like to be able to modify contacts already listed, for those that may have switched jobs and Cision hasn't updated their files yet.
- Oftentimes, the interface can feel "clunky," constantly having to click through things to find the information I'm looking for.
Great Product for Building Media & Influencer Relationships!
- Customer Support and consistent outreach from account reps.
- Resources and toolkits for best utilizing their products.
- Providing accurate data and contact info.
- Ease of use of influencer and outlet search tools.
- Difficult to format email campaign templates.
- Duplicates of contacts, outlets in lists.
- Reporting breakdowns of campaigns, or emails of performance could be beneficial.
Too Pricey, well suited for startups or smaller companies
- Media lists.
- Fairly easy to use.
- Searching for bios.
- Variety of media outlets, news, blogs, etc.
- Viewership data.
- Search is not as accurate as we would like.
- Database doesn't seem to be well maintained. Not always updated or accurate.
- Receive too many emails. Seems that even if you unsubscribe, you still get alerts.
- Can find news on Google that Cision does not carry or seemed to miss.
- Very high priced for what you get.
- Cision can be very slow at times, causing timeouts on our computers.
Building better media lists
- When I send contact updates to Cision Communications Cloud customer support, they always reply, usually in a timely fashion.
- I like the filters to the Cision Communications Cloud media lists which allow us to drill down by subject, job role, location, DMA, etc.
- Our account manager (Mike Sullivan) has been friendly. He's been able to keep our subscription at the same price in recent years.
- 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.
Improvements Could Be Made
- Media lists.
- Customer support/account service team.
- Outlet metrics (uvms, circulation etc).
- Search tool functionality.
- Lack of details for contacts.
- Slow updates to contacts.
Cision helps busy PR and content professionals connect the dots
We also use the platform to scan the news for coverage for our clients, and to perform competitive analysis for new clients, or during the discovery process for existing clients. It allows us to provide a summary view of what others are saying about our client and its competitors, and to also share helpful content analysis facts, such as number of mentions, number of publications reached during a time period, key terms used, etc. It is a valued research tool.
- Influencer research: I am able to quickly find the right reporter or editor for my pitch because Cision lets me know what they write about, their communications preferences, past articles, etc.
- Distribution: I appreciate a template to help streamline my pitch and press release distribution that allows me to send my news to a targeted list of contacts without having to send individual emails. I can send out communications with just a few steps, in just a few minutes.
- News search: I use Cision to scan for news and monitor for mentions of my clients. I also use this feature to keep tabs on topics and key terms of interest to me and my clients to stay ahead of emerging trends and stay on top of emerging discussions in my clients' industries.
- I would like to see more COVID-19 search terms. This is here to stay. Many of my clients want information specific to this topic.
- Let us monitor for reporters specifically writing about COVID-19. Make this a topic in the influencer search.
- I wish I had more functionality when searching "all news" instead of just "my coverage." There are times I have a search fully set up and get no results back only to realize I am in "my coverage" instead of "all news" and have to start all over again— only to find that I can't do half of what I could have if I was only searching my coverage.
I think it is probably less necessary for clients who are only in the news infrequently, or for whom PR is not an active strategy. If you are looking for passive and infrequent monitoring or engagement with media, a less robust solution is probably sufficient.
- List building
- Monitoring Impact
- Reporting and ROI Tracking
- Pricing can be difficult for smaller companies
- Navigation can be confusing
- Influencer marketing can use some better features
Customized lists, great for niche publicity
- Customize searches by media type, location, and most importantly subject
- Able to use key search words to help narrow down results
- Provides key contact information we couldn't find otherwise.
- Keeping more on top of updates. Listings or contact information is sometimes out of date. We have been starting to send in more notices about these.
- We would like to see a separate media category for podcasts. The number of podcasts has increased dramatically over the last few years; many of them overlap with internet and radio, we would like to see them broken out in a separate category.
PR Strategy Success with Cision
- Monitors media mentions. We can see where our news releases are published and we can see where there are stories about us that may require follow up with the journalist or publication.
- Monitors competitors. We can easily see the news our competitors are sharing and the volume of coverage they receive. This gives us great benchmarking data to increase our share of voice in earned media.
- Provides information about sentiment so we have an idea of overall perception the media is providing people about our company. This allows us to follow up and provide information and education where needed. It also lets us know where we need work to improve perception in the media.
- Customizable Media lists. Create lists with freelancers and staff journalists. Include notes about contacts, pitch ideas, etc.
- When people leave your organization, it can be difficult to change settings and automated emails.
- More ability to customize searches and to tweak them without the assistance of Cision of staff.
In addition to media relations, we also use it to track government contacts. It has been helpful to have our information in one place and out of a spreadsheet that could easily be overwritten or deleted.
Cision: an essential tool for any aspiring PR Pro.
- Always has up-to-date reporter information
- Location-specific searches for media relations in local markets
- Lists previous coverage and current interests of reports to more accurately target outreach
- Sometimes it is missing contact information for key journalists.
- Reporter beats could be more granular.
Cision is the best
- Media contacts in different industries.
- Filtering contact searches.
- Tracking pitch opens and metrics.
- Mass pitches.
- Updating email addresses.
- Making sure all coverage is picked up with monitoring tool.
- Media database of reporters is always helpful and what I consistently come back to Cision for.
- Monitoring: I find it harder now at a B2B organization to measure impact with Cision, but Cision's ability to monitor sheer volume and general impact has always been helpful.
- Share of voice.
- UX when it comes to switching between systems. I understand that it's a process that is long and can be difficult to accomplish but feels like as such a powerhouse Cision must have a faster process for this. e.g., Trendkite. Overall, as a user, I get the sense that Cision just buys companies and everything I touch as a user requires me to enter a new system/previous company's interface. It's also complicated to remember where things live, or how you get to similar aspects in other platforms (e.g., Distribution and Message Center).
- HARO: I'm interested in certain search terms within HARO and am surprised there isn't a way to create an email alert based on my search term.
- Cision Communications Cloud has an extensive media outlet database so it allows public relations and communications professionals to find the right media outlets and contacts for any media market in the United States and for just about any specialty or trade news media.
- Cision Communications Cloud is very user-friendly. It's easy to navigate and find what you need, plus offers a lot of options for how to organize your contacts and media lists.
- The customer support team at Cision is always very helpful and gets back to you quickly when you need assistance. Cision also offers online/teleconference training classes plus a great help section within the portal that contains articles and "how to" videos.
- Cision could do a better job of keeping all media contacts in its database up to date. It is difficult because in today's media landscape, turnover is high BUT having the right names and contact information is critical for the public relations and communications professionals who use the software.
- Cision could start offering lower cost package options for smaller companies or agencies. Right now, the cost of subscriptions is at a level that smaller organizations likely can't afford it but don't necessary need all the features that larger, enterprise companies will utilize and are willing and able to pay for.
*[This review was written before Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.]
- Media monitoring: good at catching broadcast clips and online clips compared to other tools I've used.
- Share of voice against competitors is also easy to use and good to show the value of brand within the industry.
- Some of the searches can be really complex to understand and can pick up a lot of unwanted media hits.
- Setting up dashboards and learning to use them can be hard and have a bit of a learning curve.
Cision Communications Cloud: Almost There
*[ This review was written before Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.]
- Ease of use: easy to tag articles, build reports and comparisons
- Customer service is always ready to help with anything.
- Helps automate a very manual process.
- The quality of the automated and developer implemented article filters: too many unwanted articles get through. Takes too long to make the articles pulled and the reports accurate. Eliminates the time savings pretty quickly.
- Difficulty in self-building new searches.
*[This review was written before Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.]
- Accurate reporting and measurement of editorial results
- Easy-to-digest, visually impressive graphs that can be incorporated into reports
- Easily sharable interactive reports that can measure share of voice among other valuable metrics
- Bulk removal of irrelevant search results
An analytics software that helps prove the worth of PR
*This review was written near the time Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.
- Dashboard view of news coverage
- Search and tracking of news articles
- Better searching capabilities.
- Filter options for dashboard.
Dynamic PR Analytical Platform
*[This review was written near the time Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.]
- The scope of media outlets Cision has is very good. It gives the mentions that one will never be able to find just doing Google or another online search.
- I find the interactivity feature particularly useful. You can change the look of your dashboards adjusting the date range and other parameters whenever you want.
- We'd like to still see more media outlets covered by Cision.
- Sometimes it's not possible to add the article that we want to be in the list manually.
Useful Tool for Busy MarComm Execs
*[This review was written before Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.]
- Aggregate sources of media mentions
- Extensive list of journalists
- UX related to some of the search functions
- UX related to query building
Very happy with Cision Communications Cloud!
*This review was written before Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.
- Customer Service
- User Friendly
- Automatic setup systems (like daily emails) for users instead of having to ask a rep.