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PR software:
the complete guide

You have found our stash of 140 of the best PR tools.

Getting a list of PR software is easy though. The hard part is motivating your team to asses your workflow and to change your processes. That's why this guide starts with tried and trusted methods for assessing PR software and rolling it out.

Let’s dig in.


The most important PR software is your brain

Technology has transformed the way we live but it can only take us so far. The first step to working smarter is separating man from machine.

The chart below looks at each step of the PR process and divides out responsibilities between humans and the technology we’ve created to do our bidding:

HUMANS MACHINES
Management Planning Platform
Content Creation Optimisation
Amplification Engagement Distribution
Improvement Measurement Analytics


You can see how the machine provides the foundation. Humans have to be the driver. By thinking about every step in this way you can supercharge the way you work. Throughout this guide we’ll explore each of these areas, explain why it’s important and outline the PR communication tools you need to do the job.

But before all of that, why does any of this matter in the first place?




Invest in PR software now

Just as Batman has his trusty utility belt, PR pros need the right tools to get the job done. But it’s important this toolbox is kept up to date as technology changes.

Even so, having access to PR software is only one part of the equation. We also need to have the knowledge to use them. And as the pace of change accelerates it is getting harder to keep up.

Stuart Bruce

There's a lack of leadership – too many senior people are willing to talk the talk, but don't do it. The reason they've become a PR leader is because in the past they have mastered the hands on and can now use this experience and expertise to lead strategy. But now there are a whole new raft of tools that they've never used so they can never fully understand how to benefit from them.

Stuart Bruce, International Public Relations Adviser

Then there’s the questions about how to strip out old processes to implement something new without risking business continuity. Why fix what isn’t broken?


Making it happen:
4 steps to PR perfection

Now we’ve heard from the experts it's time to understand each step on the path to real PR prowess.

Management

Content

Amplification

Improvement


Management
Planning & platforms

Let’s start at the beginning. Without proper preparation, PR projects start life fighting against the tide. The PR business has struggled along thus far with proprietary tools and a huge reliance on spreadsheets: but just as the ways of working are changing, it’s time to up your game.

So what are the key challenges when it comes to managing your PR?

Firstly, there’s the matter of strategic / tactical balance

Execution is essential – but if not focused toward clear and consistent goals, your team can turn into a supermarket trolley, swivelling its efforts without purpose and only coincidentally stumbling across success.

Proper use of PR software can formalise your project’s goals, not just into a document but into the very working process itself. We have talked before about products like Asana and Trello for bringing this structure to the core of what you do. This is a big step to putting form and content on the same page with your objectives.

Trello

Trello keeps track of everything, from the big picture to the minute details


Think also about intelligence and communication

How do you keep teams tied together? How do you keep other stakeholders informed? This is a key area where you can feel the benefits of smart automation.

Fundamentally, we have driven from a world of manual updates and synchronisation, to one of transparency and automation. There’s a reason the communication tool Slack is the fastest growing piece of workplace software: internal email sucks.

Slack gives enterprises an instant messenger style interface split across multiple channels. But it’s the intelligence gathering and integration aspects that make it interesting. Pull everything related to a certain topic into one place from your Google Alerts to your Twitter mentions and Trello posts.

Slack

Slack brings all your communication together in one place. It's real-time messaging, archiving and search for modern teams


If someone wants to know the latest on a project, there should be somewhere they can look and find out rather than have to chase you. If something happens with a brand that you are working on, systems should alert you immediately, instead of you having to conduct repeated manual searches.

Machines and platforms were literally made for these examples. In both cases above, the best PR software allows you and your team to be more human and focus your talent and attention on aspects the robots can’t help with. Then use your own intelligence to bridge the gap between these tools. We’ve written before about using tools like IFTTT to join the dots between different web applications but it’s worth mentioning again here.

This area has the most overlap with the broader business world. Companies of all shapes and sizes are learning how to work and communicate better – and PR has the opportunity to lead that charge, especially in the case of agencies, where clients rely on such innovation from outside sources.


Prezly’s top three PR tools for management


Asana

Asana is a web and mobile application designed to enable teamwork without email.

Asana

Slack

Slack brings all your communication together in one place. It's real-time messaging, archiving and search for modern teams.

Slack

IFTTT

IFTTT is a web-based service that allows users to create chains of simple conditional statements, called "recipes", which are triggered based on changes to other web services such as Gmail, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.

IFTTT
Get the full list


Content
Creation & optimisation

From press releases to social statuses to podcasts to video – content takes many forms. But increasingly, at the strategic level it is the same: Translate a key message into a format suitable for your audience and goals.

Some suggest a clash between thinking of content as a cog in a corporate strategy delivering ROI and crafting it into something with real value for a specific audience. But this clash is a mirage. If you put in place sensible software to track the efficiency and effectiveness of content, you can free up your team to simultaneously work on the quality for a reader. And these are two sides of the same coin.

If the author has taken care over the construction of a piece of content, the very least you can do is use smart technology to push it to its maximum potential with audiences. And if that takes a little A/B test here and there, who are we to argue.

Words for the wise

The world of creating written material seems to have sharpened in two distinct directions thanks to tools: drafting and collaboration.

On the basic drafting fronts, there’s a trend toward simplification. Apps that create a basic blank page are a dime a dozen, with some hiding surprising complexity beneath the surface for structuring or exporting that content elsewhere. Some of our favourite examples include WriteRoom, Editorial and Byline but there are many more out there.

In collaboration, Quip and Google Docs jostle with the classic Office suite, although it’s catching up fast. Either way, a minute or two saved through ever single round of approvals quickly adds up.

Scores for marking the quality of writing are nothing new – but tools that integrate these provide a new way for less confident writers to quickly output text with clarity and impact. Writing optimisation web app Hemingway is a prime example.

To illustrate this, let’s try that paragraph again after we have run it through Hemingway. Based on the app’s feedback:


Hemingway

Before



Hemingway

After



While some may not agree with a robot becoming our editor the fact remains: better tools can help you become a better writer in a way that previously may have required expensive editorial expertise and training.

Let's get visual

If video is still a few steps too far for you then illustrations, infographics and charts can be a great way to break up text and attract a reader’s eye. Tools like Canva allow you to quickly create graphs, headers and even images for social media. Learn more in our comprehensive guide to visual press releases.

Broadcast your thoughts

Video and podcasts are an absolute walk in the park once you know how. There are about two or three important tools for each and once you have those down it’s about only one other important element: practice.

And whether Vine, Periscope, Youtube, Vimeo or beyond, there’s a loophole that can make things even easier: audience expectations. It’s a balance between quality and immediacy.

So, if you’re broadcasting live snippets straight from the floor of an event, viewers may not expect the absolute highest production standards – as long as what is being said is truly valuable and feels near live. By contrast, if you’re developing a case study in a private scenario, there’s little reason not to take the time and care to make to put it above most casual material.

Currently, the overwhelming majority of broadcast material is either not very well executed on either the quality or the quantity – and sometimes both. This is an area where hardware pays. Whether it's customer testimonials or interviews at events, make sure you have a lavalier (lapel) mic to elevate even simple smartphone recordings. Pair this with a small gorilla stand or tripod and you’ll banish shaky cam to the Michael Bay movies, where it belongs.

If you’re finding success, you may want to upgrade your core device to a Digital SLR camera, which will record great quality video thanks to the larger optics vs a smartphone. The Wistia learning center is an invaluable resource for any aspiring video producer.

Apps make editing easy – some will even automate the process for you. From Apple’s own iMovie to more professional products like Final Cut Pro, even the least tech savvy amongst us can create video with a semi professional feel.

Wistia Learning center

The Wistia Learning Center


With podcasting, the setup is even simpler. Get a decent microphone and, if you are handling it remotely, consider recording the piece from both sides and merging them in a free tool like Audacity afterwards. Learn more in Dan Benjamin’s ultimate guide to podcasting equipment.


Canva

Canva enables anyone to be a designer. Create designs for web or print: blog graphics, presentations, posters etc.

Canva

Hemingway

Hemingway App makes your writing bold and clear. The app highlights long, complex sentences and common errors.

Hemingway

Google Docs

Create and edit web-based documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Store documents online and access them from any computer.

Google docs

Amplification
Engagement & distribution

For PR, this is the big one. The classic that the industry really built its name around. But for many outsiders, they historically confused PR’s big offering of engagement with its impact of distribution.

Some public relations software tools make the mistake of trying to equate the two. Effective distribution without the support of engagement, even just to identify and confirm the accuracy of targets, is where casual PR most often goes wrong.

It’s why newswires have become hollow ghost towns of back-slapping appointment releases from brands with nobody else telling their story. Newswires are more than just an ineffective tool, they are a capitulation to the idea that nobody wants to talk about you.

Learn more: Why newswires are killing PR from Topline’s Luke Budka.

Of course if you’re a public company or issuing financial statements, it may be par for the course. But don’t think splashing the cash on a press release no one cares about anyway is your route to recognition. This is especially important in an age when companies can control their own distribution and turn their newsroom into an outlet of its own.

Set up goals and start benchmarking

Good PR pays for reach when it knows the material is working. That’s why tools like Google Analytics or Mint which give users an insight into what pages are performing can be key. Set up goals and start benchmarking.

If you can see from metrics that your content is already performing from the audiences that it has found so far, paid amplification is an extremely cost efficient way to nudge it in front of more interested readers. Find out more in these 15 Excellent beginners guides to social media marketing.

What is this if not the modern equivalent of distribution? Except far more targeted and measurable than newswires. When you think of distribution as a method of disintermediation: that is to say, removing the middleman between you and potential readers, you can effectively start thinking as your own newswire.

In the mean time, of course you can continue to engage with influencers as you always would. But finding them, tracking your progress and relationships with them, has all become easier than ever thanks to technology too.

Learn more: The 2015 Guide to Influencer Marketing success.

Influencer discovery

A fleet of discovery services use really quite simple technology to take a small sample of people that they know are relevant to a subject area – then see who they are following and interacting with frequently to unearth all sorts of influencers for your campaign.

Why trawl through a baggy, untargeted media database when this information is fresh and easily explorable by such tools? Wouldn’t you be better off spending your time actually engaging with these potential targets to see how interested they are in your story?

All about building relationships

Good, effective engagement may be the ultimate example of where PR tools cannot replace a great human. There is no more hackneyed phrase in PR than the idea that it is all about building relationships. But that is truly something that can only be effectively achieved if you spend time understanding and regularly communicating with people you think should be interested.

Better tools are the trick to freeing up this time. And they offer the potential to maximise the impact of that time by increasing the breadth of distribution for your greatest success stories.

Learn more: 6 Stages for Social Media Influencer Engagement


Our top three PR tools for Amplification

Buffer

Schedule social posts across multiple channels for optimal engagement throughout the day - also includes an intelligent recommendations engine for related content.

Buffer

Hootsuite

Manage social networks, schedule messages, engage your audiences, and measure ROI right from the dashboard.

Hootsuite

Prezly

Prezly is the most efficient way to distribute news, manage your media relations database and email influencers.

Asana
 

See how communication directors save hours per week with Prezly.

More about Prezly

Improvement
Measurement & analytics

There’s much talk of the importance of data in modern business – and you won’t hear us disputing that here. However, the data output by analytics is only as useful as the lens crafted by the human managing it.

Most people don’t care what you’re doing

When it comes to learning and improving your communications strategy over time, PRs need to embrace a lot of bad news. Lots of coverage probably doesn’t visibly send much traffic to a website. Newswires will probably send absolutely none. Most people don’t care what you’re doing.

But, using data to free PR from these old-fashioned assumptions is the beginning of its transition to better strategies and better thinking.

Measurement is the scorching bushfire that will allow the PR industry to be reborn. Tweet this

This is perhaps the biggest human challenge – and, if you take fantastic new PR communications tools, data and analytics but only try to measure things like AVE or the number of articles you are generating, you aren’t going to feel any real benefit.

A good measurement strategy starts with simple SMART objectives and solid, quantitative KPIs. Not based on what you’re comfortable measuring but based on what you genuinely need to track to hone the impact of your work.

Tracking impact

This is where a healthy knowledge of Google Analytics Goals comes in. If you can identify an action that can be taken on a website, you can now attribute PR’s role in making that happen. Learn more in this guide by Rich Leigh on using Google Goals to demonstrate the value of a PR campaign.

This might be a sign up for a software product. It might be signing up for an email newsletter, arranging an appointment, downloading an app or applying for a job.

Once you think in these real, business goals, you can start to track back and build the basic measurement system to track them. And you can see how effective PR strategies can really be.

This is the most important area for PRs to grow their knowledge in if they are to achieve ever improving strategic outcomes.

Google provides simple certificates for a programme in learning Google Analytics. If you do one thing with data, Google Analytics should be it. No good PR will ever turn back once they start to see the value offered from this source. Learn more in Moz's Absolute Beginner's Guide to Google Analytics.


Our top three public relations tools for Improvement


Google Analytics

Get the data from your website you need to make intelligent marketing, PR and business decisions

Google Analytics

FullStory

Record, replay, search, and analyze each user's actual experience with your website. An invaluable piece of PR software for understanding what’s wrong with your website.

Fullstory

Moz

Backed by industry-leading data and the largest community of SEOs on the planet, Moz offers a suite of public relations software tools that make inbound marketing easy.

Moz

Encouraging adoption across enterprise

After exploring each of these key areas of PR everything might seem a little clearer. It is by recognising the roles both people and tools must take. Technology can help transform your campaigns from Moped to Maserati, but your mind must be the spark plugs and your hands must know how to turn the keys.

We spoke to Danny Whatmough, head of social for EMEA at Weber Shandwick and Drew Benvie, founder of Battenhall to find out a little bit more about how to implement technology and figure out if it really works. Here’s their take on implementation and adoption.

Technology is not enough on its own

Danny Whatmough

There’s lots of great technology out there and new stuff coming all the time. But having the technology isn’t enough, it’s firstly about having the people to help you manage that technology.

Danny Whatmough

Having the processes and strategies in place to allow tech to make a difference are of utmost importance. If you’re not putting together an effective strategy for a particular campaign you can have the best technology in the world but it won’t show you anything particularly useful.

Being hands on will help

Drew’s advice to getting the team on board? Hold weekly show and tell sessions where new tools are introduced to the rest of the team. After a session teams can go away and start using these tools immediately to assess their value. Drew also told us how he is inspired by Google’s initiative to allow employees to spend 20% of their time on personal projects to inspire creativity and explore new tools.


Bring your own device

80% work, 20% discovery

Tech will fall flat unless each individual is shown value

Danny Whatmough

If we bring a new piece of technology into the business that no one has used before, the top thing we need to demonstrate to the people on the ground is how it will make their lives easier or add value.

Danny Whatmough

The number one objective when introducing tools is demonstrating value, not only for individuals but for every stakeholder in the business. This includes clients, staff and of course, senior management who have a close eye on the bottom line.

Use pilot processes to get internal interest

Danny Whatmough

The best way we test tools at Weber is through pilot processes. We identify a client, we bring in technology for a campaign and then if it’s successful we can use that to demonstrate value. If people already see the value of the technology they are already sold.

Danny Whatmough

The key to new tech adoption is showing individuals why it will work for them. This requires education around how tools will be used and how results can be achieved. It’s simple, if the value to the individual isn’t properly communicated the technology will fall flat.

Balance the institutionalised with the innovative

Drew told us how modern agencies are attracting early adopters and these can be key on driving new technology initiatives. It’s important to have a balance of senior staff with experience and knowledge of processes with the younger wide eyed early adopters who understand the web and are excited to try out new things.

By getting a balance of both within your organisation you can draw on the talents of both to identify which tools will work, how they can be implemented and how success will be measured.



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The ultimate guide on PR tools by @prezly

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140 PR tools
to help you get better at Public Relations


Because of the late adoption of digital tactics there has been a lack of tech aimed at PR practitioners. Traditionally tools solely aimed at PR have been provided by the big players that were born from media relations. But things have started to change...

Last year, we worked with former president of the CIPR Stephen Waddington to create the PRStack webapp, a crowdsourced directory of PR software. In doing this we learnt a lot about what works and what is actually being used by agencies around the world.

Using this knowledge here’s our own top 140 PR tools giving you the power to supercharge your next campaign. So what are you waiting for?

Bookmark this page and get stuck in:





Management

Content

Amplification

Improvement

Management

19 PR software tools to help you get better at planning and following up

Asana

Task management solution for teams; create projects and assign tasks in an incredibly easy way

Asana

Crowdvi.be

Instant polling among your specific target group

Crowdvi.be

Evernote

Note-taking platform. Great for moving to digital. Easy filing by business area or client. Also a business version for collaboration. Cloud syncing for mobile use.

Evernote

GermIO

Get from Idea to Execution. Germ lets your team capture every great idea, brainstorm, and turn them into actionable project plans.

GermIO

GlobalWebIndex

Data-based insight reports and trends analysis

GlobalWebIndex

Google Consumer Barometer

A tool to help you understand how people use the Internet across the world.

Google Consumer Barometer

Google Search Trends

Search on any topic either nationally or worldwide based on google's search volume data. Also allows you compare two or more keywords.

Google Search Trends

Mendeley

Collaboration, citation, reference manager, storage and workflow. Designed for research teams, but particularly handy for PR materials development

Mendeley

OneNote

High-powered multi-platform note taking tool with free collaboration and sharing options for teams. Free version offers more functionality than free version of Evernote.

OneNote

Pragmatist

The first cloud-based platform for PRs to be supported by Microsoft. Allows users to record contact history (sell-in notes) and campaign progression in an intuitive way. Available with Microsoft Social Listening (monitors news, social networks, blogs and forums)

Pragmatist

Precise Forward Planning

Engage with the media at the right time to secure coverage. Access the same news and events calendar that our media clients use to plan their content and activity.

Precise Forward Planning

Prezly

Prezly is an influencer engagement tool for brands and agencies. Teams like Interel, Porter Novelli, Toyota and Emirates Airlines use it to strengthen their relationships with influencers. They use Prezly as a CRM, an outreach tool and a social media publication platform.

Prezly PR software

Quip

Quip is a mobile productivity suite (documents, spreadsheets, messaging) that enables you to collaborate on any device. Imports and shares from Evernote.

Quip

Samplify

Instant, pre-screened targeted sample for marketing research projects. Access a comprehensive sample pool of responsive, reliable and representative respondents, obtain both feasibility and pricing, test project links, and conveniently launch and manage surveys with complete control of their own tailored research sample.

Samplify

Scoro

Scoro is an end-to-end work management software solution for professional and creative services that helps to streamline work and eliminate routine tasks.

Scoro

Slack

Slack brings all your communication together in one place. It's real-time messaging, archiving and search for modern teams.

Slack

Statista

Statista is an online statistics portal. It provides access to data from market and opinion research institutions, as well as from business organizations and government institutions in English and German.
Statista

Submarine CRM

Submarine keeps your marketing & PR contacts organised, searchable and automatically up-to-date.

Submarine CRM

Todoist

Task management for individuals and teams on 15 platforms incl. OS X, Android, iOS, Android Wear.

Todoist

Trello

Intuitive, group-based task management tool, great for approval workflows and assignments. Drag and drop tasks into lists, prioritize, assign, add files, manage different "boards". A real pleasure to use.

Trello

Wiser

Wiser offers a suite of features to keep every person in your firm in the know. At its core, Wiser is a tailored news experience – a single online hub and daily email to find all the latest news about your sector, market, role and projects. Wiser can also be used to rapidly build a carefully curated email news digest in minutes to share with your colleagues or clients.

Wiser

Content

26 PR software tools to help you get better at creating and optimizing content

AutoCrit

Cloud based analysis software for writers. Identifies poor word choice, sentence construction and repetition. Useful to help tighten up and polish copy.

AutoCrit

Adwords Keyword Planner

Gives you glimpse into the bowels of Google's keyword searches. ID the most popular and longer tail search terms and keywords and utilise in copy, PPC etc.

Adwords Keyword Planner

Boardreader

A search and discovery engine for community forums and boards.

Boardreader

Buzz Sumo

Analyse which keyword related content performs best through major social media platforms.

Buzz Sumo, works well as PR software

Canva

Canva enables anyone to be a designer. Create designs for web or print: blog graphics, presentations, posters etc.

Canva

Copyscape

A plagiarism checker that lets you detect duplicate content and check if your articles are original.

Copyscape

Datawrapper

Easy to use embeddable interactive chart making tool

Datawrapper

Emotional Value Analyser

Emotional Value Analyser

Google Docs

A suite of online document tools for creating and sharing work online.

Google Docs – the most basic public relations PR software

Google Rich Snippets Tool

A tool to check HTML code for structured data (Schema.org). Very useful to insure your pages, posts, etc. are set-up for programmatic discovery. Helpful for SEO.

Google Rich Snippets Tool

Hemingway

Checks copy for readibility and typos in real-time

Hemingway

Jurnid

Marketplace connecting freelance journalists and content creators with brands and media companies

Jurnid

Meddle

White-label platform for owned media. PR can give advice to clients on white-label Meddle to use owned media to attract earned media. Helps to reverse the reality that "no one reads corporate blogs".

Meddle

Mr. Social

Mr. Social is a social media assistant that helps you find, schedule and re-use interesting content and post it to your social networks like Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin

Mr. Social

Mynewsdesk

Brand newsroom and multimedia comms workflow platform. Publish and distribute content, gain visibility across search/social, connect with key influencers.

Mynewsdesk

Pexels

Find free stock photos you can use everywhere.

Pexels

PiktoChart

Make your own infographics with little or no design experience. Free or low cost templates to make data visual, engaging and sharable.

PiktoChart

Pitch Engine

Content creation + management software tool for publishing marketing messages to web

Pitch Engine

PressPage

Social media newsrooms and digital press rooms

PressPage

Prezly

Prezly is an influencer engagement tool for brands and agencies. Teams like Interel, Porter Novelli, Toyota and Emirates Airlines use it to strengthen their relationships with influencers. They use Prezly as a CRM, an outreach tool and a social media publication platform.

Prezly, the prime PR software

Releasd

Death to the PDF - Rather than spending hours compiling PDF, Word or Excel docs that don’t get read - spend minutes creating content-rich Releasd Pages that do. Garner support for the work you do

Releasd

RiteTag

Hashtag grading as you type, images for words/hashtags, influencers from words/hashtags. Ways to get more discovery and interaction on your tweets, facebook updates, Google+ posts, and analytics that lead you to do more of what's working for you.

RiteTag

Spruce

Free tool for editing and optimising pictures for use on Twitter.

Spruce

Storify

Turns social mentions into stories.

Storify

Sway

Visualisation tool from Microsoft to quickly and easily create presentations to share acress any device.

Sway

WordPress

Free, open source blogging and web CMS platform. Customisable with loads of themes spanning responsive and scrolling design as well as more traditional layouts.

WordPress

Amplification

48 PR software tools to help you get better at engagement and distribution

Adaptly

Social media amplification platform for planning and buying promoted content in social networks

Adaptly

AdHipster

Free social media cross-promotion: people share your ad for free, you share theirs in return

AdHipster

Adobe Social

A tool for managing social content and social campaigns; a comprehensive solution for building stronger connections through data-driven content.

Adobe Social

Agility (PR Newswire)

Monitor, target and distribute content to journalists and influencers. Measure and report on impact.

Agility (PR Newswire)

Anewstip

Find relevant journalists and media outlets by what they have Tweeted about, powered by real-time and historical tweets since 2006 from more than 1 million media contacts.

Monitor media mentionings on any topic on Twitter, from a database of more than 1 million media contacts, or only the ones in one or several media lists.

Anewstip

Augure

Augure help brands and agencies to leverage the power of influencers to reach their audience. Modern PR and marketers use Augure to identify the influencers that matter for them, build succesful relationships and measure the resonance of their campaigns. More than 20.000 users.

Augure

bloggabase

Connects bloggers with PR, SEO and other marketing individuals and companies with products, services, events and experiences they wish to promote.

bloggabase

Bluenod

Data visualisation of Twitter conversations. Enables you to pinpoint influencers and view flow of conversation.

Bluenod

BuddyMedia (ExactTarget)

Social media publishing application, allowing you to target and publish polls, offers and other content to drive brand engagement, measure conversions and manage social presences at scale.

BuddyMedia (ExactTarget)

Buffer

Simple to use social media post management/scheduler with basic analytics.

Buffer

Brand24

Real-time social media monitoring and analytics tool with a great looking dashboard and excellent influancer analysis capabilities

Brand24

Circloscope

Circle management tool designed to can help you build an active, engaged following on Google +

Circloscope

Business Wire

Press release & multimedia distribution, content marketing platforms, online newsrooms, social media monitoring – tools for today’s communications professionals.

Business Wire

Cision

PR software, marketing and media relations software and services

Cision

Dynamic Signal

A content and advocate management tool; absolutely brilliant for internal comms or large-scale influencer programmes (superfans in particular)

Dynamic Signal

FeaturesExec

Media Database

FeaturesExec

GetResponse

Email marketing software and auto responder

GetResponse

Gorkana

UK journalist database, monitoring, analysis and measurement.

Gorkana

GroupHigh

Database for identifying bloggers based on topics, content and location.

GroupHigh

Haro

Connects reporters and news sources. Over 250,000 mainstreet and expert sources respond directly to journalist's queries

Haro

Hey Press

Free searchable journalist database. Find the most relevant journalists.

Hey Press

Hootsuite

Social media management dashboard for managing social media profiles and scheduling content. Paid licenses include support for workflow. Workflow allows anyone on the team can direct other users to a paricular message e.g., to make a response, see a response, etc.

Hootsuite

JournoRequests.com

A curated list of PR opportunities from Twitter to your inbox every day.

JournoRequests.com

JustReachOut

Find journalists. Perfect your pitch. Reach out and get press. JustReachOut lets you search recent news to find most relevant journalists to contact. We help you write your pitch and give you contact info of the reporter you want to reach out to.

JustReachOut

Lissted

Influencer and community identification, insight and tracking tool based on real world authority.

Lissted

Little Bird

Distribution, social media monitoring, newsroom/ press corner

Little Bird

Mailchimp

Email marketing platform with plans from 2,000 to 50,000+ subscribers

Mailchimp

Muck Rack

PR pros, marketers, companies and entrepreneurs use Muck Rack to:

  • Effectively pitch story ideas to the right journalists
  • Monitor what's being said about their company, client or competitors in real-time
  • Receive alerts when there are new PR opportunities or crises
  • Track how successful their campaigns have been and generate reports to share with colleagues and clients
Muck Rack suite of PR software

NinjaOutreach

Influencer outreach software. Type in keywords, and it will produce lists of websites (blogs, businesses, etc) that fit the keyword. Includes Alexa, Moz, Klout, Social/SEO, and contact data (email, phone, first name, contact URL). Build lists of hundreds of influencers in minutes, and outreach to them with customized templates all in one tool.

NinjaOutreach, also a popular PR solution

Notey

A tool to discover the best blogs on over 500,000 topics

Notey

Onalytica

A PR solution that helps brands and agencies engage with the inner circle of influencers so that through their networks they can help you more effectively influence your end target audience.

Onalytica, popular PR solution for meaurement

Outbrain

Recommends editorial and sponsored content across the web. Helps brands surfacing/amplify content.

Outbrain

Percolate

Social media publishing, distribution and monitoring tool

Percolate

Pulsar Platform

Social intelligence platform

Pulsar Platform

Pressat

Cost effective press release distribution and newsrooms

Pressat

PressFriendly

Craft your story using our pitch builder. Get a custom press list based on your pitch. Talk with a PressFriendly PR Pro. Send and track your pitch with our CRM. Get press opportunities sent to you.

PressFriendly

PressKing

distribution, analytics

PressKing

Prezly

Prezly is an influencer engagement tool for brands and agencies. Teams like Interel, Porter Novelli, Toyota and Emirates Airlines use it to strengthen their relationships with influencers. They use the PR solution as a CRM, an outreach tool and a social media publication platform.

Prezly

Profnet

Connects journalists to expert sources

Profnet

Publiseek

On-demand PR platform. Tap into a global network of PR professionals and only pay after your story gets published in your target media.

Publiseek

Red Robot

Global video content distribution, includes tracking and monitoring of actual broadcast usage

Red Robot

ResponseSource

ResponseSource delivers media coverage leads on a wide range of subjects to PRs on a daily basis.

ResponseSource

Smart.pr

Smart.pr is super simple software for PR professionals that helps save time on routine tasks.

Smart.pr

SmartPublicity

Press release distribution in real time without intermediaries. Helps PR professionals and brands generate online publicity as native content on premium publishers.

SmartPublicity

SourceWire

Press release distribution and newsrooms

SourceWire

Traackr

Influencer marketing platform for the social enterprise. Helps you discover your influencers.

Traackr

Tweetdeck

Twitter-owned social media management tool now with new team function and integrated collection creation.

Tweetdeck

WeFollow

Social media directory of influential people.

WeFollow

Improvement

47 PR software tools to help you get better at measurement and analytics

AirPR Analyst

AirPR Analyst humanizes data to increase PR performance.The solution tracks media activity and provides top-level, actionable insights into your PR efforts to tell you what is driving engagement and moving the needle in terms of traffic, conversion, organic search, and even revenue. For CMOs and communications professionals, understanding which PR efforts are driving the most effective outcomes is imperative to making better decisions around both budget allocation and content development for future campaigns.

AirPR Analyst

App Annie

From app market data analysis to app store optimisation and everything in between.

App Annie

Brandwatch

Enterprise level social media analytics and workflow platform. Extremely powerful and customisable.

Brandwatch

Clicky

Real-time web analytics. Includes heat maps and individual actions.

Clicky

Coveragebook

PR solution that collates & builds coverage books. Paste in coverage URL & it automates screen-grabs & measurement stats. allows you to share a branded online report or export to PDF

Coveragebook PR software

Crimson

Crimson Hexagon delivers social media intelligence, monitoring, analysis and analytics through patent-pending technology invented at Harvard University.

Crimson

Critical Mention

Media monitoring service allows you to search global TV, radio and online news.

Critical Mention

Crowdfire

Formerly @JustUnfollow! Crowdfire is a Twitter & Instagram follower management app. Grow your network, find unfollowers and more.

Crowdfire

Google Alerts

Email alerts that you customise with the word or phrase you want to monitor

Google Alerts

Google Analytics

Web site analytics that enables you to track the customer journey and conversions for your properties

Google Analytics

Google Webmaster Tools

Allows site owners to monitor their site and see what keywords Google has discovered, look for crawl errors, and other health of the site options. Requires validation of ownership.

Google Webmaster Tools

Iconsquare (Instagram)

Great for seeing Instagram stats and analytics, you can also see influencers from your brand as well

Iconsquare (Instagram)

Inkybee

Inkybee is a suite of simple web-based tools to help you manage the entire digital outreach process from finding influencers through to measuring outreach campaigns.

Inkybee

Isentia

Traditional and social media monitoring, insights, analytics and intelligence all in one place. Media distribution and tracking as well as social media strategy, consulting and management. Everything a PR or Comms professional needs to track, analyse, manage, report on and plan for with their media

Isentia

JamiQ

Social media monitoring and results presentation tool. Based in Singapore boasting a global reach.

JamiQ

KISSmetrics

KISSmetrics

Klout

Klout

Locowise

All your social media analytics and social reporting in one place. Accurately. Quickly. Beautifully.

Locowise

Manageflitter

Award winning app that will help you to better manage and clean up your Twitter account.

Manageflitter

Mashfeed

Google Reader for Social Media. Discover & create collections of popular feeds & hastags from the top social media networks (Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook). Create collections for all the social media you want to track, from hashtag campaigns to competitor feeds.

Mashfeed

MediaMiser

MediaMiser lets you easily monitor, analyze and share social and traditional media content. Helps clients turn news into knowledge.

MediaMiser

MediaVantage

The powerful MediaVantage search engine pulls traditional media coverage and social media mentions relevant to your work into a single database, so you can extract valuable information about your coverage with speed and ease.

MediaVantage

Meltwater

Media monitoring provider - tracks mentions

Meltwater

Moreover Technologies

Online monitoring and socialmedia listening

Moreover Technologies

MozRank

Moz metrics are indicators of how useful a website is to a search engine crawl bot, and usefulness to humans based on human editors linking to a site via editorially-chosen citation links. e.g. TheGuardian.com is DA 99 PA 96. 100 is highest.

MozRank

NetVibes

RSS consolidation: great for identifying your own coverage and also topics being discussed in your selected fields

NetVibes

Newsle

Links to your LinkedIn or Facebook accounts and sends email updates informing you when your contacts have featured in news media. Now owned by LinkedIn

Newsle

Notify

Get notified on Slack, whenever your startup / business / topic of interest is mentioned online. (50,000 mentions every month, free forever)

Notify

Pindrop

Get SMS alerts for important Twitter mentions of your brand keywords

Pindrop

Radian 6 (ExactTarget)

Real-time social media listening functionality helps you decrease response times and strengthen brand perception in a public medium that shows others your ability to quickly address and resolve issues.

Radian 6 (ExactTarget)

SeeDepth

SeeDepth is a customizable PR analytics platform for brands and agencies to easily analyze PR results and tie programs to business objectives and goals. Like Nike Fuel points for your PR, our proprietary Campaign Performance Index (CPI) provides instant insight on patterns of success, as well as which PR programs and vendors are returning bottom line value, so you can easily repeat what’s working and pivot from what isn’t, and turn PR into a profit center instead of a cost center. Clear, insightful data in one place that you can use to make faster, better–informed decisions. Don't just measure PR outputs, analyze outcomes.

SeeDepth

Simply Measured

Comprehensive social media analytics provider. Benchmark performance against your competitors/industry and analyse your own performance in the Top 5 SNs plus Tumblr, Vine, Instagram etc.

Simply Measured

Social360

Built by communications professionals for communications professionals, Social 360 combines our proprietary search algorythm with experienced communications people to provide monitoring of the social web in every language. We cut through the spam and irrelevance to deliver exceptional results daily. No programming required; we'll manage that and work with you to adjust the search as necessary. Think of us as members of your team.

Social360

Social Bakers

Comprehensive social media measurement analysis provider. Benchmark performance against your competitors/industry and analyse your own performance.

Social Bakers

Social Crawlytics

Tool for gathering crawling a website & listing all pages on the site, complete with the number of shares across various social networks

Social Crawlytics

Social Simulator

The Social Simulator is a hands-on, private environment to practice the language, tools and norms of the social web for social media PR, customer service and crisis response. It simulates social media debate via private replicas of a number of commonly used social media platforms including Twitter, Facebook, blogs, video and online media sources. This is backed up by role-players from your agency or our team who simulate the citizen, media and community reactions in a realistic, real time scenario – from scurrilous hashtag rumours to nasty phone calls. The Simulator works with groups from 2-50, and can take place on-site or remotely across multiple locations.

Social Simulator

Spredfast

Full suite enterprise social management, monitoring, curation, planning, digital re-display, analysis, and reporting for brands and their agency partners.

Spredfast

Sprout Social

Mid price social media management and analysis tool

Sprout Social

Synthesio

A Global Social Intelligence Platform that provides real business results. Whether an organization’s social team is built within Marketing or crosses multiple departments, business units or geographies, Synthesio helps teams listen, analyze and engage with consumer conversations across social and mainstream media within one platform.

Synthesio

Sysomos

A suite of products for measurement, monitoring and engagement. A cheaper alternative to radian 6. Fairly decent on language coverage compared to competitiors. Two products - Heartbeat for real-time monitoring and engagement. Map - 2 years conversations for identifying influencers, sentiment analysis and metrics.

Sysomos

Talkwalker

Talkwalker is a social data intelligence platform that monitors and analyzes online conversations on social networks, news websites, blogs, forums and more, in over 187 languages. It was selected to be part of the Twitter Certified Product Program since 2014. Its cutting edge technology enhances the speed and accuracy of decision-making through real-time social media listening and multi-faceted social media analytics.

Talkwalker

Topsy

Apple-owned Twitter analytics platform. Tracks volume and velocity of keywords and hashtags.

Topsy

TV Eyes

TVEyes, Inc., a media monitoring company, provides online search and indexing for television (TV) and radio broadcasts, and audio and video search infrastructure for search engines and content aggregators. Its products include end-user media monitoring suite, which is a real-time, Web-based service that tracks, transcribes, and alerts users to subject-matter and keyword-relevant TV and radio broadcasts; and data feeds that support various applications, including media monitoring, archiving, search engines, and more to be integrated into other products and services. The company monitors various TV and radio stations internationally and provides coverage through its Internet delivered service.

TV Eyes

TweetReach

Find out how far hashtags reach

TweetReach

Twilert

Twilert

Twitonomy

Google analytics for Twitter. Twitonomy provides you with intelligence or insight into anyone on Twitter. When you visit the site, you first need to log in with Twitter and then you can add anybody’s Twitter handle.

Twitonomy

Yellow News

A monitoring and analytics service that covers every news and social channel. Delivered through Media Platform+ and with a dedicated client services team, YellowNews is designed for clients with a fixed budget that want to track a broad range of topics or issues across all media.

Yellow News

That was it.

You're at the end of this massive guide with expert advice and 140 of the best PR software tools you could ever ask for. Now you should be armed with all the weapons to improve your workflow.

If you liked the guide, we’d love it if you would share it now.

Frederik Vincx

Guide by Frederik Vincx
founder of PR CRM Prezly

The ultimate guide on PR tools by @prezly

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