OnePitch recommends reporters to pitch; ResponseSource shuts down #journorequests curation; Meltwater acquires Owler; Critical Mention adds “cast & crew” TV data
This month’s roundup of PR technology news is a two-fer: there’s two months’ worth of news here.
Why? I missed my self-imposed deadline in June as I was simply overwhelmed by events: client work – always my first priority – but also bisdev, podcast production, blog posts, and trying to get this year’s annual JOTW comms survey ready for publication.
In my own defense, it’s the only one I’ve missed since I started writing the PR Tech Sum roundups 25 months ago. It’s made me realize I’m trying to do too much and so I’m probably going to pair some of the extra things I do back.
As the saying goes, one-half of strategy is deciding what not to do.
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1. OnePitch feature recommends reporters to pitch
OnePitch rolled out a “General Recommender” feature, which reviews your pitches and suggests reporters that might be interested in future outreach.
In a video tutorial, the company says it will start making recommendations after you’ve sent three or more pitches. Then it analyzes those pitches, matches it against contacts in its database, and suggests media contacts for you to pitch that have written about related topics.
Notified by Intrado is the only other PR software tool I’m aware of that recommends contacts to consider pitching.
The OnePitch feature also provides a “Recommendation Score which takes into consideration how relevant the journalist’s articles are to your history of pitches” and an “Activity Score to know how frequently the journalist publishes articles.”
PRWeek noted the company also “introduced Pitch Sending and Pitch Tracking, features that allow users to send emails and pitches directly through the platform, which integrates with the users’ existing email service providers. This feature tracks outreach and journalists’ responses.”
OnePitch told the publication that 1,100 PR professionals are using the platform.
2. ResponseSource shuts down curation of #journorequests
In a marketing email, ResponseSource said it’s shutting down it’s curated list of media requests submitted on Twitter and tagged with the hashtag #journorequests.
“The service will no longer be available as of August 1st 2021 [sic].” The company says it’s “refocusing our product efforts” on a premium journalist inquiry service that is akin to ProfNet or a premium version of HARO. However, the listings tend to be UK-centric.
The company does not list pricing, but there are several online references that put the sticker price in a range from $600 annually to $20,000. The pricing is based on the number of categories you subscribe to receive – i.e. technology, health care, etc.
ResponseSource also offers press release distribution and a media database. While I haven’t covered ResponseSource in this monthly roundup, I have covered its parent company Vuelio. Vuelio is an all-in-one PR software tool based in the UK and acquired ResponseSource in 2018 for £5.5 million.
3. Meltwater acquires Owler
Meltwater acquired Owler for $24.5 million in cash and stock.
Owler provides business information on companies that’s crowd-sourced on “ranging from private company revenue estimates, strength of competitors, CEO approval ratings, employee headcount, growth trends, corporate hierarchy, rate of innovation, diversity, culture, employee trust, and more.”
If you’ve ever used the deal-making database CrunchBase you many have noticed some of the business numbers and estimates are provided by Owler.
According to the Meltwater announcement, “Owler has grown its user base exponentially to become the second largest online business community in the world, next to LinkedIn. The Owler community consists of 5 million active business professionals who contribute up-to-date business information to Owler’s 14 million company profiles. Owler members include 96 percent of the Fortune 500, and 73 per cent of high growth companies in the USA.”
Owler is an interesting move for Meltwater that could provide sources of competitor tracking information beyond its traditional news and media monitoring tools.
It’s the third acquisition, Meltwater has made since going public and raising $400 million. Earlier this year, the company acquired Klear, an Israeli-based company that provides an influencer marketing platform for roughly $18 million. Prior to that Meltwater acquired Linkfluence, a French company with software that uses artificial intelligence to mine social media for consumer insights for about $60 million.
4. Critical Mention adds “cast & crew” TV data
If you’ve ever pitched broadcast media, you know it’s the producers that you need to reach, not the on-air talent. But information on who is behind the camera can be hard to find – a problem Critical Mention aims to address. The company rolled out “Cast & Crew” data for TV mentions and provides links to both the profile page in their database.
This latest release comes on the heels several other features Critical Mention recently added. These including its contact database, a native podcast monitoring tool and Google Analytics integration.
The press release says, “customers are finding that the native, connected features built internally rather than through third-party connections, provide a more seamless user experience than other platforms in the industry can provide.”
Typically, I’d downplay language like that as hyperbole, but in this industry, at this moment in time, I think there’s truth to it. Critical Mention got started monitoring broadcast almost exclusively and had partnerships with other vendors in the space that wanted that capability.
Then it broke it partner ties and has started down a path of offering a suite of tools. And they’ve been consistent about pumping out new features.
The product doesn’t look like it’s the sexiest UX I’ve ever seen, but the company does seem conscious of that too. The announcement noted it’s “product roadmap will continue to move swiftly with releases in the second half of 2021, with new social content, design improvements and analytics expected.”
5. Agility PR Solutions adds podcast monitoring
Agility announced it can now “monitor global podcasts in six different languages” as part of its media monitoring software. The feature allows users to “discover new influencers and publicity opportunities and stay abreast of the industry trends and emerging issues that are discussed on podcasts.”
The capability was added by integrating a white label solution from TVEyes. Agility joins Meltwater, Burrelles, Cision and Muck Rack in integrating the TVEyes product into their monitoring tools. Only Talkwalker and Critical Mention offer homegrown podcast monitoring tools.
In a separate announcement, Agility PR Solutions said it was recognized by the review site G2 as a “Momentum Leader in the Media Monitoring category, a Leader in the Media and Influencer category, and a High Performer in the PR Analytics category.”
6. Onclusive expands partnership with MSL
Onclusive broadened a deal with MSL to make it’s “PR Attribution” feature available to MSL clients worldwide – and to clients of its parent company, Publicis Groupe.
The company explained in an email exchange that MSL is already offering the attribution to U.S. clients as “part of its overall measurement stack which combines data and insights from multiple sources, both externally and internally from across Publicis Groupe.”
The feature is “baked-in” to the MLS offering – and MSL manages the engagements with any prospective customers that want it. The Onclusive relationship is directly with MSL.
The announcement seems similar to the “CommTech” offering Edelman put together for clients, in part based on its relationship with Cision. Onclusive and Cison have competitive attribution features. Both are designed to apply marketing lead attribution techniques to media relations.
7. PR tech mentions
- New PR tech. “Early-stage technology startups in the UK are using digital public relations (PR) platform Newspage to help increase media visibility and secure further funding,” according to Computer Weekly.
- Media monitoring. SpinSucks recommends a handful of media monitoring tools.
- Employee comms merger. SocialChorus and Dynamic Signal will merge. Terms weren’t disclosed but the private fund that owns Social Chorus, Sumeru Equity Partners, will “make a ‘significant’ new investment in SocialChorus and fund the combination,” according to the HCM Technology Report. “Last year, SocialChorus expanded its capabilities and repositioned itself as a tool for organizational change rather than a purely internal communications solution.”
- Paywall problems. Critical Mention’s Licensed Content allows users to track and access top paywalled content and avoid signing up for multiple subscriptions just to track your brand or your competitors.”
- Fruitful rebrand? Releasd renamed itself “Nectarine.” The UK-based company provides coverage reports.
- Producing hybrid events. Intrado partnered with Encore to provide production capabilities to go with its digital event platform. The deal is aimed at hybrid events. “Clients of both companies will no longer need to manage multiple vendors for hybrid events.”
- Remote work. MuckRack renews commitment as a remote-work employer; “committed to attracting the best talent globally to join us in our mission.”
8. Content picks
- Seventy-four percent of PR and comm pros give themselves good grades on their technical skills, according to the 2021 JOTW Strategic Communications Survey.
- “…journalists respond to roughly 3.27% of the pitches they receive,” according to Propel.
- “For the market to fully understand the story that we’re telling, without misunderstandings or misperceptions” – Q4 on measuring investor relations.
- “85% of business leaders and decision-makers say that reputation is a higher priority than margin when making decisions,” according to a survey by Signal AI.
- “Across company types and sizes, most PR pros say their budgets are either increasing (45%) or staying the same (50%),” according to the State of PR Survey by Muck Rack.
- Agility PR released an analysis of 5,000 email pitches for a report titled, “How to Get Journalists to Open, Click, and Love Your Email Pitch: Second Edition.”
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Have an interesting announcement from a PR technology vendor? Here’s the list of PR technology companies I’m watching and here’s how to get on my radar.
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