More and more tasks can be automated these days. And yet, someone is still to develop an effective PR robot. Journalists are humans and much of the work also needs to be done by humans.

Having said that, there are some useful tools out there that can help you. And many of them are free.

Google Alerts (alerts for keywords/phrases)

The humble Google Alert. If you don’t already have searches saved for your keywords, start now. Find out what people are already saying about your issues, who is saying them and where.

Buzzsumo (content alerts, trending content) (keywords, author, domains, etc.)

Looking for relevant content about your niche? It pays to investigate what is already trending and the kinds of articles that are doing well – Buzzsumo is handy for this.

Boomerang (schedule email reminders)

A useful tool for anyone who uses Gmail. Part of the fun of media relations is following up with journalists and editors to make sure they got your email. Boomerang lets you set reminders. The email you sent reappears in your inbox after hours, days or months, you decide. So you don’t have to set a calendar notification.

Feedly (viewing publication feeds on certain topics)

Follow the feeds relevant to your niche in one place. Feedly delivers news from RSS feeds so you can view them easily. You can choose content from your favourite blogs.

Yesware (how people react to your email, open rates)

Not all emails you send will get read. Sometimes they’ll be deleted on the strength of the headline alone. Plugins like Yesware and CRMs like Hubspot show you if and when an email has been opened.

Find That Lead

Find That Lead helps you find the email address of the journalist you’re looking for. You put in the URL of the publication and their name and it does the rest.

FullContact

FullContact pulls together social media profile information, helps with gather influencer data, which can be handy when you’re looking to do blogger outreach.