Powerful media tracking and visualization, but requires heavy lifting to configure
March 09, 2019
Powerful media tracking and visualization, but requires heavy lifting to configure
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Software Version
TrendKite
Overall Satisfaction with Cision Communications Cloud
Cision Communications Cloud (TrendKite)* is being used to track the media coverage of and for Portland State University. It's being used within the centralized University Communications team. It is used to track mentions, sentiment and provide leadership with a dashboard of coverage. It is also being used to search out appropriate journalists and bloggers to cover research and other relevant news from Portland State.
*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.
- Creates jazzy charts and graphs that help users visualize their coverage. For instance, you can track the number of mentions over time, sentiment and use of keywords and phrases in your coverage.
- Allows you to target and get useful information (contact info, social profiles) about leading journalists. You can search by specialty and immediately find their relevant coverage.
- Great support. They help users via phone and chat very effectively. Prompt, knowledgeable and always willing to dive in deep and find a solution.
- Hard to complete basic configurations on your own. You basically have to be an expert in writing Boolean logic to set up the most basic searches in TrendKite. So realistically you need one of their staff to set up your account before it is even usable. Not at all a self-service product.
- Interface and workflow aren't intuitive. You can tell this product was designed by engineers. The way you navigate through configuring it or doing searches doesn't originate from the perspective of solving a customer problem but from an odd workflow that seems to satisfy how their underlying systems do searches.
- Could include a press release distribution module with the standard configuration of the product. We had a way to send out media advisories and emails to media outlets with our prior platform, Cision [before TrendKite], but don't with TrendKite [alone]. So we have to invest in and use a separate email distribution tool because we're unwilling to spend what TrendKite wants to charge for their new "extra" email module.
- Cision PR Software
We selected Cision Communications Cloud (TrendKite)* because we liked its advanced analytics and visualization and the ability to find individual journalists' interests and target them with specific pitches. We also heard that TrendKite has best in class customer service and support. But we missed the content distribution capabilities of Cision and found configuring TrendKite for our day to day and ongoing use challenging.