| With a sea of PR tools out there, it can be difficult to know which ones your team can and can’t live without. If you try to implement too many digital solutions, you run the risk of disconnected teams and media opportunities falling through the cracks. Too few and you may waste valuable time on manual processes and make avoidable errors. |
In order to figure out a balance between the two, you should first be aware of what PR tools are, why every comms team should use them and which ones are your one-way ticket to a successful digital PR strategy. Let’s get into it.
PR tools are software that help you maximize your public relations efforts and ultimately grow your brand. These tools can help with the many tasks that your PR team handles, from brand monitoring to creating shareable content, managing media inquiries, social listening, and distributing press releases.
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Need help choosing the right PR software for your brand? Check out our PR software buyer's guide >>> |
Today, 90% of small and medium enterprises already use digital tools for communications and logistics. And while 92% of SMEs believe digital transformation is crucial for their business to succeed, many continue to overlook the tools that they should have in their digital PR strategy toolkit.
So what potential can SMEs unlock if they apply this digital readiness to their comms teams?
So what are the best PR tools for SMEs? Look no further. We’ve picked 5 of the best free tools to help your team streamline operations, amplify your brand voice, and navigate the PR landscape with confidence.
Price: 100% free to use
Your PR team needs to have their finger on the pulse of the media and its mentions of your brand. Whether you’re keeping up with news coverage or tracking the success of a campaign, Google Alerts is the ideal free tool for band monitoring. Simply add an alert for your brand name, specific keywords, or any content that you’d like to follow to never miss a beat.
Top tip: Add industry keywords and competitors to alerts for deeper insights and opportunities.
Price: Basic free plan available
The public perception of your brand is heavily influenced by its visual identity. Making sure your visuals are consistent, engaging, and top-quality is no longer a ‘nice-to-have’ but a necessity for any digital PR strategy. If you don’t have a Photoshop wiz on the team, Canva is your best bet. Not only is it easy to use, but it allows you to create compelling content with plenty of templates and add your logo, brand colors and fonts to its ‘Brand Kit’ feature for design consistency.
Top tip: Use Canva Magic Studio to level up your brand’s designs and create compelling shareable content.
Price: Free no-strings trial available
Any PR team knows that when it comes to growing your brand’s presence, your press connections are everything. By building and nurturing your relationships with journalists, you can control your media coverage, reach new audiences and establish your reputation as a transparent, media-friendly organization.
Most PR teams will tell you that fielding a high volume of inquiries – and responding to each one with the same quality and within a similar timeframe – can get tricky. With a media relations software tool like Presspage Connect, you can manage your incoming requests from journalists authentically and efficiently.
Assign inquiries to different team members, align your responses with your tone of voice, and keep track of all different projects across media outlets.
Acting as a central hub for your PR team, Presspage Connect allows you to respond to media inquiries at unmatched speed and reliability – especially if your company is going through an unforeseen crisis. Not only do you get a bird’s eye view of all incoming requests, but you can streamline tasks with AI-assisted automation and flag certain inquiries as priority. It’s never been easier to stay on top of your inquiries.
If you want to make the most out of your PR efforts and protect your company’s reputation in the long run, maintaining a unified response is crucial. With Connect’s shared inquiries portal and its customizable shared templates, it’s easy to keep your responses aligned – even when your colleagues are out of office. By keeping your team on the same page about how to respond to inquiries, you can ensure that your organizational narrative is always aligned.
Depending on the circumstances, you have two equally important tasks – securing coverage and mitigating unwanted coverage. Though these seem contradictory, they both have their time and place: When things are smooth sailing, you’d like to secure a media opportunity, while during an unforeseen crisis, it’s better to keep coverage at bay.
The key to both is nurturing meaningful relationships with journalists. With Presspage Connect, you can easily track past interactions and know at one glance which journalist to reach out to in different scenarios.
Top tip: Draft your response to an inquiry within the tool and adjust it to the desired tone with the AI feature.
Presspage Connect inquiries have transformed our overall media request review process. With everything in one place, it’s so much easier to manage and track our communications. The streamlined system has made our team more efficient and coordinated.
Price: 100% free to use
You might not always have brand photography ready for a time-sensitive press release. Knowing where to find top-quality stock photos means you have one less thing to worry about. Pexels is a great resource for free stock imagery. As a rule of thumb, always check the terms and licensing of the photography you use.
Top tip: Customize stock imagery in Canva to create unique brand content.
Price: Basic free plan available
Keeping your tone of voice aligned is not only important in your responses to media inquiries but also in all other day-to-day communication. Whether you’re drafting a press release or pitching coverage opportunities to journalists as part of your digital PR strategy, it can sometimes be difficult to come up with original content while maintaining your unique brand voice. Make your communication workflows more efficient by using ChatGPT to easily draft outlines or generate suggestions for a piece of content.
Top Tip: Make sure to give as much information as possible in your prompt to ChatGPT to tailor its response to your brand.
Getting your line-up of PR tools just right is the key to both thriving as a team and driving a successful digital PR strategy. From brand monitoring to content creation, media inquiry management, PR distribution, and more – by streamlining monotonous manual tasks, you allow your team to focus on building authentic brand messaging that resonates with your audience.
Interested in how Presspage Connect can help your comms team reach its full potential? Check out our free media inquiries solution.