Editor’s Note: Each month we ask communicators to turn over their toolkits and tell us what falls out. In other words, What tools and technologies are you using to do your job?
We know few better to talk about the best digital tools to use for PR and marketing than Michael Lamp, SVP, social & digital media at Hunter Public Relations and Brooks Wallace, the West Coast lead at Hollywood Agency.
Their edited responses to our question about some of the digital tools they recommend to improve PR and marketing efforts are below.
Michael Lamp: The question PR News asked is easy and difficult. Sometimes it seems as though there are so many tools aimed at helping PR pros do our jobs better that there must be one for every day of the year. While this is probably true, how to decide which tools to recommend and discuss?
I’ve decided to share with you seven tools that help my digital team progress through the week, from planning to publishing to measuring (and everything in between).
Monday
Ahalogy Muse– Begin your week by examining content trends within the influencer community. Making a content plan for an upcoming holiday? Search Muse, a free tool from Ahalogy, to uncover what influencers created around the same topic last year and get a leg up on your competition.
Bonus: consider Ahalogy’s network of creators to develop content for a product launch or seasonal celebration. (https://muse.ahalogy.com/signup)
Tuesday
CreatorIQ – So, you’ve figured out how to insert your client into that upcoming holiday. Now, you’ll need the right cast of influencers and creators to help your campaign soar. CreatorIQ is a paid tool that is equal parts identification tool and campaign manager. Build and share lists of prospective partners, based on a number of vetting filters, and use the management tool to compare results when content goes live. (https://creatoriq.com/)
Wednesday
The Hoth Keyword Planner – With your creators now on board and hard at work developing content for your holiday campaign, it’s time to think about the actual copy that will carry the brand’s key messaging. The Hoth is a SEO company based in Florida, but it offers a free keyword-planning tool to gauge the volume and trend data related to a given term. This is a quick and easy way to optimize content for digital distribution. (https://www.thehoth.com/google-keyword-planner/)
Thursday
Planoly – As the holiday in question grows near, it’s time to start visualizing how your content will reach its audience. With Planoly, you can mock up Instagram posts for a given month to get a sense of how they’ll look when stitched together. So, whether you’re looking to build a composite graphic out of many smaller images or just want to ensure quality control across the board, this tool can help. The free version includes limited analytics but is a great creative mapping solution. (https://www.planoly.com/)
Friday
Iconosquare – With your content ready for distribution, it’s time to start thinking about measuring the effectiveness of your effort. Iconosquare is a great way to capture results across both Facebook and Instagram. It’s helped our team make unexpected discoveries, such as the best Instagram filter to drive engagement. It’s a paid tool, but the starting monthly cost is a palatable $29. (https://pro.iconosquare.com/)
Saturday
SMMartbox – It’s the weekend, so it’s time to let your campaign live its (best) life and reach the intended audience. Take this moment to pause, pat yourself on the back and shift your thinking to what other tools can make your job easier. The SMMartbox, a directory of more than 300 tools for social marketers, is brought to you by the folks at Iconosquare and is easy to search in, based on category or need. The descriptions also clearly outline whether the tool is free, premium or freemium. (https://smmartbox.iconosquare.com/?utm_source=iconosquare)
Sunday
TrendKite – End the week by tying your efforts back to the basics of PR: earned media! Since my co-author Brooks Wallace also recommends TrendKite, I will keep my comments brief. Suffice it to say TrendKite is a premium tool that does a masterful job of identifying not just communications outputs, but true business outcomes to illustrate the value of earned PR. Use it to understand competitive share of voice to honing in on messages or content that drove the most traffic back to your website. (https://www.trendkite.com/)
Quid – Assess the influence of your campaign with Quid, a paid data analysis tool that lets you hone in on categories to determine the types of content driving coverage, as well as brands owning shares of the conversation. It’s a great way to identify white space for programming, benchmark performance and measure effectiveness of earned media. (https://quid.com/)
Brooks Wallace:There are tools that help make any job easier, PR included. In our tech-dominated lives, a reporter’s bio is available with a click, software populates a digital clip in seconds and Instagram graphics can be whipped up in no time. Who needs to be design-savvy when there’s atool that will make you seem like da Vinci? Why waste 15 minutes formatting a clip when a tool can do it so much faster? Tech tools are at our fingertips, and the more tools we learn, the faster (and better) we can do our jobs.
Team Collaboration/Measurement
Know a PR pro who wants more email crowding her inbox? Really? Seriously, Slack will ease anxiety and reduce internal emails. It’s a lifesaver. If you’re part of a team–large or small–you can benefit from Slack.
Essentially it is a collaboration hub where work happens, offering video calls, file sharing and more. I use it to communicate with internal and external contacts. You will come to realize it’s the best thing since sliced gluten-free bread.
Not surprisingly, my Silicon Valley PR counterparts have been drinking the Slack Kool-Aid for a while, but in my experience it’s less well-known on the East Coast. (slack.com)
It’s 2018 and some PR agencies still manually clip articles. Even high-tech firms! CoverageBook is the answer to your prayers. It generates a digital clip in seconds. Ever since our firm became a customer, we’ve saved countless hours on clipping. With CoverageBook, the entire process of clip-to-client takes 5 minutes or fewer. In our fast-paced agency world, minutes equal dollars. (coveragebook.com)
After landing the impressive coverage and moving the needle for your client, you need to prove it. As Michael Lamp said, TrendKite is tremendous for measuring the true ROI of PR. Yep, the million-dollar question.
The tool exists to empower PR and marketing professionals to demonstrate the true value of earned media and it delivers. For example, this tool can determine whether that Wall Street Journal coverage your executive is seeking actually did anything for the business. If it drove zero traffic to the site but an industry blog article did, for instance, you can arm yourself with data to make the case for a shift in strategy.
For The Non-Creatives
While you might be lucky enough to have a creative services team, occasionally you may need to bang out a graphic so quickly you need to do it yourself.
For the artistically challenged, like myself, Canva is a gold mine loaded with templates for blogs, Instagram, presentations, photo collages, letterheads, infographics and invitations. Personally, Canva has dramatically increased my creative output and people the results. (canva.com)
For New Business/Competitive Research
And last, none of the above tools are useful unless you have clients. For new business research, my go-to is Crunchbase. Curious when a company was founded? Is a startup’s website hazy on details about the company’s founders or what the company actually does? Curious about funding? Crunchbase has all that and more.
In addition, its daily newsletter is a fantastic source of information about mergers and acquisitions, funding rounds, upcoming tech events and rising stars to watch. If you work in technology PR and also dip your toes in the new business pool, this is your golden ticket.
You can search by funding round, founder or genre. The site also forces companies to summarize their business succinctly, so it doubles as company’s Cliff Notes if you’re pinched for time. Outside of new business, it’s also a helpful source to research competitors. (crunchbase.com)
CONTACT: [email protected] [email protected]