Today we announced the latest release of the Cision Communications Cloud™ designed to help PR pros better target influencers, craft multichannel campaigns and attribute the value of their earned media. Our latest release incorporated a large amount of feedback from our customers but I’m also pleased to see that it relates to many of the key findings in Cision’s 2017 State of the Media Report.

Rather than give you a bulleted list of all the new features in the Comms Cloud (of which there are many!) I’d like to highlight five challenges that the latest release addresses:

Uncover new or emerging influencers

Over 70% of PR Professionals say that uncovering influencers is their biggest challenge. Cision already has some great targeting features to help you identify influencers — whether it is by their beat, their real-time coverage or by their audience. Now we’ve introduced Influencer Recommendations, which alert you of new contacts added to our database that may be of interest to you based on your list criteria. This gives you a head start in building a relationship with a new influencer you may not have had in previous campaigns.

Engage with influencers in a meaningful way

More than half of journalists say that displaying knowledge of past work, interests and beats is what drives them to pursue a story. And journalists’ desire to have communications professionals research their media outlets before pitching ranked at the top of the list for ways to improve your relationship. So how can you quickly do your homework on a journalist? In our latest release, we’ve added thousands of new social profiles to our media database to help you connect with influencers. You can quickly read their Twitter stream, join their Facebook page, check out their content on LinkedIn, YouTube, Google+, Pinterest, SoundCloud and many more. Determine which social networks your contact is active on and begin to connect with them on common topics.  

Take advantage of editorial opportunities

63% of journalists indicate their reliance on PR pros hasn’t changed. And when a journalist needs an expert or source for an upcoming opportunity, Cision wants to make sure you know about it. We’ve added Help A Reporter Out (HARO) opportunities to the Cloud. With access to HARO, users can now search for journalist requests for sources where your experts can help. We’ve also expanded our editorial calendar database to include opportunities for internet outlets, not just print publications, giving you access to the largest list of searchable editorial calendars in the industry.

Easily execute a multichannel campaign

Even the most organized PR pros could use some help in making sure consistent messages are simultaneously conveyed across all channels and social properties. We’ve now integrated the PR Newswire press release wizard into the Cision Communications Cloud, giving our customers easy access to the largest and most trusted distribution network in the world.  Bulk upload social posts, schedule your press releases and launch email campaigns to journalists all in one place. We’ve also built a Campaign Calendar to easily see all your campaign activities and make changes as appropriate.  

Share your Success

Whether it’s emailing a daily report of your news clips or demonstrating how you’ve improved your brand’s share of voice to executives, we understand the importance of sharing results with key stakeholders in a professional and dynamic way. We put great focus on improving our email templates so clients can easily personalize and share stories across their organization. We also made significant upgrades to our charts and dashboards both in functionality and design. Great dashboards are meant to be shared and users can now email a link to a dynamic, personalized dashboard that allows non-users to access the results of a campaign with a password protected link.  

I’m excited on how quickly the Cision Communications Cloud is evolving based on the needs of our customers and hope you are too. To learn more about the new features, request a demo today so we can show you the product in action!