Item: Cision Communications Cloud
Rating: 8
Author: Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Cision Communications Cloud

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

It is being used across the whole organization, but primarily by me. It addresses the very real business problem of proof of performance. In public relations, gaining measurable insight into how awareness translates into performance is difficult. The other meaningful business problem it solves is it reduces the time myself and my team need to dedicate to reporting. Since the dashboard and metrics are so simple and 'self-serving' - it means neither me or anyone on my team needs to burn several hours working in the tool. This is valuable time now that can be spent on more important tasks like pitching and securing coverage for my clients.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Very attractive dashboards. These dashboards not only look great, but they are very accurate.
Dead easy to pull reports. I can pull a report in 2 minutes now, versus a competitor's tool - that required sometimes three HOURS.
Support is absolutely top notch. There is no waiting for an account person - the chat system is open during most business hours and each of the agents are very well versed in both the tool and the needs of my firm.
Cision worked with me on pricing and was able to scale to the economics of my company.
The tool is very easy to use and not 'fiddly' like competitors' - learning curve is very slight.

Cons

Newsletters should be able to come from my company's email address. Currently the system is set up so the newsletters come from Trendkite - and my clients are like 'Who is Trendkite? Did this come from you?'
The filtering system for incoming coverage is fantastic. I recommend adding more filters so PR professionals can weed out coverage on things like 'sales' 'bargains' and 'deals' — which are very pervasive in incoming coverage.
I strongly recommend outbound social media tools INSIDE the coverage dashboard so users can push out the coverage they see on the dashboard to their social networks and share. This would be huge and time saving.

Alternatives Considered

Vocus PR Suite, Cision PR Software, Meltwater News, Meltwater Press and BurrellesLuce Workflow

Cision (post-TrendKite acquisition) is far superior. It provides the tools you need and makes it EASY to access and report on data. Cision saved me HOURS of time on my reporting and now this time can be spent on creating content and pitching. Other competitor tools are fiddly and not attractive. Some of these competitors have had the same dashboards for more than 20 years!! Others have old and outdated information. Cision Communications Cloud is best in class and it is very clear that the product excellence starts from INSIDE the company. They had to have a great product in a crowded space and they succeeded big-time. BIG FAN.

Likelihood to Recommend

I believe Cision Communication Cloud (Trendkite)* is the ultimate dashboard in the PR field. By using Cision, you can get a clear picture of how your client's PR coverage is faring — and share this with them. All the key metrics are there - reach, quantitative coverage, favorability, performance over time. The best thing about it is that you can easily create PDF reports or interactive links. I have not seen a competitor make high quality, attractive reporting so easy.

Cision is not a pitching or contact tool, so it would not be appropriate for firms seeking a way to reach out to the media and ascertain contacts. But frankly, most PR firms have this in place anyway. Also, Cision does not measure traditional social media - only social media relating to PR. But this is a plus - because most PR firms want to focus on traditional PR and not become social media managers.

*This review was written before Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.

Transition from TrendKite to Cision Communications Cloud

Support Rating

Support is another sore point in the PR tools industry. Some other tools out there are very powerful, but have a deep learning curve and require a lot of set up and knowledge. And you can never reach the account rep to set up simple workflows. With Cision, the chat button is right there and I use it at least three times a day. In seconds a very friendly, real person will ask me what I need and then in most cases solve my problem in a matter of minutes. If my request is a very big one, they simply ask 'Are you working on a deadline?' and if I'm not, they might take a day or two tops to fulfill my request. When they cannot fulfill a request, they often put in a feature upgrade request to management if it is merited and if the overall tool/users would benefit.

Using Cision Communications Cloud

Usability

Cision's (TrendKite's)* usability is outstanding and unlike anything I've seen in the industry. A lot of thought was put into that dashboard before they rolled it out to PR professionals. The only feature that doesn't work for me is the 'chat' button in Firefox (so I just use Safari). In Cision Communications Cloud, the widget set up is brilliant - you don't have to go poring through layers of pages and interfaces. Each client has one simple dashboard, and you simply adjust and curate that dashboard for that particular clients needs - which we know can be very different client to client. Excellent.

*This review was written before Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.

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Cision Communications Cloud: Rescuing PR professionals from the Dark Ages of PR Reporting

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