One stop shop for PR professionals

Use it as a daily tool for media and influencer outreach.

Pros

You get contact info from journalist that you wouldn't be able to find online. And they all have opted in. Great search tool to find new outlets and great monitoring service.

Cons

Expensive software but you are purchasing a lot of contact information. Great if you have a big PR initiative, otherwise it's hard to validate the expense

An integral tool for social media marketing

We have an opinion that this service is a great solution for social media marketing. It can help you to build new contacts, make researches and communicate with clients. Moreover, it is easy to use, so you need to try it for sure.

Pros

There is no doubt that Cision is a perfect tool for marketing. This service offers the easiest way to find a particular influencer. With a help of a special menu, you can choose a precise category and choose a proper category in order to get an exact outcome. Moreover, it offers to pick up a theme or a location in order to find a person that is connected with the same informational field as you do. Cision is a great service for social media marketing. It has a solid database, flexible and user-friendly interface and many useful tools for marketing. With its assistance, you can turn into reality different marketing strategies within a second.

Cons

Unfortunately, Cision isn’t perfect. An automated search doesn’t work properly, so you to rely only on your personal research. Despite the fact that Cision has a profound database, it still lacks the data itself. Sometimes, their researches can be a little bit slow and there is no chance to find a particular person that you really want to find. Moreover, if you don’t know the right name of the influencer, you won’t find him or her at all.

Quality of information gathering seems to have gone down

We use Cision to monitor media mentions and for their media database

Pros

I've used Cision on and off throughout my (long) career. It has always been 'on top of things'. I always felt it was innovative and did a good job of gathering media data.

Cons

I've found that the database isn't as user friendly as some of the other databases that are out there. I also have a subscription to a competitor and have found that Cision does not pull in the same articles as this competitor.

Easy to use

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

Pros

I like that you can populate targeted results very easily!

Cons

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

A publicist's dream - perfect for researching media contacts

We use Cision for all of our pitching needs, and it's an invaluable tool for us. I've built lists for specific media campaigns using Cision's "covering..." function, and found niche outlets that I wouldn't have otherwise found. Overall, Cision is a great one-stop for most publicity needs.

Pros

I love how easy it is to look up an outlet and find the correct contact to reach out to with a particular pitch. It's also extremely easy to look up outlet circulations, which we research all of the time in order to maximize visibility. Cision is normally pretty up-to-date with different outlets, which is impressive in a constantly shifting media landscape.

Cons

Sometimes the search requirements can be a little too specific, and an outlet has to be typed in a very specific way to appear (i.e. with or without "the" in front, etc.) It'd be great if there were suggested terms, similar to Google, so that if you don't know the exact spelling of a last name you could still track down the contact.

Great features

Constantly improving experience for customers and would recommend.

Pros

Reporter database constantly updated, new features including social accounts and connections to other reporters covering similar topics are great

Cons

Sometimes can be hard to find niche outlets or outlets without clearly defined roles for staff to pitch

Great database and ability to filter contacts

Powerful list building and monitoring capabilities

Pros

Cision put monitoring, and outreach together in one platform and made it easy to build media lists of relevant contacts

Cons

I was using an older version of Cision (CisionPoint) which was very slow, but this appears to have been fixed in the new cloud platform. Not intuitive or easy to fix search terms (again I think this has been updated)

Can't live with it, Can't live without it

When it comes to media databases, none are really amazing. Cision is one of the top contenders and a necessary evil for PR.

Pros

Cision works when you want to find a specific reporter's email; i.e. you know their name and publication. It's also helpful in figuring out the email formats of different publications.

Cons

It's not very intuitive. If you type in the name of an outlet, for example, all outlets that have any part of the words used in the query will appear. Results require a lot of manual sorting to figure out what is relevant to your search and what isn't.

Media Friendly Platform

Very pleasant experience and found a lot of useful tools, such as list building and more

Pros

The product is a publicists' dream, making it easier than ever to find media contacts and new outlets

Cons

The platform can be slow, there isn't much mobile presence and sometimes the contacts and insights are outdated

Entreprise à éviter

Service comptable complétement désorganisé, facturant deux fois, facturant à tord etc. désagrables au téléphone.

Pros

Base de données pas toujours mise à jour. Infos parfois erronées

Cons

Le gros problème est l'organisation del'entreprise. Ils facturent à tord et à travers, de façon opaque. On se retrouve avec plusieurs factures impossible à vérifier car lié à des consommation de points (lis aux parutions obtenus). La résiliation ne se fait que par lettre AR. Il vous menace si ce n'est pas fait un mois avant la date d'échéance et il n vous la rappelle pas , bien sûr. Et il y a de grosses procédures de relances avant même la date d'échéance des factures.

I want to like it

I was actually the person who convinced my boss to purchase Cision for a start-up I was at in 2018. It was helpful, but I'm not sure if it was entirely worth the expense. In part, it was because I didn't have buy-in from necessary stakeholders and there was a significant time investment to sifting through to find contacts. In my current position, I inherited Cision from a predecessor. Again, I feel the money could be better spent elsewhere. Again, it's probably because less the platforms fault and more because we don't have the internal resources to fully dedicate to PR. I've always found the customer service there to be incredibly friendly and helpful.

Pros

The HARO subscription that comes with this product is incredibly handy. The contact database is useful, especially when I was trying to find blogs willing to review a new product.

Cons

The search felt a little cumbersome at times, and I've come across some outdated data. It's very labor intensive to sift through to find valuable contacts and establish a rapport with them. The software doesn't replace a PR professional with solid industry contacts. It bothers me that I can't set up my own listening devices and had to reach out to our rep any time I wanted to make a change. I've yet to come across anything in their that didn't pop up on other alerts I have set up in other platforms, so that piece of the software felt redundant for me.

Ok media database, good monitoring, and everything else is disappointing.

Ok media database, good monitoring, and everything else is disappointing.

Pros

The Cision database is fairly complete. If you know who you are looking for, you can usually find their name and contact information there. The news monitoring function — alerts which track news published online — does a fairly good job of giving me a heads-up about coverage. If you want to track coverage by source type against particular names or keywords, Cision monitoring will sometimes produce sources that Google alerts will not, and it will usually beat the alerts by a day or so.

Cons

Reporter discovery is hard. Beat designations within Cision seem very rudimentary and “thick”— reporters listed as “Technology,” for instance, might cover “artificial intelligence” or “embedded analytics” or “machine learning” or some combination of the three. Given the fact that an off-beat pitch can easily result in a communications representative being added to a reporter’s spam list, it’s critical that you know exactly what a reporter is writing about, or risk having no way to contact a reporter ever again. For media search, I needed Boolean search. Cision promised that functionality but, without getting too far into the limitations of their archiving, their provider agreements, and their search functionality, I found it a very clunky and inefficient way to search coverage on the fly. It's also super frustrating to be told that a publication is "in the database" but isn't searchable, because of licensing covenants.

A solid tool

Would recommend Cision for capturing media coverage.

Pros

I use Cision at least on a weekly basis to search for media coverage for a multitude of clients. What a lifesaver. It does an amazing job to find media coverage worldwide and some stuff on social media.

Cons

It takes a while to set up for each client. Thank god that Cision support helps with this. Sometimes connecting with your Cision rep is difficult and takes time. Their social media coverage needs some work but they have made strides.

Still the Industry Leader

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.

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Used it during Vocus/Cision transition

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Quick, easy to use, impactful

Pros

As a PR professional, Cision is vital to me. I use it everyday and it can be a huge help in identifying targets across the globe. They are always updating the platform and making it easy to save and search lists.

Cons

I don't like how when you use the quick search, having the right spacing of the publication name is important to finding the publication. Additionally, cision will sometimes kick you out of the platform while you are working on lists and those lists wont get saved and you have to start all over. The look and feel of the platform is a little outdated and could use a refresh.

Cision for your Media Needs

Have been using CISION for years, back when it was VOCUS. It's my go-to, use-every-day tool that helps me keep track of media placements and what I use for media distribution given that CISION is the only such tool that gives me access to both PRWeb and PRNewswire.

Pros

Great for doing research on publications, writers, etc., and superb tool for media release distribution.

Cons

Cost. It's a great tool, but not inexpensive.

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

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

Pros

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

Cons

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!

Cision review

My company can distribute materials in a broad and efficient manner thanks to Cision!

Pros

I like that Cision stores journalists information in a neat and efficient manner, making it easy to personally reach out and mass distribute public relations material.

Cons

I don't like that Cision's contact information can be outdated.

Good tool for media contacts.

You need the contacts, Vocus has them.

Pros

Lots of great media contacts for all categories from technology to finance, consumer products to juvenile goods and everything in between.

Cons

It's expensive. I get that it is hard to keep these lists current with all the movement and magazine closings...

Cision does the work for you

We did a lot of manual grind searching in Google and Bing for opportunities, Cision has helped us quicken that process without worrying if we had a good resource to reach out to or not.

Pros

The ability to reach out and find people for link ops or for content ops is amazing. The reach and database they have built for this is impressive. We've done several "expert pieces" for clients and the fact we can use this to curate the content we have has sped up our process. Cision's quality of reporters is also nice to trust. We know they don't let just anyone in their database and it allows us to pick and chose who we want to work with.

Cons

It's pricey, but you pay for the high quality of resources which benefits you and your clients in the long run.

Time saver boon for media database build-up

Pros

Cision is an invaluable asset when it comes to building media databases quickly and effectively. I manage public relations across different countries, and this tool helps me save a considerable amount of time and resources. Not only it provides journalists' names, contact details, interests and social media accounts: Cision also offers outlet stats, including readership and ad rates, as well as editorial opportunities. A great aid when it comes to pitching the right story to the right journalist.

Cons

Cision's database is vast but it's not complete. Not all media contacts are actually working and updated, so there's a certain probability to get few bounce emails. Another minus is that it does not provide a list of the journalists' latest published articles - a functionality offered by Cision's competitors, which is extremely helpful when pitching to the media -.

The Only Press Release Tool Worth The Time & Money

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.

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Cision Platform Review

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.

Pros

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.

Cons

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

Cision

While its a business necessity for my line of work, Cision could be a smoother experience overall and could be more user friendly.

Pros

Cision is a great resource to have when evaluating media outlets and using it as a database to access contacts of these media outlets

Cons

Hard to navigate, UVM seems overly inflated, and not all the outlets are accessible online. Also, when searching for outlets its hard to navigate because the online version of news is considered a separate outlet from the paper or magazine version, when they're owned by the same entity.

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

Pros

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.

Cons

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

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Necessary evil of the PR industry

Pros

Once you have figured out how to navigate Cision to get the information you need, it is relatively straightforward to use. Can be a good starting point when building lists, etc.

Cons

Missing critical reporter contact information across all types of publications, not very "smart" in terms of search and pulling only the truly relevant results from keywords.

Makes PR work easier than ever

Pros

I used this when i interned in the PR world. It made my job SO much easier. The searches are effortless and it brings you right to the contact information that you need.

Cons

Sometimes you can be searching for a blogger or media outlet with a very general name and have to pick through to find the right one.

Cision is an industry leader for a reason

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Cision is popular - but I find it hard to use for simple basics

Pros

Cision is the most popular media database out there. It has the ability to do a lot of things. You can search for all types of media contacts, build lists, etc.

Cons

My experience is mixed, however, as I find it a bit hard to use for basics like searching or building a list. It's also expensive. I'd consider alternatives before purchasing.

Very helpful in the public relations field,

Creating media lists, finding media target contact information

Pros

I love how it can easily create media lists, with very little time. It is great to use in a pinch to find media target contact information

Cons

The user experience seems to be a little outdated. The look and feel of the software could definitely use a more modern update

Incredibly robust database

Pros

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

Cons

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

Easy to fill out - not much to it!

makes the clients happy - they have proof that were sending their news or new product releases to the world!

Pros

It's so easy to send something out. There is not much / it's not confusing to plug in the information that needs to go out. I also like the reporting feature so clients know views and clicks!

Cons

The tagging of types of businesses can get overwhelming. There are a ton of types and subtypes - which is great because you don't want to miss out on a market - but this part takes up some time.

Really excellent communications software

Definitely the best tool I have used for comms and PR. Really happy.

Pros

So easy to search for the right people. Wouldn't be able to find these journalists and PR people by using a simple web search. So it's really great for PR activity. Great for getting content out there.

Cons

I wouldn't exactly call this software cheap. Although excellence should come at a price! Initial training was also a bit confusing.

Great if you have time to learn to use it

Cision is an incredibly powerful tool, but there is a significant amount of startup time. And while there are quite a few useful search parameters, it still takes a fair amount of culling by hand to get the right media lists. It's incredible for larger national and regional outlets, but we did find it to be a bit light on info for smaller ones. Overall could improve but I don't think there's anything better available.

Pros

It is an incredibly exhaustive list of media contacts with hard-to-find contact info

Cons

Sometimes you get oddball search results and the smaller regional media outlets are represented only very lightly in some cases.

Nice for reaching variety!

It's definitely nice to use for press purposes, I just wish it had a few more bells and whistles!

Pros

I like that I can mass pitch, search journalists and distribute press releases easily.

Cons

With certain packages, you can no longer rush press releases and have to plan way in advance. I also don't like how you can't be more specific when targeting when distributing press releases.

Great

If we ever needed help understanding how to do something we got it right away.

Pros

This is an easy to use multi use platform that my company and myself utilizes regularly with great success.

PR Newswire for Mexico just did not work for us

Overall we are very unhappy with PR Newswire. We won't be using it again, not after this first bad first impression.

Pros

The only pro that we can think of is the simplicity of submitting your release online. It seemed simple enough. Also their 1800 customer service was helpful with technical questions.

Cons

We started with PR Web and they wanted to sell us the services from PR Newswire, their promise was that they will have a better reporting, better chance to have press releases picked up by media, etc. -- We sent out a first press release and the results were terrible. The report was pretty much the same as PR Web, which is an automatic publication from their partners on sites that are really not reputable at all. They even have personal blogs listed. -- When we contacted the representative in charge of our account he said "Your press release had great results" and then he suggested we create a google alert to see where our press release was published. We tried this service with the idea that it would be better than paying a free lance PR agent in México. We paid for 1 release double of what we paid the agent in a whole month and we absolutely regret joining this service. -- It might work for other areas but for Mexico it absolutely does not work. The WORST part is the lack of willingness to help the client resolve the problem. They offered no solutions or help.

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

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

Pros

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

Cons

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.

Cision

It was never the only thing that we were using, but could occasionally be helpful if we couldn't find the information we needed anywhere else.

Pros

Cision can be really great when it comes to finding contact information for various writers, editors, and media people. Sometimes, there's information that is hard to come by elsewhere.

Cons

Sometimes, the information provided on Cision is outdated or accessible for free via the internet as opposed to using a paid service.

Cision is a great tool for our press release needs

Pros

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

Cons

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

Great Product

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

PRweb with Cisiion

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.

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Only Game in Town

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

Pros

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

Cons

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.

Cision Review

I often use Cision to find out the readership of different media outlets, or to find emails of media contacts.

Pros

I use this software in my work in PR, and find it useful for finding information needed regarding media outlets and media contacts.

Cons

I find that often the information is out dated when it comes to numbers, emails, etc.

Used this product look up influencers/journalists to work with

Pros

I liked that it had a huge directory of contacts to look up and is very easy to use. I looked up specific contacts and the program had it.

Cons

It's a bit old school in it's design. It definitely could use a refresh. Also, contacts should be updated frequently.

Easy-to-use and intuitive features

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.

Pros

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.

Cons

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 for us, not so great for latin america

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

Pros

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

Cons

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.

Serves a purpose but I don't love it

It can be useful if you just need your release "published" so you can point to it and you don't want this to just occur on your own site. After sharing a few from here I have since decided to simply post them to my own site and then push out via my own audiences.

Pros

If you need a press release "published" (even if just to Cision) this is a good option. I've used the lowest level a few times for this reason. It can create a professional page to share but don't expect any real pick up from putting out on Cision (at least on the least expensive level).

Cons

We didn't get any pickup. (to be fair, I didn't expect much as I used the lowest level they offer) Also, the interface is pretty dated.