Cision Communications Cloud

[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.

Provides follow up to the press release distribution

Provides guidance and close monitoring prior, during, and after distribution

Broad reach and effective targeting of press releases

A more friendly interface so the company could see past press releases and metrics related to them

A local, bilingual support staff

Easy to use

Helpful

Good customer service

Price

Social Media Monitoring.

Resource Options - Forums, Q and A etc.

More information on the front end about the functionality.

More information at the beginning on how to fully maximize opportunity.

More engagement on social media

Media monitoring

Connecting to reporters

Branded reports

Price point — highest in landscape when we reviewed options

Not enough clients in our account — we have to juggle/rotate searches for different clients

Missing known coverage that has to be manually added

Custom reporting

Monitoring

Competitive landscape comparisons

Number of clients/brands monitored

Missed pickups on known coverage

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

Creating media lists.

Researching media targets that may exist for new business opportunities or existing clients.

Reporting results.

While the content generated through media research is high quality, the interface to get there is often clunky and slow.

The reporting features are good but not great. The software still misses a lot, and it takes time to comb through to determine what needs to be added manually.

Helps us build curated lists of press contacts

Builds and stores email distribution templates

We would love if Cision Communications Cloud provided more robust contact information related to non-traditional media outlets, such as podcasts.

Reach - A large list of mediums and new organizations that pick up our press releases.

Simplicity - Step by step approach to releasing news items with guidance along the way. Things like support with titles to get the best response [is] very helpful.

Expanded reach in technical niches - We are [an] electrical manufacturing company and our audience [is] quite difficult to [reach]. Cision Communications Cloud does a great job of helping us target.

Media contacts

Email distribution

Tracking campaigns

For new users, the learning curve is a bit daunting.

It's not the most user-friendly platform.

[The] price [could use some improvement]!

I like that Cision gives us specific numbers (ad value, total readership, etc.) as many of our clients respond best to concrete facts like this.

Cision customer service is the best! I've never waited for more than 5 minutes for a response, they are always nice and willing to explain things to me clearly.

I like the real-time media alerts that you can sign up for, it helps me keep track of media hits when I'm not actively thinking about them.

Cision often picks up coverage that isn't from my clients, so I'll have to go in and delete them.

It would be nice to be able to edit the information from within a report and not have to go back to the dashboard and then re-pull the report.

"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

Easy-to-use interface

Broad coverage

Excellent customer service

Does what I need it to do

Never experienced an outage

Add easy-to-find training modules

Needs to improve on some hyper-local media outlets

Media monitoring.

Media searches.

Social monitoring.

Better geographical searches.

Require more HARO details.

Require more Ed Calendar details.

Up to date media contact information

Platform for distributing press materials

Useful tool to track and monitor media coverage

Would like notices when media contacts leave an outlet and need to be replaced on 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.

Cision has the largest distribution network in terms of press releases

Cision Communications Cloud provides a detailed and almost immediate visibility report on the results of the release

I experienced some customer service struggles--mostly in that I had to wait on hold for 15+ minutes before I could ask a simple question along the way.

My release needed to be sent in a faster manner than traditional, so I had to follow up after each step wasn't completed quite as fast as it was detailed that it would. I did receive help, I just had to initiate the next step each time.

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.

Reaches editors and writers on the peripheral.

Great SEO

Easy to use and train on.

Provides great PDF proof of the release (which can be used for your files and even sent out if needed).

More granular selecting of publications.

More business publications.

More visibility into who is reacting to your content.

Maintain media lists

Perform ad-hoc reporter research

Customer service

User interface

Customizability

Data visualization - very helpful in presenting data to non-experts

Media contact database - fairly extensive and up-to-date, with some notable exceptions

Ability to organize work in "campaigns" - good for self-monitoring and reporting on ROI

Impact - this is wildly inaccurate

Actual views - again, wildly inaccurate

Reporting - should be more options besides real-time alerts and hand-curated newsletters. Automated weekly reports would be an obvious addition.

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.

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.