Cision has announced its acquisition of the technical assets of Berlin-based ShareIQ. The ShareIQ platform is based on patent-pending technology that discovers, analyses and indexes original pieces of visual content, as well as shared and republished copies of specific images.

With the addition of ShareIQ technology to the Cision Communications Cloud, Cision becomes the first earned media platform in the industry to monitor, analyse and attribute value to both text and visual content.

“Cision Comms Cloud™ is the technology enabler for earned media management, a new discipline in which professional communicators are able to combine the art of storytelling with the power and science of data to establish communications as a critical driver of business value,” says Kevin Akeroyd, Cision CEO.

“With more than three billion images uploaded to the web each day and more than 95 million images added to channels like Instagram daily, earned media is becoming increasingly visual. ShareIQ is the latest of our carefully curated technology acquisitions designed to make the Cision Comms Cloud the most robust in the industry – and the first to provide comms professionals with a way to harness the business impact of the visual content market.”

While other industry offerings are limited to hashtag capture for images and logos, ShareIQ technology recognises unique brand images and logos across all social, web, and digital channels. The solution maps the history and path of each image to provide reach, engagement, and ROI, as well as insight into where the image is being shared and by whom – a publisher or an individual influencer.

Additionally, ShareIQ provides the ability to create custom audiences of individuals who have viewed, liked, or shared specific visual content. When used in conjunction with Cision’s established partnerships like LiveRamp and MediaMath, these audiences can be uploaded to any data management platform to facilitate targeted digital advertising.

ShareIQ can track brand-generated, user-generated, and influencer-generated images as well track and analyse the brand’s competitive visual content.

ShareIQ technology will be immediately available to current Cision Comms Cloud customers free of charge. The technology will be fully integrated into platform workflow by the end of this year for seamless targeting, distribution and analysis of visual earned media marketing efforts.