Cision or Vocus? Which One is Best?
Monday, 4th May 2009
I’m evaluating public relations software platforms. I’ve taken the sales webinars. Now I’d like your opinion.
Which one do you use? Which one is better?
Loading ...Please leave a comment about your experience with either software. Thanks.
Here are other articles I have written on this topic:
18 Responses to “Cision or Vocus? Which One is Best?”
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Option C. Meltwater
Option D: None of the Above
Folks, these are early tools trying to analyze random pieces of fluff, string, and straw. They are little more than sales machines.
Don’t take it so seriously. Use the free stuff for the time being. Otherwise, your ceo is going to dump all the budget and expect you to get results at no cost. Look at what happened with AdWords, and heed these warnings.
I don’t believe that using free services is the way to build a strong public relations program (or agency). I do use free tools in risk management situations where the dialogue moves quickly, but for proactive pitching, you have to look beyond those tools. This is why I am investigating Vocus and Cision.
Take a look at PR Newswire’s MEDIAtlas service. It’s a great media database that is user-friendly and houses the most up-to-date contact information. I’d be happy to send you additional information!
If you’re serious about monitoring and analysis, check out MediaMiser.
Meltwater has largest source base.
Hi Brian, Jay from Cision here. Just wanted to say thanks for including us in your survey. Our global media database includes more than 900,000 contacts and we have recently partnered with Radian6 to offer a social media monitoring solution, the Cision Social Media Dashboard. Please let me know if I can answer any questions.
Thanks, Jay. I also received an email from Joe Crowley after this post went live. I appreciate both of you checking in with me.
We use Vocus and have had a lot of success with it.
Full disclosure: I know folks at both, and have done some webinars for Vocus & spoken at their conferences, but I’m not paid and there’s no quid pro quo. Having said that, I’ve used both – Cision more recently than Vocus – and I think Vocus is more intuitive, plus easier to navigate when you’re building lists, etc. At the end of the day, though, all platforms will be just that – platforms, which you have to build on and use proactively in order to conduct successful PR.
Shonali,
Thanks for visiting and leaving your opinion. It was quite helpful (and I appreciate the disclosure). As I can see, both systems have advantages depending on how you plan to use them.
Can you tell me how you have used each one?
Brian
I inherited the Cision system at my current job and was shocked at how counterproductive it was. It is certainly not the most intuitive system in the world, and I found it very difficult to navigate. I lobbied my managers to switch to Vocus for the project management and more user-friendly navigation that it offers, and so far, we’ve been extremely pleased. We use Vocus to build media lists, pitch stories and research reporters that call in with requests. We also use it to track our news hits. Cision offered all of these services but they were so awful to navigate that I cant say it was productive for us. Our experience with Vocus has been much easier and we are starting to see results from our efforts now more than ever.
I’m a big Vocus fan. I’ve been using it for a couple years now and agree with the comment above that you will get out of it what you put into it. We now run our RSS feeds, and internal clip reports through the program and use it globally, so all of our field offices are on the same page. I’ve looked at Cision and a few other services mentioned above, but no one system has all that Vocus has to offer.
I use Vocus and Cision and I have to say, Vocus is the best PR tool I have ever used.
Our in-house PR team just switched to Vocus after nearly 3 years of having dealt with Cision, and there’s no way we would ever willingly go back. Cision’s database seems antiquated and navigation slow and clumsy when compared to Vocus’s. We are still learning how to maneuver all of its features, but we’re very excited about the potential it holds for tackling the huge bear of social media and the growing digital pr realm.
Whether you settle on Cision or Vocus – and you pitch magazines – add the Wooden Horse Magazines Database (disclosure: I own the company) for expanded descriptions, reader demographics, editorial calendars and even writer’s guidelines. It offers more information than the “big” directories to help understand each publication’s editorial positioning, the key to successful PR with magazines. Meg Waver, http://www.woodenhorsepub.com
Vocus is a gigantic queff!
I was one of the first people to use the new cision point platform and hated it. It was slow, hard to log activities, and I hated getting charged for sending out distributions. I switched to Vocus, it took a few months before I was comfortable with all the different functions (comes with learning a new platform) but there are a lot of intangibles that came a long with Vocus. For example, my account executive is excellent, their support team is really good, and I can send out as many press releases as I want and don’t need to worry about going over budget.