1. Home
  2. Public Relations (PR) Software Tools
  3. Cision Communications Cloud Reviews
  4. User Review of Cision Communications Cloud
If you're in PR invest in Cision now!
January 25, 2017

If you're in PR invest in Cision now!

Dan Green | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Cision PR Software

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.
  • The ROI is immeasurable. The amount of time you save using Cision compared to using the Internet to not only find the right reporters to contact but how to contact them (their email and or phone number) is hard to determine, but in some instances, for a big project, I don't believe it's a stretch to say that it can save you weeks of work hours.
  • Cision is a cost-effective tool, period. Rather than putting the time in to research media on your own, or paying a PR agency to build media lists and contact reporter for you, Cision will save the company thousands of dollars annually.
  • I don't think there is a negative impact on ROI for any Cision customer, and they will work with you to find a program that works for you -- i.e. if you are a non-profit, school, or small business, they scale the package to find something that will be affordable.
Cision now owns Vocus, but when I used Vocus in the past, it just couldn't compare to what Cision offered. The database wasn't updated nearly as frequently, so reporter contact info was terribly out of date. I like the Meltwater product, but it still has some room for growth to compare with the Cision suite of services, and with Cision's acquisition of PR Newswire last year, customers should start realizing some economies of scale when investing in both products down the road.
Personally, I feel that Cision is a required media tool for any organization that is interested in generating media coverage -- whether they are a small business or a global organization. I have actually worked at both over the past 15 years, and have always used Cision. When I came to an organization that didn't have Cision, like in my current role, one of the first things I did was work to get approval to order it. Cision PR's media research tool can be used to find any reporter across the country. For a specific example, I recently needed to send out a press release to all reporters covering Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. I used Cision to find all reporters covering these topics, then used the email distribution system to send out the news release. In real time, it took about 20 minutes to do that from beginning to end. If I had to use the Internet to research and contact all these editors, it would have taken days.