Cision Communications Cloud vs. Notified Public Relations Solutions with GlobeNewswire

For a small start-up, the cost-benefit to add lift to press releases [and] particular milestone accomplishments is definitely there with the Cision [Communications] Cloud. Much of what we do, by necessity, is done internally without the benefit of outsourced press folks, so the Cision [Communications] Cloud ease of use and reporting is very important.

Incentivized

This service might be more well suited for large corporations with a lot of press coverage that they need to get out on a very regular basis. GlobeNewswire may be much less appropriate for smaller organizations that cannot commit to the annual spend of the contract and adhere to its strict nature and aren't sending out regular releases. Note that they did not work with us on contract flexibility once signed, so just be sure that you will fully utilize the service and really stay on top of the cancellation date because if you miss it, you will be automatically locked in for another year. Thus for smaller companies it will be best to stick to an a-la-carte service that will be flexible and work with you on your changing needs. That is definitely not GlobeNewswire.

• 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.

Incentivized

• Allows you to see coverage from numerous sources: print, online, broadcast, etc.
• Allows you to track coverage for numerous clients in one organized place.
• Allows you to receive incoming coverage via email.

Incentivized

• The social component could be upgraded to more accurately collect metrics on ephemeral content.
• Social listening is done in a completely different program than the media monitoring - combining the two would make report creation much easier and allow for a fuller picture of an incident across traditional and social media on the built-in dashboard section.
• Social listening only tracks Twitter. Public Facebook comments would be key in seeing a fuller picture of how an incident or campaign is playing out on social media.

Incentivized

• Marketwired has recently changed its online platform. It is more complex than necessary. I used it many times and still often had to call the help desk for advice. Sometimes there would be 'bugs' in the system that were out of my control and even the help desk struggled to resolve it.
• I used to simply email the news release & photos to the help desk and they'd get it out for me on time. It was effective and I appreciated the excellent customer service. Now the help desk are no longer allowed to distribute on a client's behalf, which is frustrating - even if you struggle using the online system.
• The section of the online platform I found most confusing was around which media a news story would be distributed too. There are a lot of choices and it wasn't obvious to me as to how they were sub-divided. I often had to check with the help desk to ensure I'd made the best selection for the news story.
• The level of customer service has declined. My account manager who previously provided excellent service was moved to another role as part of an internal restructure. Many team members at my agency voiced frustrations with the level of customer care.

Incentivized

For all of the reasons I had mentioned before, I haven't found a product that surpasses what they offer. I will maintain renewing with them for a few years and then reexamine the market to see if any new competitors arise. Until then, I have no reason to leave them for someone else.

The flexibility and customization of Cision Communications Cloud (TrendKite)* is among its most important features. Changing the dashboards, using keywords in the saved searches to pull out the best stories and the integration with marketing automation tools gives me confidence that I will able to continue using this tool well into the future. The future implementation and integration of the media contact database will complete the suite, making list management and email marketing programs much smoother. *This review was written before Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.

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Easily accessible 24/7.

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Generally, Cision performs well day to day, but it's got some annoying bugs that slow down usage/require user workarounds which is inefficient. More seriously, a few months ago, as a result of a major system upgrade, certain critical functionality was not working and I was unable to use the service for more than a day when I had time-sensitive work to execute

For Cision TrendKite in particilar, support always responded, but it was sometimes slow. For some of our booleans and search queries, we would need help refining and excluding terms/phrases that weren't relevant to our client or campaign. This sometimes took 1-2 days just to get a response back, which sometimes was too late when a last-minute report was due. This was only with the support staff, not necessarily our customer success manager or sales rep.

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Their customer service is great and has been very supportive when we've needed it. Their team checks up on us regularly to ensure we are getting the most out of our service.

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The online training sessions available for the Cision Communications Cloud are helpful and informative. There's more than one option - initially, I signed up for the live webinar classes on basic functions and that is what I recommend other new users do as well. If I have specific questions or something I want to learn more about, I can search the online database and find article or online training videos to get the information I need.

Incentivized

There is no implementation at the customer's end so this doesn't really apply to my instance of Cision (possibly to all instances of it).

I found Cision [Communications Cloud] to be much more simple to use, and it offers the ability to track [a] wider array of media placements without additional fees attached to it. Now that it has incorporated TVEyes, it can offer print, online, radio, and TV tracking nationwide. This is [crucial] because very often your institution or company could be referenced in a variety of ways, nationally or briefly, on local TV/radio, and you would have no way of knowing about it.

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We have only ever used GlobeNewswire and have had such success that we don't feel the need to evaluate competitors or switch to another solution in over 5 years.

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Easy to use, but still room for improvement.

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• It seems as though media pickups have overall been down this year, perhaps related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Cision Communications Cloud has enabled us to develop numerous localized media lists for press releases, especially on grant recipients. These localized press releases have generated the best pickups that go beyond our KPIs (key performance indicators).
• The ability to save media lists provide a great starting point for developing future lists. The "talking about" helps to see what media contacts are talking about, and whether they might potentially be interested in our news release.

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• Circulates news on our company which raises credibility for us in the industry and to clients.
• Being able to use our releases as a resource to point to have had a positive impact on our social media presence.

Incentivized