7 PRTech Solutions For Today’s PR Pros

By Rebekah Iliff, Chief Strategy Officer, AirPRTechnological innovation has ushered in a new era in PR — an era where PR pros must commit to researching new platforms and learning new skills that allow them to communicate and measure PR more effectively with the help of PRTech.But with so much going on in the ecosystem, where do you start? We’ve taken the guesswork out of the equation by bringing you seven PRTech solutions guaranteed to make your life easier and work better.Each of these solutions maps to an important PR objective and implementing these solutions will move you closer to a programmatic approach to PR. So let’s get started!PR Objective: Increase Visual StorytellingPRTech Solution: CanvaCanva does an incredible job of empowering everyone to be creative. Touted as the world’s easiest design program, Canva democratizes one of the more elusive (and often expensive) aspects of PR.How to gauge success: Everyone agrees that visual content is a major media trend that will continue to have prominence. Aim to tell compelling narratives through infographics, ensure visual branding is consistent across all marketing collateral, and integrate more imagery into everything you push out.PR Objective: Uncover New Earned Media OpportunitiesPRTech Solution: HARO (Help A Reporter Out)Think there’s no such thing as free publicity? Think again. HARO sends you three emails a day with blurbs from real reporters seeking sources for stories in every category imaginable. When you spot a match, simply reply with your information, and if the reporter is interested, you will be on your way to securing media coverage.How to gauge success: Use the opportunities that funnel through HARO as jumping off points for cultivating new relationships with journalists. Bring interesting, unique data to the table (bonus points for data visualization!) and watch as small contributions give way to larger features.PR Objective: Think Outside The Press Release BoxPRTech Solution: PrezlyPrezly allows PR pros to craft beautiful, multimedia rich stories while tracking engagement with influencers. It’s simple, clear, flexible, and versatile. What more could you want?How to gauge success: This is the perfect place to begin integrating those gorgeous visuals you created with Canva. Couple images with stories that say something compelling, introduce a new idea, or promote healthy, intelligible debate. Remember, don’t add to the noise, and contribute something meaningful.PR Objective: Establish Influence And AuthorityPRTech Solution: Influence&CoLooking to position key individuals as industry thought leaders? Look no further. Influence&Co helps brands convey credibility, influence, and authority by providing top publications with high-quality, expert content.How to gauge success: Contributed content is shaking out to be every bit as impactful as earned media. In fact, expert content should be thought of as a long-term asset. Turn these bylines into activation or engagement tools that can be leveraged by marketing, sales, etc. across your entire company’s initiatives.PR Objective: Serve Useful Content To The Right Audience(s)PRTech Solution: OneSpotYou’ve done a great job of creating incredibly valuable, beautiful content (thanks, Influence&Co!), but now need to ensure it gets in front of the right people. Enter OneSpot. Their specialty is not just distributing content, but serially placing multiple pieces of content individually targeted to demonstrated interests.How to gauge success: “Spray and pray” will only get you so far and views don’t mean squat for the bottom line. Adopting a data-driven content targeting strategy should see you establishing real relationships that are a result of the relevancy, quality, and utility of the content you’re pushing out.PR Objective: Identify Event OpportunitiesPRTech Solution: TechCalendarTechCalendar takes the tens of thousands of consumer and enterprise-focused events, awards, and speaking opportunities and places them into one easy-to-search database. What TechCalendar lacks in UI, it makes up for in comprehensiveness.How to gauge success: This exhaustive, searchable directory should help you identify speaking and promotional opportunities (keynotes, panels, etc.) that might have otherwise gone unnoticed while tracking all events in a single place.PR Objective: Analytics and Metrics For ReportingPRTech Solution: Google AnalyticsIf you don’t have GA up and running, do yourself a favor and make it happen right now. Also, you can improve your analytics skills and deepen your understanding of the platform with their free online courses.How to gauge success: It’s time to let go of vanity metrics that don’t map to business objectives and tarnish PR’s reputation. Instead of looking to Impressions or Number of Placements, map spikes in traffic with the publishing of articles. Also, be sure to observe how visitors engage with media placements and whether or not it drives them to take any specific interactions on your digital properties (e.g. social shares, blog sign-ups, whitepaper downloads, demo requests). Setting up specific Goals in GA can do this.BONUS: Read more on how to leverage Google here.While it’s not easy to parse through the ever-expanding PRTech ecosystem of solutions, platforms, and partners, this list is a great place to start![author]About the Author: Rebekah Iliff is the Chief Strategy Officer for AirPR, a technology platform to increase PR performance. She is currently a columnist for Mashable, Inc., and Entrepreneur, and her contributing writing can be seen in everything from Forbes to the Huffington Post. Additionally, Rebekah frequently moderates and participates on panels focused on the future of PR and big data. In 2014, Rebekah was named by Dell as a "Dell Influencer" and has been asked to sit on industry panels and think tanks dedicated to innovation, technology trends, PRTech, and social good. In 2015, Onalytica, the leading influencer relationship management software company, cited her as one of the Top 100 PR Influencer’s in the world. She holds a B.A. in Philosophy from Loyola University Chicago, and an M.A. in Organizational Management and Applied Community Psychology from Antioch University at Los Angeles (AULA). @rebekahiliff  [/author]