Cision

Cision Platform Review

Comentarios: The benefits I received are the open & click rates of my new releases. So if I notice that one of my important editors didn't open it it allows me to resend to that editor.

Puntos a favor:

The ease of the platform is extremely good! The on-board training I received from account manager was extremely through. Also, sending out emails are very easy.

Contras:

I don't really have any cons about the platform.

Still the Industry Leader

Comentarios: Again, Cision still rules the field. Having had experience with several other similar platforms I can say that it remains the most reliable product out there to get the job done.

Puntos a favor:

While many will say that the platform is a bit dated, Cision remains the gold standard in its field. The reliability, usability, and overall data quality makes me an extremely satisfied customer. Cision certainly excels at obtaining contact information and list building.

Contras:

Cision's data analysis could be better. I often find myself using a service like Netbase to get deeper data concerning "what" people are saying exactly.

Cision won't stop billing my company

Comentarios: Cision provides a sub-par product and high prices. The company is holding customers hostage with a completely onerous contract. Avoid this company at all costs!

Puntos a favor:

My company used Cision for PR management. We did not receive any value.

Contras:

Cision will not stop billing my company. Within 24 hours of receiving a contract renewal we sent an email cancelling the contract. Cision did not reply and processed payment anyway. We contacted Cision to end the contract and they responded that we must notify them 5 months in advance to cancel a contract. How would we even know if we wanted to cancel at that time?

The Only Press Release Tool Worth The Time & Money

Comentarios: Cision is an excellent partner for releasing, disributing and getting visibility for press releases. Our news feels seen - in the best way possible - and feels like we have a very effective partner in Cision.

Puntos a favor:

Cision makes users feel like their press releases and news are being seen and heard by the correct audiences and that such press releases actually make some waves - we have consistenly seen feeback, outreach and other traffic when posting to and using Cision.

Contras:

My only complaint with Cision is that their internal search can sometimes qualify or disqualify press releases for certain topics/categories/indsutries into diferent baskets and categories than they ought to belong to, but this has a seemingly minimal impact on a campaign's overall performance.

Great tool for PR

Puntos a favor:

We use this to help build our media lists to reach out to media with

Contras:

I feel like the breadth of reporters on this database is not good as some other reporter databases.

A great addition at a price.

Comentarios: I have been a user for 2 years now and it amazes me how much data it can pull for my brands.

Puntos a favor:

Easy integrations. The set-up is simple and the solution is in-depth in terms of what marketers need.

Contras:

Can be pricey. But if you are willing to invest in the technology, it is def. good value for money. Great ROI.

PRweb with Cisiion

Comentarios: Great experience! We are able to push out PR posts to PRweb quickly and in a timely manner. It has helped us get visibility as well.

Puntos a favor:

The ability to get out a press release, the ease of posting a press release, its easy-to-use posting UI, customer service, boosting posts, and visibility reporting direct to my email.

Contras:

The contact of reporters and bloggers information isn't always up to date. The UI of the list builder function can be difficult to use.

great for us, not so great for latin america

Comentarios: save you a lot of time to do media lists, but definitely need to improve.

Puntos a favor:

this is my go-to software when having a pitch in the us market. have a lot of journalists and media for your pitch.

Contras:

i wish the journalists for latin america were more complete. A lot of media ins't even in the database and when there is, is never updated. Other think i don't like is that this include name as directors of media or companies and/or s-suite contacts. If you send a pitch to this people you are bothering them. editors should be more clearly marked.

Does What it Needs to But Isn't the Prettiest

Comentarios: While I don't think Cision is perfect, I've seen these press releases deliver amazing results for my client. So overall, I'm satisfied.

Puntos a favor:

Cision makes it relatively easy to publish and push press releases to the public. Its features are easy enough to use, and it guides you through the process step by step.

Contras:

Cision isn't always the most user-friendly/easy on the eyes. It can be awkward to fill out press releases, and they look different once they're published. I also notice that it bugs sometimes. What you type in the draft doesn't appear in the published version.

So easy for contact searches

Puntos a favor:

No more guesswork here, finding a contact is as easy as one, two, type

Contras:

I can't think of anything I dislike about this software, so far everything is up to date and timely with regard to media contacts

Good if you're on a budget, but...

Comentarios: I'm so disappointed with all of the people I've encountered at Cision over the past 18 months.

Puntos a favor:

This is a great affordable solution for those monitoring their media (and social media) mentions and you're on a budget.

Contras:

1. The interface is clunky 2. Sometimes they miss monitoring sites that may be firewall/subscription protected 3. Customer services isn't the best - you are dependent on Cision to change the keywords you're monitoring for vs having the freedom to do it yourself. 4. Training was not clear. We went through it several times, and never received the same guidance. Very confusing. And when there were changes mid-subscription, it took a week to get our new updates implemented and support to use the newer interact. 5. When renewing our service, our sales rep made promises on the phone and discussed price with us. We received a contract a week later with 5 days to sign and return it OR they threatened to increase our price by 5-7%! Completely unacceptable, as we have had a relationship with Cision for years! Our company has a process to sign a contract, and it's definitely longer than 5 days!

Clunky Compared to Competitors

Comentarios: Overall I would not recommend Cision because of the issues we experienced, but some of their tools are strong and it could be worthwhile depending on what you need. Our predecessors had chosen Cision, and while we did renew a couple of times due to the poor timing of making a transition, we eventually switched to Meltwater to consolidate our vendors and have a more user-friendly tool.

Puntos a favor:

Cision's reporter database is much more robust than Meltwater's, as they have trade/niche publications and more complete staff listings. You could also do more customization with the e-blasts.

Contras:

We had a terrible experience with the constant switching of reps, but even worse was that it took literal hours to pull metrics for our Board of Directors. I

A Known Name in the PR Biz

Puntos a favor:

Reputable and relatively easy to use. I use for finding press releases, breaking news and emails for relevant contacts.

Contras:

A little bit of an eyesore to look at when others are building more navigable news and press aggregators

Used it during Vocus/Cision transition

Puntos a favor:

Access to tens of thousands of journalists is useful as a PR practitioner. It also does a great job of tracking insights like tone and monitoring where your organization appears in the news.

Contras:

We constantly found journalists who hadn't been at their newspaper for over two years. Contact information is frequently outdated. The cost is practically that of a full-time employee. The PRWeb newswire they advertise frequently sends releases to websites with zero traffic, but counts it as a hit. And while their analytics are useful, I'd often go back to a prior month and run the same search string as before and be returned different numbers than the first time. It's hard to trust data that doesn't remain constant.

Cision is an industry leader for a reason

Puntos a favor:

I love the new capabilities that Cision rolled-out about a year ago, including a new user interface. I really like that, as a press person, I can easily search using multiple criteria - this really helps when I'm looking for press in a very specific industry.

Contras:

The only con about Cision that I see is its high price - I think that there should be an option that allows smaller companies to buy-in to some of Cision's basic functionalities for a lower price.

Incredibly robust database

Puntos a favor:

Cision has an incredible database of editorial contacts. Distributing press releases was also always a smooth process.

Contras:

We had to partner with other media groups to split the costs. Definitely not inexpensive.

Easy to use

Comentarios: I use Cision on a daily basis to reach out to the media with brand press releases. It is reliable and very user friendly.

Puntos a favor:

I like that you can populate targeted results very easily!

Contras:

I wish the contacts were updated. I also wish we could edit lists once they are created.

Cision is a great tool for our press release needs

Puntos a favor:

We are able to quickly and easily create contact lists and send our news items.

Contras:

We are very happy with Cision and it serves our needs.

Cision Review

Comentarios: We save research time and can build a contact list with ease.

Puntos a favor:

Finding the perfect outlets with accurate contact information to build our media lists for the pitching team has been the most reliable.

Contras:

The software is user-friendly and no technical complications have occurred. We use Cision every day.

Lacking some core features of free social tools, and data regularly out of date

Comentarios: Can not recommend the software or the company as when you complain and we have many complaints they will happily respond with your under contract just keep paying

Puntos a favor:

The sales pitch was great and we thought we had found a great tool, a solution that would combine all our PR and tracking needs

Contras:

The frustrations started soon after go live and support and resolving the issues was not forth coming. This resulted in paying for a tool that reduced productivity and we soon have to result to our original approach of email marketing and social media. The PR is not always up to date and can be limited once you start to drill down.

It's expensive but has up-to-date lists of hard-to-find contacts at major media outlets.

Puntos a favor:

The contact information and search features are extensive, so you can find exactly who you want to reach in the markets that you need. Even the pesky ones who purposely don't want their information published.

Contras:

List-building can be confusing (or at least, it used to be before I had to cancel), and sometimes too much knowledge can be overwhelming--without knowing how PR works, you can easily blast your information to all the wrong people, and make a gigantic fool out of yourself. This is not for DIY-ers just getting started!

we decided to end our subscription and opt for HubSpot instead

Puntos a favor:

I liked our ability to send press releases and manage social media from the same account. However, other software offered more options and automation features in one central location.

Contras:

The limited capabilities. We really needed something that automated more of what we do (email, social media, press releases, blog writing, analytics) all in one place. We ended up only using Vocus to send press releases, which wasn't worth the high price.

Only Game in Town

Comentarios: think they probably corner the market on PR software.. but that doesn't mean improvements can't be made.

Puntos a favor:

Cision offers an extremely wide span of media outlets... from large to the insanely minute publication.. it defintiely provides a good scope of everything in between! I

Contras:

I think this software is somewhat "clunky" ... think there is definitely room from improvement with the user interface. Moving between listings is a little complex.

Easy-to-use and intuitive features

Comentarios: I like Cision so far, I like that it didn't come with the pressure that is usually attached to learning a new tool. It's easy-to-use, user-friendly, and efficient. I look forward to learning it more in-depth and using it more often.

Puntos a favor:

I am only just beginning to use Cision but I like how easy it is to navigate through it. Learning the ins and outs is easy because the tool itself makes sense. It's intuitive, it has everything that one may need for PR activities. I also like that they enable access to educational resources and videos about features and functionalities.

Contras:

The analytics side of Cision is not the greatest, kind of hard to break down and digest. But that is currently the only "flaw" that I can find.

Great Product

Puntos a favor:

Really like that the company has taken advantage of the culture we live in now. My company prides itself on being extremely eco-friendly and this type of software really helps with the ideas and follow through of executing the right kind of marketing.

Contras:

Don't like that it only has a web-based program. I may be the only one, but I do find some use in having a desktop version as well. We still have the baby boomers who aren't as comfortable on the web as we are.