Remember

1999?

These were our phones

Napster launched Transforming the music industry

This was Britney SpearsAsking to hit her one more time

A lot changed in the past 15 years.

Yet our PR tools remain the same.

Managing thousands of contacts? Let’s put them in Excel

Emailing them?Let’s BCC them in Outlook and hope that our

server doesn’t explode

Really?

We can automate many of these old-school workflows by embracing our inner geek

This lets us focus on what we do best:

creativity & human connections

There needs to be a large technology component inside the future successful PR firm. It needs technologies of promotion that can scale the work of its practitioners in the service of its clients.

Tom Foremski,Silicon Valley Watcher

“

There’s an app for that

!

Most of the workflow difficulties that you face aren’t unique. Google it and chances are big that

a geek somewhere already built a solution.

Here are 5 examples of tedious PR tasks we can automate

Enrich your influencer list with social data

Knowing the reach of influencers online can be valuable: how many Twitter followers do they

have? Are they active? Saving this info manually is utter madness: switching back and forth between

Excel and Twitter to update your data. And it’s immediately outdated.

fullcontact.com

Try FullContact. Using it feels almost magical – enter an email address or Twitter handle, and get back a list of all the social profiles

associated with that email or handle. You can also sync contacts from all your address books, fix duplicates, and correct formatting

errors in your database.

Publish & pitch multimedia press releases

Building a multimedia press release is hard enough. Making it responsive and email-ready is

even harder – you need to get your contacts from Excel to your email provider, upload high-

resolution assets to your press room, add image previews to your emails, make sure your assets look good on multiple devices… the list goes on!

Prezly combines email pitches with online newsrooms. Create a multimedia press release in your newsroom, and Prezly generates an email version that you can pitch to journalists. Every email includes

analytics to help you track response rates.

prezly.com

Craft relevant email responses

When an influencer emails you, you want to craft a response that’s as relevant as possible. So what do you do? Do you research this person on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google to see who they are and what they care about, and tailor your email accordingly? Or do you automate this tedious

process with Rapportive?

rapportive.com

Rapportive is a simple Gmail add-on that automatically shows you important social data from people who email you, helping you to create a relevant response based on where they live, what they’re

tweeting about, and any other recent online activity. The information appears right in your inbox.

Track who responds to your emails

If you send a lot of pitch emails, tracking them manually gets tricky in a hurry. It’s easy, though

time-consuming, to keep a spreadsheet of everyone who writes you back, but for those who don’t respond, how do you know whether they’re

reading your emails or ignoring them?

Yesware is a Gmail add-on that was originally designed for sales professionals. Use it to monitor opens, clicks, and responses for every

email you send to influencers. You can also create templates to automate your outreach and track which messages resonate best.

yesware.com

Stay in touch with influencers

It’s a smart PR move to stay in touch with your influencers, even when you don’t have big news to

share. Sending an occasional relevant link or useful article can build rapport with a journalist, establish your credibility as a reputable source, and increase your chances of getting coverage

when you need it. But we’re all busy, and keeping in touch is easier said than done.

contactually.com

Contactually sends you automatic reminders to contact people on your media list whom you haven’t reached out to in a while. The tool also provides helpful contextual information like social updates and recent conversations, as well as email templates

to help you know what to say.

Get the full guide here: bit.ly/pr-automation

5 more examples