The right PR tool increases efficiency and effectiveness. But with so many services vying for attention, how do you choose the ones that fit your needs?
Equip yourself for success in 2015 with an unbiased analysis of the industry’s top solutions from Kellye Crane.
3. Shoot the Messenger – Me!
Sharing my personal thoughts and experiences
with these tools, not those of Cision/Vocus.
@KellyeCrane | #VocusWebinar | soloprpro.com
4. We’re here to learn
from each other!
Share your own
experiences on Twitter-
#vocuswebinar
@KellyeCrane | #VocusWebinar | soloprpro.com
7. When to Invest
What is your time worth?
How much time will the tool save you?
How much does the tool cost?
Mathematical!
@KellyeCrane | #VocusWebinar | soloprpro.com
11. Productivity
Dropbox – Anyone can access any document in any folder you
give them permission to view and/or edit
Google Apps for Business –Google Apps for Business is a paid
version of Gmail and Google Drive, where you can use your own
domain.
@KellyeCrane | #VocusWebinar | soloprpro.com
12. Productivity
Microsoft Office 365 - Online version of Microsoft suite.
Gmail add-ons
Rapportive- Amazingly useful, this tool pulls in the LinkedIn profile
highlights of those you’re emailing, and displays them in the sidebar.
Boomerang for Gmail- Another Gmail add-on, Boomerang enables you to
pre-schedule emails for later delivery, and also schedule reminders to
follow-up on emails.
Wisestamp – Makes it easy to include a graphically rich email signature,
with links and icons.
Yesware – Find out when someone opens your email and clicks on the
links. Especially useful for media relations!
@KellyeCrane | #VocusWebinar | soloprpro.com
13. Productivity
Evernote –It’s a notes app + clipper on steroids, allowing you to easily capture and sync
information across platforms.
Pocket- A browser extension that allows you to save a website for future reference with
one click.
Newsle – Find out when your friends and colleagues make the news - sends you an email
once a day with links to all the articles/blogs where they appear.
Blogtrotter- If you like to subscribe to blogs by email, this tool allows you to easily signup
for multiples at a time.
Diigo- Free social bookmarking tool that makes it easy to save and share content.
@KellyeCrane | #VocusWebinar | soloprpro.com
15. Traditional PR
Cision/Vocus – Powerful online media database, with expanding portfolio of capabilities
Help a reporter out (HARO) – Most PR pros know about HARO - just sign up and you’ll receive
emails of press queries, organized by industry/interest for easy scanning.
Mention.net and Talk Walker – When Google Alerts went kaput, these two services became
the most widely-used free tools for monitoring alerts via email.
Who Shared my Link- Enter a URL and see how many times it was shared on social media, and
by which journalists and bloggers.
@KellyeCrane | #VocusWebinar | soloprpro.com
16. Traditional PR
SumAll- Connect and compare data from your social media, e-mail, ads, Google analytics
and more, all in one dashboard.
Cyfe- Another all-in-one data-monitoring dashboard that allows you to collect and analyze
data across popular online services (many features are free).
SocialCrawlytics- A free tool that lets you identify your competitor's most shared content.
Tagboard- A page that lets you track hashtags across all major platforms, including
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vine, and Google+.
AP Stylebook Ask the Editor – Can’t find your Stylebook? This online Q&A is searchable, and
you can often find the answers to your style questions here.
@KellyeCrane | #VocusWebinar | soloprpro.com
18. Visuals
PicMonkey- By far the easiest and most powerful image editing tool out there for
non-experts
Canva- This is an amazing service to help the design-challenged among us create
stunning designs
@KellyeCrane | #VocusWebinar | soloprpro.com
19. Visuals
FreeDigitalPhotos.net- My favorite source of free
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images.
Compfight - Use this Flickr search tool and turn
the “Creative Commons: Commercial” qualifier
on.
Wordswag- Easily add text to iPhone photos for
modern-looking graphics.
Photo Peach- Use this digital tool to create a
slideshow with photos, music and captions that
can be shared on Facebook, Twitter or a blog.
Dafont- A powerfully searchable archive of more
than 17,000 fonts you can download for free.
20. Visuals
Powtoon- Online presentation tool that lets you create animated
videos or explainers.
Animoto- A web-based service that provides a quick and visually
appealing way to share photos and create videos.
gifboom- Express yourself in motion with animated GIFs made with
your iPhone or Android.
Swipe- A web application that allows you to create web-powered
slideshows and share them.
Piktochart- DIY infographic creator that offers a number of tools and
templates to make the process easier.
Infogr.am- Another well-known DIY infographic app.
@KellyeCrane | #VocusWebinar | soloprpro.com
22. Social Media
Buffer- Space out your updates so you aren’t sending
multiple links in rapid succession.
BuzzSumo- Discover trending stories across all the major
social networks on a given topic.
@KellyeCrane | #VocusWebinar | soloprpro.com
23. Social Media
ManageFlitter – My favorite tool for managing Twitter
followers/following.
Rebelmouse- Allows you to connect multiple social networks and
profiles, hashtags, etc., onto one unified dashboard that can be
branded and shared.
GroupTweet- Transparently combine the voices of multiple
contributors into a single Twitter account (pricing based on number
of followers).
RoundTeam- Another tool that allows multiple users to contribute to
a single Twitter account, this time with a different subscription plan.
@KellyeCrane | #VocusWebinar | soloprpro.com
24. Social Media
Facebook Debugger- If your link is not expanding properly to include
details and thumbnails on Facebook, this tool can help.
GramFeed- This photo search platform shows images and accounts
that are trending on Instagram.
OneLoad- A video distribution tool with both free and paid plans that
allows users to quickly upload video content to a multitude of sites at one
time.
YouTube Capture- An app that lets you record, edit, and upload videos on
your phone to YouTube, and post to Google+, Facebook, and Twitter
simultaneously.
Feedly – Quickly scan the RSS feeds of your favorite blogs and websites.
@KellyeCrane | #VocusWebinar | soloprpro.com
27. Collaboration
FreeConference.com – I use this service, though there’s also the comparable
FreeConferenceCall.com.
Skype - Make free calls with audio and/or video over the internet to other
people on Skype.
AnyMeeting- Provides free web conferencing and webinar software for up to
200 attendees (ad-free versions available for a fee).
@KellyeCrane | #VocusWebinar | soloprpro.com
28. Collaboration
Box.net- Allows you to store up to 5GB for free, so you can access
your files from anywhere, and easily collaborate and share.
MindMeister- Online mind mapping and brainstorming tool.
Screencast tools
Screencast-o-Matic
@KellyeCrane | #VocusWebinar | soloprpro.com
Jing
Screenr
30. Project Management
Toodledo – Simple ToDo app with excellent mobile capabilities.
WorkFlowy- A minimalistic-style task management tool.
Asana- A favorite of many, Asana is one of the most full-featured free tools
for project management.
Backpack – One of the original cloud-based management solutions.
Trello- This free tool uses “cards,” which you can group and organize to stay
@KellyeCrane | #VocusWebinar | soloprpro.com
on track.
32. Time Savers
Rescue Time- Tracks the time you spend on applications and
websites and gives you a detailed report of your activity.
theSkimm- Quick-hit overview of the day’s news, every morning in
your inbox.
SoundGecko- Turn your favorite websites, blogs and documents into
audio.
@KellyeCrane | #VocusWebinar | soloprpro.com
33. Time Savers
gTrax- A Google application that allows for simple time-tracking with the
integration of Google Calendar.
Lastpass – Not only does Lastpass make your passwords more secure, but it
remembers them for you so you save time.
Zapier – Similar to the popular IFTTT (which stands for “if this then that”), this
service allows you to automate a variety of tasks between a large number of
online services.
@KellyeCrane | #VocusWebinar | soloprpro.com
35. Cool Tools
Visible Tweets- Animate tweets for public display.
Clickto Tweet- The easiest way to add ‘Tweet This’
for specific pieces of text.
Embed Code Generator- Quickly create embed
codes so others can easily repost your images,
infographics, etc.
Wordle- Create word clouds based on the content of
any website.
Get It In Writing! Ebook- Not a tool per se, but if
you’re looking for examples of commonly used
contracts, download this free 45-page guide from
Solo PR Pro.
@KellyeCrane | #VocusWebinar | soloprpro.com
36. Cool Tools
Kayak- Crawls multiple travel sites and returns all the results on one
@KellyeCrane | #VocusWebinar | soloprpro.com
screen.
MilelQ- MileIQ automatically remembers your drives for mileage
reimbursement or taxes.
Bust A Name- The easiest way to find a domain name.
Wufoo- Create forms online that can be embedded in a web page or
blog.
Audacity- Audacity is the go-to audio editor for recording and mixing
digital tracks.
Pingdom- A free website monitoring tool.
37. Cool Tools
Doodle- Find a good meeting time for multiple people across
organizations, no registrations needed.
InternetSlang.com- Search for the meanings of abbreviations,
acronyms and other slang.
HighTail – Circumvent email when sending very large files - just send
a link to the downloadable version instead.
7-Zip- Easy-to-use, no-cost alternative to WinZip.
PrimoPDF- Create PDF documents using your computer’s print
function – no Adobe Acrobat required.
JotNot- Turn your smartphone camera into a high-resolution scanner.
@KellyeCrane | #VocusWebinar | soloprpro.com
38. Cool Tools
SurveyMonkey – Create and share your own online
surveys quickly and easily.
Wedgies- Create a question and share it via text-sharing
and social platforms.
FaxZero – Free faxes include the FaxZero logo on the
cover page; logo-free versions cost just $1.99.
Zamzar – Easy online file conversion between a
multitude of formats.
@KellyeCrane | #VocusWebinar | soloprpro.com
39. My New Fave - CoSchedule
@KellyeCrane | #VocusWebinar | soloprpro.com
40. Thank You!
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@KellyeCrane | #VocusWebinar | soloprpro.com