This guide skips the basics. Instead, we dive straight into advanced crisis media monitoring strategies backed by real-world examples from brands like KFC, California Pizza Kitchen, and even the Tiger Woods incident.

TL;DR – What you’ll learn in this guide

• How to use real-time alerts to spot crises before they escalate
• Why sentiment analysis drives smarter PR decisions
• How to build high-precision Boolean queries that catch everything
• What to track across digital, social, broadcast, and print media
• How to design crisis dashboards that drive action
• 3 case studies that showcase real-world applications
• 4 recurring themes in successful PR crisis responses

6 advanced best practices for crisis media monitoring

1. Set up proactive alerts and threshold triggers

Monitor all kinds of keywords ahead of time. Your own brand, hashtags, competitors, CEO, stakeholders, or anyone (or anything) that can potentially be at the scrutiny of the media. Additionally, set up alerts for things like an unusual spike in mentions, so you know when a crisis is starting to hit.

🛠️ With Prowly, you can set real-time alerts for spikes in mentions, specific stakeholders, or regional media—giving you a head start on response.

2. Build smarter queries—without the Boolean complexity

Effective monitoring starts with flexible, inclusive queries. Instead of wrestling with traditional Boolean syntax, group keywords into logical themes—like product names, spokespersons, or crisis topics.

Don’t forget to include common misspellings, abbreviations, hashtags, or language variations your audience might use.

💡 Prowly’s intuitive query builder lets you cluster keywords using “ANY,” “ALL,” and “NONE” logic—making it easy to cast a wide net or zero in on specific mentions, all without needing technical expertise.

3. Track sentiment and narrative changes dynamically

Truth is, sentiment simply drives decisions. Are people excited for your new campaign? Confused? Angry with a statement you've put out? Is your brand the laughter of the internet now? An advanced media monitoring PR tactic will have these covered with intuitive dashboards.

💡 Prowly’s dashboards visualize sentiment shifts across all media types—TV, social, online, and print—so you can adjust messaging in real-time.

4. Monitor across the web, social media, TV, and print

While social media usually gets hit first, it's not until it spreads to national broadcasts and more popular magazines that more people hear about it. You know, a Reddit thread will slightly question your integrity, but a segment on the evening news might turn it into a fact for the public.

💡 Prowly covers online, social, broadcast, and print channels—so you can spot narratives as they evolve and take action before they hit mainstream media.

5. Build dashboards for crisis response teams

It doesn't matter if they're pretty. It matters if they're actionable at a quick glance. Stakeholders and managers need to view sentiment and volume trends quickly, while social media and PR coworkers need live mentions.

💡 With customizable widgets and real-time data, Prowly dashboards let you build stakeholder-friendly views that highlight key metrics instantly—no spreadsheets required.

Tip: include benchmark metrics from calm periods so your team can immediately spot if something is out of the ordinary.

6. Respond to emerging misinformation quickly

Ready, set, go! When that first comment hits, you literally have about 15 minutes to re-think your entire strategy in that moment. While aiming for a perfect response is crucial, being on time is even more important. What's even better? Having a proactive media monitoring crisis strategy in place.

💡 Prowly’s real-time alerts and keyword spike detection help you catch misinformation the moment it starts trending—so you’re always one step ahead.

Case Study 1: Rolling Hills Estates & Tiger Woods crash

In February 2021, Tiger Woods was injured in a high-speed rollover crash around the Rolling Hills Estates in California, USA. He was twice over the speed limit, collided with a neighborhood sign, crossed into oncoming traffic, and rolled into a tree.

The crash brought intense attention, even though he was reportedly not intoxicated. However, a toxicology test was never conducted because police said there was no probable cause since Woods was lucid and cooperative.

This is an exact scenario where carefully curated Boolean queries and sentiment analysis are the most important, for both Woods as a celebrity, and the Rolling Hills Estates as a community. Things like baseline sentiment dashboards help comms teams view narrative shifts, from shock to speculation.

Then, of course, preventing rumours and misinformation since they're easy to appear out of no where especially when the case involves a high-profile celebrity.

📡 Prowly’s broadcast and local print monitoring capabilities would help comms teams detect narrative shifts early—even before they trend nationally.

Case Study 2: KFC Chicken Shortage in UK

In 2018, UK's KFC ran out of chicken across hundreds of locations nationwide. Days later, more than 600 restaurant chains closed temporarily, sparking debates and rumors on why, along with negative sentiment towards the brand.

Unfortunately, the public's reaction ranged from sarcastic frustration to empathy, but mostly it kept on escalating quite fast on social media. However, KFC shot it all down with humor themselves, rearranging their logo to say "FCK" on an empty bucket as a sign of apology.

This is a classic example of how real-media monitoring can help in cases like these. Spotting sentiment overflown with negativity (but some humor), their team was probably able to assess who the critics within the audience are, and turned a potential PR disaster into a cheeky brand win.

📈 By visualizing sentiment patterns using Prowly’s customizable dashboards, PR teams can quickly adapt tone and messaging—turning a crisis into an opportunity.

Case Study 3: California Pizza Kitchen TikTok Crisis

Around July 2024, a user named Riley (@fumptruck) went viral on TikTok after there was nothing but cheese in her mac & cheese order from California Pizza Kitchen. The video had over 3 million views and sparked a hefty conversation in the comments.

While things like these happen and it could have been a simple human error, the community did not leave a dry thread on California Pizza Kitchen. Had the company not utilized platform-specific monitoring, they would miss their shot on responding to the crisis effectively.

In return, California Pizza Kitchen sent Riley a care package and a voucher for completely free mac & cheese for a year.

Additionally, because they knew the sentiment and humor of their audience, they launched a funny chef video showing how to make the dish properly. You know, actually add the pasta.

P.S. We've gathered 16 more crisis management examples—explore them all here.

4 key themes across effective crisis management

To continue using the same examples, let's follow up on what similarities all the above mentioned case studies had. There are surely plenty of other occurrences which would fit here as well, but for the purpose of this article, we'll focus on what we've discussed.

In order to effectively put out their own fire, media monitoring crisis teams look for similarities across the strategies and responses of brands to shape their own approach. Here are the four key themes that emerge:

Theme 1: Speed

Each one of these teams responded quickly before the topic died down or got out of hand. The reason they were able to do it usually consists of several different things: effective media monitoring using solid PR crisis communication tools, a proactive crisis management plan, and making sure everyone at the organization knows what they need to do when a situation like this arises.

Most of the time, the best crisis management teams have several statements ready long before anything happens. These statements just sit there, waiting to be used, but they're usually vetted by all the stakeholders, align with the company's voice and tone, and ensure everyone is prepared as much as possible.

⚡ Prowly’s immediate alert system and email digests ensure no key moment is missed.

Theme 2: Real-time alerting

Media monitoring in crisis management is sort of the same, but then different. Yes, they also create queries of all the keywords that need to be tracked, but they're much more meticulous and detailed in doing so.

Real-time monitoring tools that allow for Boolean queries and platform-specific alerts are key here.

Just because you're going down on TikTok, doesn't mean your Facebook community shares the same sentiment. By knowing these nuances, teams can better understand what's going on and respond successfully.

💡 With Prowly, you can set tailored alerts for each platform and issue—so no comment, tweet, or local news report goes unseen. And here you can compare Google and Prowly alerts.

Theme 3: Platform-specific communication

A short, snappy video will probably not work for the audiences that watch national television, so knowing what content to place on what channel is absolute key. For all the companies we've discussed above, their response strategies were effectively tailored to the platforms and channels where the conversation first began.

Takeaway? There's no such thing as one-size-fits-all messaging. Especially in times of a fragmented media landscape.

💡 Prowly helps PR pros identify which channels are gaining traction through intuitive filtering by source type—TV, radio, blogs, or social.

Theme 4: Thorough sentiment analysis

Sentiment isn't just a cool graph that shows who's happy and who's upset. In sentiment analysis crisis PR, it becomes a tactical lever that shapes the tone of apologies, guides replies, and helps organizations stay ahead of misinformed gossip.

💡 Track mood in real-time, not just numbers. Prowly helps tailor response tone by mapping sentiment across stakeholder groups.

P.S. Don’t stop here—our PR crisis management guide is packed with extra tactics the pros keep to themselves.

Stay ahead of any comment with real-time media alerts PR crisis teams rely on. Start your free 7-day trial with Prowly. No contracts, no credit card needed.

How Prowly helps in media monitoring for crisis teams

#1 Real-time alerts

What's good about an alert that will come several hours after the comment has been posted? Absolutely nothing. In this day and age, Kerry will write something at 1:02pm, and by 2:00pm you have a full-blown crisis in the comments if whatever Kerry wrote sticks the wrong way.

With Prowly, you'll get immediate, real-time alerts delivered right into your inbox. This is in addition to special alerts, such as a spike in mentions so you know there's something cooking up if you get it. Pretty sure that's exactly how California Pizza Kitchen caught their viral TikTok video before it got out of control.

#2 Sentiment analysis

Prowly's tools measure the exact feeling your audience has about whatever campaign you've put out. The tool will track mentions in comments, on forums, customer feedback, and more, so you know if they're rather positive or negative towards an event.

For example, in the above-mentioned KFC chicken outage, the team must have monitored the sentiment closely in order to know if they need to come out with a formal apology, or add a bit or laughter.

#3 Offline tracking

With Prowly, you can monitor traditional media such as newspapers, magazines, and broadcast television. Therefore, if something has shown up even in local news, you'll know about it right away. That was probably the case in the Tiger Woods crash.

Although he's a celebrity, the community is pretty tight knit in these areas in California. Before national outlets picked it up, you bet it was local TV, radio, and newspapers that wrote about it first. Without proper offline monitoring, it would be nearly impossible to spot these mentions.

#4 Comprehensive dashboards

Life isn't easy when you need to juggle several tabs in order to digest all the information. That's why Prowly features easy-to-read dashboards, so you can quickly spot trends, opportunities, and outliers just by looking at it.

It's also effective if you're trying to explain something to a stakeholder that might not necessarily understand PR. After all, everyone understands the basics of when a line goes up, down, or what colors mean.

👉 Looking for more crisis management tools? This comparison covers 6 top-rated PR crisis management platforms.

Quick FAQ

💬 How does media monitoring help in a crisis?

Media monitoring allows teams to quickly understand what is going on in their respective landscape, where did the crisis appear first and who started it. Additionally, it also allows teams to check out what their competitor's are doing when a crisis hits them, so they can learn from their successes and failures.

💬 Why is real-time media monitoring important for crisis communication?

Real-time media monitoring is an indispensable component of all successful crisis strategy. It helps teams assess the risks of current issues, spot communications they need to respond to immediately, and prioritize in times of havoc.

That way, they can engage the right stakeholders to speak to the public, coordinate with other people, and minimize the damage to a minimum.

Final thoughts

If there's one thing you should take away from this post, it's the notion that if you're not prepared, you're already behind and failing. Those little first signs of negative comments here and there surely build momentum and can potentially spiral down further rather quickly.

Prowly gives you the right tools and features to pick up on the first spark and not be caught in a surprise. Start your 7-day free trial today and experience how media monitoring for crisis teams can turn your work from reactive to proactive.

The post Media Monitoring for Crisis Teams: Advanced Strategies for 2025 w/Case Studies appeared first on Prowly.

This guide breaks down how to write a clear, credible, and effective PR statement—complete with real examples and expert tips.

TL;DR:

• Learn how to structure a professional PR statement in 5 key parts
• Understand when and why to issue one—crisis, campaign, or company news
• Discover tone strategies that build trust and avoid backlash
• See good vs. bad PR statement examples from Shopify and BrewDog
• Get practical tips on tailoring messages to media, customers, and stakeholders
• Explore how tools like Prowly help monitor sentiment and manage communications

What is a public relations statement?

A public relations (PR) statement is an official message from a company designed to shape public perception. Typically written by a media relations or communications team, it's used in response to crises, product launches, or news events involving the brand.

So, why write a PR statement? Here are some common scenarios:

• To generate media buzz around a new product launch
• To reinforce a positive reputation after an ESG or DEI campaign
• To address negative press and clarify your company’s position

Whether proactive or reactive, a well-crafted PR statement can build trust, redirect narratives, and ensure your voice is heard first.

How to write a public relations statement?

A strong PR statement can make or break public relations and crisis communications for your brand. Whether it's an official statement from government officials, or a few sentences to reduce negative publicity, it needs to follow a structure that prioritizes transparency, empathy, responsibility and direction.

Here are five essential elements every effective PR statement should include—plus ways to support each stage with smart planning, cross-functional alignment, and the right tools.

5 key building blocks of a PR statement

#1 Acknowledge the situation

Start by clearly stating what happened, when it occurred, and—if relevant—where. This shows transparency and sets the stage for the rest of the message.

Example: “On Sunday, January 12, one of our representatives made false claims about our organization and its employees.”

🛠️ Many PR teams begin this step inside a press release creator with real-time editing support—like Prowly’s AI Assistant, which helps structure key messages and maintain tone consistency while drafting.

#2 Explain the impact

Address who was affected and express empathy. A human tone goes a long way in showing your brand takes the matter seriously.

Example: “We understand this outage caused delayed and canceled flights, disrupting many travelers’ plans.”

🛠️ Empathy also comes from listening. Media monitoring tools like Prowly’s help teams surface early reactions and keyword sentiment across channels, making it easier to reflect real concerns in your messaging.

START MEDIA MONITORING FOR 7 DAYS FREE

#3 Own the responsibility

Avoid deflecting blame. Instead, be direct about what went wrong and your company’s role in it.

Example: “We recognize that our actions didn’t align with the values we stand for.”

🛠️ Tracking media responses to your messaging helps teams understand whether the tone of accountability is resonating—or needs recalibration.

#4 Outline your response

Let your audience know what steps you're taking to fix the issue. Even if the situation is ongoing, communicate the direction you're moving in.

Example: “We’re issuing full refunds to everyone affected and reviewing our response process to prevent future incidents.”

🛠️ Once your response is outlined, you’ll likely need to communicate it to multiple groups—media, partners, or customers. Prowly users can distribute statements through branded newsrooms or targeted journalist emails, keeping the message aligned across channels.

#5 Commit to change

Wrap up with a clear statement of what will be done long-term. This helps restore trust and signals accountability.

Example: “We’re implementing new safety protocols company-wide and will report back on progress.”

🛠️ This step isn’t just about saying the right thing—it’s about proving it. Reporting tools like Prowly’s let you track and visualize earned media coverage over time, so you can demonstrate how public sentiment shifts as changes roll out.

BUILD TRUST WITH BETTER PR TOOLS

Additional tips for strong PR messaging

👉 Tailor your format

Different audiences consume information differently. Consider creating:

• A headline summary for social or media alerts
• An executive summary for internal or investor updates
• A full-length version for press releases or newsroom use

👉 Know your audience

Customize your statement based on who's reading:

• Customers want to know if their service or product will be impacted
• Employees need reassurance and transparency
• Investors look for signs of stability and future-proof planning

👉 Use media monitoring to stay ahead

Once your PR statement is live, the job isn't over. Use a media monitoring tool like Prowly to track how the message is being received across social media, online news, and even broadcast and print. This helps you adapt quickly, manage sentiment, and stay in control of the narrative.

👉 Align internally before publishing

Make sure your marketing, legal, and leadership teams are on the same page before anything goes public. The faster your internal alignment, the quicker—and safer—you can respond.

👉 Enhance with visuals

Infographics, video messages from your CEO, or a visual timeline of events can help clarify complex updates and build connection with your audience.

In public relations, creating a PR statement is just a piece of the puzzle.

For public relations professionals, it means they need to communicate in a way that aligns with what the company believes it, while at the same time protecting its reputation and strengthening relationships with journalists, the media, and the public.

There is no resolution without building trust

Your public relations statement might check all the technical boxes—but does it genuinely build trust?

A defensive or overly polished tone can backfire. Audiences are quick to sense when a message feels performative or insincere. True accountability and transparency are the foundation of trust, especially during a crisis or high-stakes announcement.

Trust signals that strengthen PR statements

To make your message more credible and trustworthy, include these critical elements:

• Be specific: Use concrete timelines, name the individuals or departments responsible, and clearly state what actions have been taken.
• Create follow-up mechanisms: Keep your audience informed over time—not just in the moment. This could mean posting updates, issuing secondary statements, or using a newsroom.
• Understand your audience: Speak directly to the concerns of your stakeholders—customers, employees, investors—not just what you think they need to hear.
• Maintain tone consistency: Your statement should align with your brand’s voice, previous communications, and core values. Sudden shifts can feel disingenuous.

Brands that are transparent and credible follow up on the state of things. For example, when a company isn't clear on ethical practices and receives backlash for a questionable product launch, your company needs to prove they will take actions that will increase customer satisfaction and strengthen broken relationships.

What if a PR statement becomes the story itself?

Even if our public relations statement is written according to all the rules and with the best intentions, sometimes the media can misconstrue it anyway. Sometimes, the best public relations specialists can't predict what will go wrong (or right).

Here are some contrasting examples of public relations statements that journalists picked up and made into headlines:

Good PR statement: Shopify CEO’s layoff message

In 2022, Shopify announced they were laying off around 10% of their employees. However, instead of creating a PR statement full of jargon rarely anyone understands, Tobi Lutke, the CEO, released a company-wide message that was received as raw, full of reflection, and something that doesn't happen often in the tech industry: humanity.

Instead of sugar-coating and spilling out a bunch of words that wouldn't make anyone feel better in that situation, he explained (or the PR professionals on his team did) that they miscalculated the acceleration of e-commerce growth during the times of the pandemic.

He took full responsibility for what happened, showing honesty and humility. The communication was direct and easy to understand without reading in between the lines.

“Ultimately, placing this bet was my call to make and I got this wrong,” he wrote.

Plenty of public relations specialists have analyzed it and examined it since, highlighting that it was the greatest response in crisis communications in many, many years. Additionally, the company received less backlash than other tech layoffs have seen in social media (which is always a win).

Bad PR statement: BrewDog’s apology after toxic workplace claims

Contrast that with BrewDog, which faced intense criticism in 2021 after more than 60 former employees published an open letter accusing the company of fostering a culture of fear, pressure, and exploitation.

In response, CEO James Watt issued a public apology...

But the tone fell flat. It was too vague, too sanitized, and lacked any real accountability. The statement didn’t address the specific allegations raised. Nor did it outline steps the company would take to improve working conditions or repair internal culture.

Critics quickly pointed out that the apology felt more like damage control than genuine reflection. The lack of a forward-looking plan—and the absence of emotional acknowledgment—only intensified the backlash.

Conclusion – writing for the moment and the memory

A great PR statement shows customers how your organization handles pressure, public scrutiny, and shows accountability.

In crisis communications, the language you choose shapes perception and helps build a favorable public image that can outlast the headlines which are damaging to your company.

When writing a PR statement, PR professionals need to conduct thorough research to craft the type of communication that respects the urgency of the situation and the long-term well-being of their audience. It's a tough balancing act, and this type of communication is certainly difficult to write.

It doesn't matter if your company is addressing journalists, employees, customers, or simply keeping stakeholders informed — a well-crafted reactive PR statement or a proactive holding statement can make or break the business you're doing public relations for.

The post Crafting the Perfect Public Relations Statement: A Guide for Success appeared first on Prowly.

The real opportunity? Turning those scattered mentions into insights that actually drive strategy. That’s where media intelligence tools step in — helping PR, marketing, and comms teams cut through the noise, spot trends early, and prove the value of their work with real numbers.

TL;DR:

• Media intelligence turns media mentions into insights that inform PR, marketing, and brand strategy.
• It goes beyond monitoring — helping you analyse sentiment, track competitors, and spot PR risks early.
• Tools powered by AI (like Prowly) make it easier to measure impact, optimize campaigns, and align PR with business goals.
• In 2025, media intelligence is essential for staying ahead in a fragmented, fast-moving media landscape.

What is media intelligence?

Media intelligence includes gathering, analyzing, and processing information from different media sources to gain insights and help drive decisions. With it, brands can understand their audience, customers, and competitors better, using it to elevate their campaigns in the direction they want to.

Media monitoring vs. media intelligence

Kind of the same, but different. Why? It depends on the tool.

Essentially, media intelligence involves media monitoring, but the latter doesn't necessarily result in media intelligence.

Media intelligence goes several layers deeper than just collecting mentions. It includes spotting trends, analyzing sentiment, gathering metrics from social listening, benchmarking competitors, and so on. Sounds like media monitoring, right?

However, media intelligence goes even a step further and offers deeper analysis of the data, making it easier for you to make informed decisions based on data-backed interpretations and context.

Why do businesses need media intelligence in 2025?

The short answer: media complexity is exploding. There are simply too many platforms, channels, and conversations to monitor — and too much reputational risk in missing what matters.

Even if your audience mostly lives on Facebook or LinkedIn, it doesn’t mean that’s where your reputation is being shaped. You may be getting clicks there, but brand sentiment could be shifting elsewhere — unnoticed.

That’s why businesses are upgrading from basic media monitoring to full-scale media intelligence — using advanced media analysis tools to uncover what’s really driving their brand narrative.

#1 Media fragmentation requires smarter media intelligence

Your audience is scattered across dozens of platforms — from TikTok and newsletters to niche blogs, Reddit, and YouTube. Owning the narrative in just one place no longer works.

A modern data-driven PR strategy depends on tools that turn scattered mentions into brand reputation insights — going beyond monitoring to unlock earned media analytics at scale.

💡 According to Harvard Business Review, 67% of consumers use multiple channels before making a purchase.

That journey might include an ad on Instagram, a mention on Facebook, and a review on Reddit — all influencing a single decision.

Only media intelligence tools can track this full arc and make it actionable.

#2 Real-time media insights prevent brand damage

Crises don’t wait. Public sentiment shifts within hours — and traditional monitoring tools just can’t keep up.

That’s why brands rely on real-time media insights and sentiment analysis to stay ahead of emerging issues. According to Deloitte’s Reputation Risk Survey, brands that actively monitor sentiment recover 30% faster from crises.

With the right tools, you can:

• Catch PR threats before they escalate
• Track how competitors handle crises using competitive benchmarking
• Build smarter response strategies powered by continuous media analysis

#3 Stakeholders demand proof, not gut instinct

What's the impact? Do you have proof? How do you translate things like brand awareness into numbers that stakeholders will understand?

Leaders want metrics — not “we think it worked.”

Modern earned media analytics take your reporting from:

“We got coverage,” to

“That coverage drove 2x web traffic, improved sentiment by 15%, and gave us 3x more share of voice than competitors.”

By moving from media monitoring to media intelligence, you gain a clear picture of what’s working and why — and turn PR into a measurable growth driver.

Ready to show real PR impact?
Tools like Prowly help you go beyond basic reporting with media intelligence features built for proving results. From sentiment analysis to share-of-voice benchmarks, you’ll get the data stakeholders actually care about — and a clearer view of how PR drives business outcomes.

Turning data analysis into decisions

Dashboards are powerful — but they don’t make decisions. People do.

Say your latest campaign earned twice as much coverage in Canada but triggered negative sentiment. Was it a messaging misstep? A cultural blind spot?

These are the kinds of insights media intelligence tools uncover — helping you not just measure results, but act on them.

What is a media intelligence solutions company?

A media intelligence solutions company collects and analyzes data from news, social media, reviews, blogs, and other earned, owned, and shared media.

But it’s not just about counting mentions — it’s about identifying patterns:

• Where is sentiment shifting?
• What’s fueling competitor growth?
• How does media exposure tie into reputation risk or campaign traction?

Modern media analysis platforms go beyond vanity metrics to deliver actionable, predictive insights.

Is media intelligence just another term for sentiment analysis?

Absolutely not. While sentiment analysis is part of the equation, media intelligence spans much wider. It can show you connections like:

• PR coverage to web traffic
• Social buzz to investor behavior
• Media narratives to real business performance

It’s not just what people say — it’s what that means for your next move.

Real-life media intelligence examples

Theory is great — but here’s how businesses actually use media intelligence platforms to drive smarter, faster decisions:

• Optimize campaign performance
  Test how your messaging and storytelling land across different outlets, formats, and demographics. Did your headline gain traction in the UK while making no commotion in Texas? Media intelligence helps you spot these gaps and adjust your strategy in real time.
• Spot PR crises before they trend
  Think of media intelligence as an early warning system. It helps catch brewing issues before they spill over, so you can fine-tune your reputation management strategies and respond proactively — not reactively.
• Benchmark competitors effectively
  Keep tabs on your industry without guesswork. Analyze share of voice, sentiment trends, media volume, and the quality of your coverage — all from a single dashboard. That’s competitive benchmarking made simple.
• Improve investor relations
  Track market sentiment and brand visibility to show that PR isn’t just about awareness — it’s a measurable asset. Media intelligence gives you the numbers your CEO and CFO actually care about.
• Fuel product decisions with real-world feedback
  Use insights from reviews, forum comments, and media mentions to iterate smarter. Whether it’s product features, messaging tweaks, or UX changes, earned media analytics reveal what your customers really think — without waiting for a formal survey.

What to look for in a media intelligence tool

If you really think on it, a monitoring tool can also be a media intelligence tool. However, that's not always the case. If the software only tracks mentions and gives you data you don't really know what to do with or how to analyze, then you can't add it to the media intelligence solutions bucket.

Features that will get you actionable insights

👉 AI-based sentiment analysis

After all, this is exactly what artificial intelligence is good at — predicting sentiment based on more than just a few words within an article, blog post, or comment. The best media intelligence solutions will be able to detect the difference between a "hit" being something positive ("Brand's latest release was an absolute hit"), and it being negative ("Brand name took a hit due to...").

👉 Entity and topic clustering

A core feature of predictive media intelligence. It's based on grouping related terms, themes, names, and trending issues into clusters, so it all makes some kind of sense all together. It shows how conversations evolve, connect, and form based on thousands of articles so you can see the bigger picture.

👉 Customizable dashboards and reporting

There is no one-size-fits-all dashboard, and many professionals struggle with getting value out of a tool that isn't tailored to their needs. Surely, a dashboard should be customized depending on who is using it: a stakeholder, a client, a coworker, or someone external.

👉 Analytics and CRM integration

PR doesn't live in a silo and it always affects different metrics that revolve around advertising, marketing, sales, and more. So the best media intelligence solutions will be able to show you trends between an increase in media exposure for a particular campaign and the number of sales you've hit thanks to it.

👉 Multilingual, multichannel coverage

You can't be successful if your tool only allows you to monitor half of the popular media channels, or picks and chooses which sources they monitor for you. It's all too common that a brand thinks they're wildly popular in one country, only to find out they've swept up a niche audience in their industry in another country.

Is Prowly a good media intelligence tool?

Yes — Prowly is more than a PR tool! It’s a media intelligence platform built to help public relations teams track performance, monitor sentiment, and prove ROI with real data.

While Prowly is best known for its all-in-one PR workflow, it also delivers powerful media intelligence capabilities thanks to features like:

✅ Audience analytics

To create the most curated media lists with various media data points about the traffic of online media outlets and visitor data on countries, interests, gender, age, income distribution, occupation, education level, and household size.

✅ Customizable dashboards

So you can show off your work and progress in a way that suits your stakeholders, managers, clients, or simply highlights the key parts of your campaign strategy.

✅ Competitor benchmarking

Monitor mentions across channels to compare share of voice, sentiment trends, and media volume — all within a unified dashboard.

✅ Smart press release builder

A press release creator tool that will allow you to write customizable press releases based on questions you'd typically get from a journalist (so you know exactly what to mention and what to leave behind).

✅ Pitching & email engagement insights

Powerful email statistics including how long someone has spent reading your email and how many times they clicked on it, timestamps included, which is useful in evaluating and predicting further follow-up and pitching actions.

Do you need a media intelligence strategy?

With where things are heading, that's a solid yes. The current trend is to predict what will happen next, rather than analyze the past and what's happening now.

The future of communications is where narratives meet attributions and PR effortlessly proves the ROI it brought in. Remember that if you're not keeping up with everyone else, you're being left behind.

Some of the emerging trends in media intelligence include predictive modeling and automated alerts, tools that can help you spot correlations between earned media and traffic to your site and sales, as well as deeper integrations with business intelligence tools.

The coolest of them all? Real-time crisis simulation models (can't wait for this one to go mainstream).

Media intelligence is the new influence

Making decisions based on feelings is no longer relevant, especially thanks to all the metrics and insights available to PR professionals.

Media intelligence gives communications teams monitoring and social media monitoring on steroids. It shows who is saying what, where, and why, thus making influence more measurable and repeatable.

Think of it this way — you've placed dots on the map and media intelligence is what pulls them together into the cohesive narrative you need to succeed.

The post What is Media Intelligence and What Can It Do for Your Business? appeared first on Prowly.

In this article, you'll find what metrics and data a good PR tool should have, so that you can make your work easier when drafting data-driven strategies and showing off your progress to stakeholders and clients.

List of PR analytics tools

Here’s a brief table comparing the most popular PR analytics tools, their pricing, contract length and whether they have a free trial or not.

What to consider when choosing a PR analytics tool?

We know data is king, so choosing between all the PR analytics tools on the market is a big task. Collecting mentions is one thing, but making sense of them is another.

With a solid PR analytics tool, you should be able to:

• Gather data from a wide range of media sources to get a holistic view of your brand's and competitor's presence in the media landscape.
• Get dozens of industry-relevant metrics such as sentiment analysis, share of voice, estimated reach, and advanced engagement metrics.
• Create easily customizable visual aids such as graphs, bar charts, and more, to make it easy for you and stakeholders to spot general trends and outliers.

Here is a more detailed breakdown of what you need to look for when browsing through PR analytics tools:

Data sources

By tracking mentions across various platforms, you can uncover opportunities to engage with different audiences and see if the strategy you have in place makes sense. This comprehensive approach allows for the identification of both high-performing content and areas where engagement is lacking, offering a clear roadmap for adjustment.

Therefore, finding analytics tools that cover as many data sources as possible is crucial in capturing wins, understanding failures, and everything in between. This broad data coverage helps ensure that no vital insights are overlooked, enhancing strategic decision-making.

For example, an up-and-coming tech company might focus on industry and tech blogs, whereas a niche fashion brand would look more toward social media channels. Tracking different platforms helps pinpoint where the conversations are most vibrant and relevant to your specific sector.

Or, what if the marketing department is focused on TikTok, but you see that your target audience is actually on Instagram? Having this knowledge can give you an edge in building a strategy that works. This ability to adapt based on real-time data can significantly impact your brand's relevance and engagement levels.

At Prowly, you can monitor:

• News
• Blogs
• Discussion forums
• X (previously Twitter)
• Facebook
• Instagram
• TikTok
• Youtube

1. News and online outlets

If you're interested in monitoring news only, you can do just that at Prowly as well. Whether it's a new product announcement, breaking news about a celebrity, or a political statement and you're waiting on the public's response, there are things you can do to help you analyze the landscape.

First, start with creating a search query for several keywords related to your event. It could be a regular keyword, brand, a person that's involved in whatever is going on, and more. Then, you can create a dashboard to visualize what's happening in real time.

You can set up widgets that show mentions with positive sentiment, negative sentiment, quickly assess top mentions from tier 1 or tier 2 publications, see the audience reach of such an announcement, compare share of voice, and many more. Possibilities are endless, depending on what you need to track.

To sum it up, you should consider only the PR analytics tools that have comprehensive media monitoring capabilities with dozens of metrics available. That's the only way you'll be able to get the value PR analytics tools provide.

2. Social media monitoring

It's a given you can't do detailed media monitoring for your client and get them the PR analysis you want without tracking what conversations are happening on social media.

Understanding these dialogues is crucial in crafting PR strategies that highly resonate with current trends and public sentiment. Without these insights, agencies, in-house teams, and freelancers might miss critical opportunities to manage brand reputation and counteract negative perceptions as fast as they can.

In order to see what kind of data you can get with the PR analytics tools, take a look at Prowly's dashboards.

In this specific example, we're comparing Red Bull and Ferrari's metrics. Since data visualization makes it easy to spot trends, you can instantly see that Red Bull has a much bigger share of voice in the news, and Ferrari takes the crown when it comes to the share of voice in social media channels.

However, what's interesting is that Red Bull's content on social media is much more engaging and generates more reactions. When it comes to sentiment, there isn't much of a difference in either of the channels for either of the brands.

While this is just a short sample analysis, the best PR analytics software will help you get such data to help you draw conclusions about your strategy early, so you can adjust it as you go.

Types of metrics

▪️AVE - short for Ad Value Equivalency, is a metric used to estimate the monetary worth of media coverage, benchmarking it with what the campaign or activities would cost if they were paid advertisements as opposed to organic.

While this is not a metric loved by many due to a plethora of limitations, AVE continues to be a prevalent method for evaluating the impact of all kinds of PR efforts.

▪️Backlinks - by using this metric, you can track the number of backlinks that direct back to your desired landing page. That way, you can assess the importance and popularity of your domain and potentially spot opportunities to get backlinks where they're lacking.

Although PR specialists say it's rare journalists would edit anything they wrote, it never hurts to try (you might have much more luck with more "lenient" publications though!).

▪️Domain authority score - here you can see a distribution of rankings of all media outlets where mentions were found. Generally, it's a search engine ranking score that determines how important a website is by measuring its potential to rank higher in search engines.

▪️Domain rank - this metric shows the domain ranking of outlets and news sources where you have been mentioned, assessing organic visibility based on their estimated monthly traffic. The lower the ranking number, the more significant the domain.

Keep in mind that mentions on higher-ranked domains can increase your chances of getting greater visibility, since these online sources have a wider audience.

▪️Domain reach - think of this as a quick snapshot of the outlet's traffic over a specific period. It tells you how many visitors have checked out a domain with your mention. Basically, if the number is high, that means a larger number of people are seeing the mention of your brand or selected keyword.

With this, you can strategically plan ahead to see what kind of publications are giving you more traction and compare this metric with others - maybe you have a niche subject and, although the domain reach of the website that has mentioned you is low, your impact is sky high?

▪️Estimated reach - here you'll simply see an estimate of the potential size of your audience for an article that contains the keyword you're interested in over the past month.

In order to evaluate the effectiveness of your strategy, you need a PR tool that will let you compare this metric across different campaigns or timeframes. Such an analysis will help you identify which publications may require more targeted outreach.

▪️Number of mentions - a sum of all the mentions for a given query. Prowly gives you the option to refine these results using filters like sentiment, estimated reach, domain rank, and more, allowing for a more detailed analysis.

▪️Sentiment - as one of the most important metrics for any type of PR analytics, filtering results by sentiment is a valuable tool for understanding the public's perception of your specific campaign, brand, competitors, or just about anything else you're tracking.

It allows you to see whether your strategy, especially during events that involve a PR crisis, are influencing people's perceptions. Since this is a valuable metric, it's crucial to analyze it from each side.

You can do it with Prowly's filters and, for example, get a clear understanding of how sentiment looks as sorted by country to get deeper insights into how different regions might perceive your brand.

▪️Share of Voice - also commonly known as SoV, this metric measures your brand's visibility and awareness by tracking the number of times your brand is mentioned in the media.

High-quality PR analytics tools will provide the option of breaking it down by the different media and channels you use so that you get a clear understanding of where your share of voice is high and where it needs work.

It's a clear indicator of a campaign's effectiveness and can show how mentions increase post-campaign in comparison to previous periods. Actually, there are many ways in which you can implement it, all depending on your strategy.

It also helps assess your brand's competitive authority. By comparing your own SoV to that of your competitors, you can easily identify which brands are the most influential, which topics resonate with your target audience, and so on.

▪️Top mentions - a metric that shows top mentions helps to easily spot top-performing articles. At Prowly, you can filter by AVE, estimated reach, domain reach, domain rank, and domain authority score. It will contain all the mentions you've found in a media monitoring query for a brand, person, competitor, or keyword of your interest.

Additional metrics for social media

▪️Engagement type - this metric measures the extent of user interactions with social media content, while focusing on how actively users are engaging with it rather than just passively scrolling. It considers interactions such as comments, reactions, and shares - depending on the social media platform.

Tracking this metric can provide you with a level of audience engagement, providing insights into how interesting or relatable content is. Without it, it's nearly impossible to understand the effectiveness of PR social media strategies.

▪️Post sentiment - this one works exactly the same as sentiment for news and other types of sources, but you can divide it per social media platform you're interested in. Basically, you can compare sentiment across Instagram vs. Facebook, or other media channels, if that's what your campaign requires.

▪️Top posts - find the top 10 social media posts for your query. Such features in a media monitoring tool can help you quickly assess best-performing posts in terms of engagement and evaluate whether or not your strategy is working.

It's also a great way to see what post has a chance to reach a wider audience. To make it even more useful, you can sort it by either the number of followers a particular account has or engagement (which is a formula based on the sum of likes, comments, and shares).

Data visualization

Illustrating the effectiveness of public relations with hard numbers has traditionally posed a challenge, yet visual representations significantly aid in making this clearer. 

Nothing, but I mean absolutely nothing beats visualizing metrics.

Because some of them might not mean a lot to your stakeholders, seeing a simple graph or a chart with all the information can help identify patterns, trends, and anomalies you wouldn't have seen otherwise. Visual data presentations not only clarify the impact of PR efforts but also substantiates the strategic decisions behind them, making it easier for stakeholders to appreciate and understand the ROI.

Prowly's PR analytics software helps you create a dashboard for each project and customize it to your preference. There are lots of metrics you can choose from, such as estimated reach, SoV, sentiment analysis, engagement type, and many more.

This customization allows users to focus on the most relevant metrics to their specific needs, enabling a more targeted and effective analysis. Additionally, having all these metrics in one place simplifies the reporting process and increases the efficiency of communication with team members and clients.

Once you're done finding mentions in Prowly's Media Monitoring, you can create comprehensive dashboards which not many PR analytics tools provide. To visualize data even more easily, you can view:

• Line graphs - beneficial when you want to see staggered data, like the comparison of a domain's estimated reach vs. their rank, and then further filter it by a selected date range.
• Bar graphs - great for breaking down sentiment and visually assessing how much positive, negative, and neutral sentiment your query has received.
• Donut chart - can be used similarly to the above examples, depending on the visualization you prefer.
• Stacked area graph - similar to line graphs, but can show trends across time. Great to use with additional breakdowns for even more meticulous PR analytics.
• Column chart - another way to visualize data, for example, to show the estimated reach of a campaign divided by media sources.

Reporting capabilities

Picture this: you're up against a deadline, coffee in one hand, mouse in the other, and you're racing to put together a presentation that will impress your clients. You find yourself shuffling between different programs, and the entire process looks more like navigating through different tools instead of creating a simple report.

This juggling act can be frustrating and inefficient, often leading to errors and consuming valuable time. However, it doesn't need to feel like this. With the right tool, you'll be able to create an engaging presentation quickly and efficiently, with data-driven insights, all in one place.

You should never need to use external platforms, manually search for clippings, take screenshots, and use PowerPoint to design your reports. By streamlining these processes into one tool, you can focus more on the content and quality of your presentation, rather than on the mechanics of assembling it.

What you want is a tool that will allow you to effortlessly integrate screenshots and then social media posts and even include videos right in your report. The idea is to have everything you need in one integrated space.

This not only simplifies your workflow but also ensures that your final presentation is both comprehensive and professional, making it easier to communicate your insights effectively. Such a tool can transform the challenge of report creation into an opportunity for showcasing your analytical and creative skills.

The best PR analytics tools

Below you can find the list of the most popular PR analytics tools on the market: 

• Prowly
• MuckRack
• Meltwater
• Cision
• Propel 
• Prezly
• Agility PR
• CoverageBook
• Releasd

PR Analytics tool #1: Prowly

Prowly stands out because it's sort of a comprehensive tool kit equipped with a dedicated reporting feature that streamlines the creation of visually beautiful coverage reports without hassle.

It offers the flexibility to incorporate interactive elements, making sure your reports not only deliver information but also engage their recipient. With different sharing options and an option to protect your report with a password, you'll never have to worry about leaking any confidential information or putting stats in the hands of someone who shouldn't have them.

The convenience of automatically tracking metrics and including press clippings directly from Prowly's Media Monitoring tool also saves time and ensures all the data is accurate and free of any errors. That way, you can enrich your content and provide a broader view of your impact as a PR expert.

There are several pages in Prowly's coverage reports:

• #1 Home page - here you can customize the title and description, add your own logos, and change colors to match your brand's visual identity.
• #2 Coverage page - where you can automatically transfer mentions from Media Monitoring and paste any additional links you want, as well as offline coverage. All of these clippings will be evaluated and their statistics will be added to the metrics page. Prowly's PR Reports are connected to the Media Database, so just in case you're looking to add an author or the name of an outlet, Prowly’s analytics tools will find it in the database.

• #3 Metrics page - on this page, you'll be able to present any public relations analytics, important data, charts, and social media content. You can present the included coverage visually using metrics such as:
  • Online and offline clippings
  • Total estimated views
  • Average sentiment
  • Average domain authority
  • Total AVE
  • Total number of backlinks
  • Social media statistics

• #4 Performance page - this page offers options for showcasing email pitch statistics. You can either aggregate data by selecting multiple emails, which averages the data on the page or display the performance of individual emails by selecting one at a time.

• #5 Custom widgets - just in case there isn't a metric available, but you want to display a certain number, you can do so using custom widgets. For example, include conference attendees, number of tickets sold, etc.

Last, Prowly offers several ways to publish or share your report with clients and stakeholders. Whether you'd rather send it in a PDF, Excel, or PPT format, or publish it online with a link and password-protected access, you can choose how you want to send it out and show off your successes.

Here is a brief example of the kind of report you can do with Prowly’s PR Reports:

PR analytics tool #2: Muck Rack

Muck Rack has a robust suite of PR metrics you can use. From AVE to SoV, you can also show the value of your strategy with a media impact analysis or competitive analysis. In terms of metrics, it’s safe to say they’re one of the best tools on the market.

One of the most talked about downsides when it comes to Muck Rack is their price. Smaller companies and agencies don’t usually have the budget to afford such a tool. Many reviews online have also said the tool might be hard to learn and it can be difficult to get help from their support team.

Need a bit more info? Check out this article about Muck Rack pricing or an in-depth analysis of Muck Rack alternatives.

PR analytics tool #3: Meltwater

Meltwater provides metrics on estimated views, reach, sentiment, AVE, engagement metrics from social media listening, and more. In comparison to other popular PR tools, Meltwater is one of the leading providers of metrics in public relations. 

When it comes to the downsides, reviews say it might be a difficult tool to use and there’s a steep learning curve. One review even said that their high-volume data delay took 2 hours. Considering the urgency PRs need to work in, this is quite a long time (and something to consider). 

Learn more about:

• Meltwater pricing 
• Meltwater alternatives

PR analytics tool #4: Cision

Cision is one of the best known PR tools on the market, with a long history of helping public relations professionals prove their value. They have dozens of brand metrics that can help you understand mention reach, unique views, and conversions when it comes to content such as downloads, page visits, purchases and more.

Reviews say Cision lacks reporting functions that can help PRs assess their strategies against their competitors and that the new version of the interface isn’t as user friendly as the old one. 

Learn more about:

• Cision pricing
• Cision alternatives
• Cision vs Meltwater vs Prowly

PR analytics tool #5: Propel

According to their website, Propel can help you analyze things such as website traffic, online purchases, and form completions. You can also get a closer oversight on the number of articles published, pitching metrics, and others.

However, if you’re looking for an all-in-one tool, reviews say that their database lacks contacts and users had a difficult time building lists. Some also said the tool is a bit buggy here and there and their UI might be confusing.

PR analytics tool #6: Prezly

Prezly is an all-in-one tool that offers campaign analytics. You can check which contacts are the most engaged with your press releases and report on coverage using another of their features. 

Although the tool looks promising, reviews say the tool isn’t as intuitive as they’d like it to be. Users say there’s little wiggle room for things like fonts and formats in email sections and not enough options for personalization.

PR analytics tool #7: Agility PR

Agility PR is big on media analysis and pulling data from media monitoring. It helps evaluate traditional metrics, such as AVE, and examine more in-depth ones to see the value in brand awareness, engagement, reputation and more. 

When it comes to the negatives, reviews say their UI could be improved for more efficient workflow. In addition, they say the website can be a bit slow. While this isn’t a dealbreaker, it’s important to be able to use your tool with ease, especially when it comes to the work you do, and you don’t have time to spend hours on learning a tool.

PR analytics tool #8: CoverageBook

This platform is one of the most popular coverage reporting tools on the market. It has features that make it easy for users to simply insert links from your coverage and lets it do all the work, including tracking readership numbers and estimating an article's total reach.

While it's awesome for reporting, users say it can sometimes get glitchy or clunky when both importing links and editing. It also doesn't provide media monitoring, which means you'd have to manually enter clippings into the tool in order to get a report ready.

Although it's a great tool, it's not an all-in-one for PR professionals and only offers reporting capabilities.

For a more in-depth comparison, check out this article comparing Prowly, Releasd and CoverageBook.

PR analytics tool #9: Releasd

Releasd offers user-friendly, drag-and-drop layouts for PR reporting and efficiently pulls coverage from websites and social media platforms onto a single, easily digestible page. They also have automated metrics and highlight their unique "coverage impressions" as a key feature.

While they do have a 15-minute demo to showcase the product, they don't offer a free trial. Additionally, according to user reviews, the tool is said to have poor customer service, difficulties in adding images, and not enough analytics tools to gain deeper insights into readership.

Conclusion

Selecting the right PR analytics tools is crucial for gaining deep insights into your brand's or competitor's media presence. An ideal analytics tool should not only collect data but also analyze it across multiple metrics, like sentiment, share of voice, audience reach, and others, to help form a complete picture of your PR impact.

The post How to Choose the Best PR Analytics Tools in 2025: Metrics That Matter Most appeared first on Prowly.

The question is, why does one of the oldest names in PR keep potential customers in the dark about its costs? Dive in to see if this powerhouse of a tool is worth the investment and what the prices might look like.

What is Cision?

Cision is a public relations software and services provider. It owns several smaller companies that help organizations and businesses manage their communications and brand reputation. It also has a robust set of features, such as analytics, media monitoring, social media listening, and outreach.

Curious to see how other PR tools compare to Cision? Check out this guide to the Top 30+ Digital PR Tools in 2025. There, you'll find breakdowns of both paid and free to use PR tools.

Cision has the largest media database from all PR tools on the market—1.4 million contacts.

💡 However, keep in mind that quantity doesn’t always mean quality. The best way to evaluate a media database is to start a free trial and check it out for yourself.

Although Cision is a robust tool and has features such as newsrooms, press release distribution, and media monitoring, it doesn’t have a press release creator, automated follow-up emails, or things like free training.

Prowly’s Media Database has over 1 million contacts, but the real game changer is the way it enhances contact searches with unique features:

👉🏼 Partnership with Semrush provides exclusive data on audience and traffic.
👉🏼 AI keyword suggestions expand search possibilities, opening new coverage opportunities and targeting niche topics.

How much does Cision cost?

Based on our research and estimates, Cision pricing starts at around $10,000 annually.

Unfortunately, Cision’s pricing and plans are not publicly available. Their pricing page shows only a contact form and basic information about their packages.

Their pricing page suggests that Cision doesn’t have fixed plans and that each package is custom-tailored to your needs. This likely means the pricing can vary, making it difficult to estimate the final cost—and know if you're getting a good deal.

It's also unknown if Cision offers monthly plans. It's likely that only yearly subscriptions are available, which is common in the PR software industry.

Key takeaways:

• Cision plans start at $10,000 per year
• The average subscription costs around $12-15k/yr and can go up to $30k/yr
• Pricing is custom and depends on the features and number of seats
• Monthly plans are unlikely to be available
• More affordable alternatives, like Prowly, start at $258/per month

Pricing estimates

Based on our research and third-party websites, we've estimated the costs of Cision based on recent data. Here's what the top platforms have to say.

Reddit

A recent conversation on Reddit from 2025 on /rPublicRelations around PR software pricing mentioned four different quotes for Cision.

The author mentioned paying $13k per year for Cision's media database, media monitoring, and social listening for four seats.

Another user mentioned getting quoted for $21k per annum for monitoring, media database, and reporting for only one user.

User #3 quoted getting $10,000 for the media database and news monitoring for two users.

Finally, user #4 mentioned she pays $23k per year for 5 seats, which includes unlimited searches, broadcast monitoring, social listening, and the media database.

Vendr

Another platform, Vendr, claims the median Cision subscription price is $12,563 per year, based on 80 purchases.

Ultimately, with Cision's custom pricing, the cost can depend on the specific features required, the number of users, and simply how well you negotiate your final price.

Is Cision worth it?

In terms of the cost, Prowly's plans start at $258 per month. That's Cision's (alleged) price cut in half. Imagine, you can save all of that, and spend it on something else, like influencer packages or on personalizing your approach with journalists even more?

In terms of functionalities, Prowly is an all-around, all-in-one PR tool that's easy to use even if you've never laid hands on a tool like this before.

We don’t charge setup fees, you can start a free trial whenever you'd like, and can hop on a free onboarding call with a dedicated Customer Success Manager whenever your schedule allows.

Since we don't believe in "spray and pray" nor sending mass emails hoping they stick with someone somewhere, Prowly provides you with features that help foster long-term relationships with journalists (think automated follow-ups!).

What we’ve found:

👉 Does Cision offer a free trial?
No.

👉 How much does Cision cost?
Undisclosed, but estimates start at $10,000/year.

👉 How long is Cision's contract length?
At least one year.

👉 What businesses do they cater to?
Larger corporations and global agencies.

👉 What AI features does CisionOne provide?
You can't learn much about AI or other features until you book a demo call with a sales representative.

👉 Is setup free?
No, so make sure to add the expense of the setup fee to the top of the price.

Cision alternatives to consider

If you’re looking for Cision alternatives, there are a lot of different tools to choose from, depending on what you need and what your budget looks like.

Keep in mind that some tools are pricey only because they’ve been on the market for a long time and have better brand recognition.

Get to know the top 7 Cision alternatives in this detailed comparison. The article includes PRNewswire alternatives.

How does Cision compare to Prowly?

Both Cision and Prowly are top tools on the PR tech market, but there are key differences that can influence your choice.

This section will cover pricing, contract length, free trials, features, and onboarding to help you decide. Let’s take a closer look at what types of teams each platform is best suited for.

Cision is tailored for large PR teams, such as in-house corporate comms or huge marketing teams, and big agencies with extensive workflows and budgets that can accommodate longer contracts and advanced features.

Prowly, in contrast, focuses on small to medium teams, including in-house comms teams and smaller agencies. These teams often face unpredictability, time constraints, and the need for easy-to-use tools that fit their dynamic needs without the complexity or high costs of enterprise software.

Understanding these differences will help you determine which platform best suits your team’s needs.

To check out different tools you might want to use other than Cision, check out this detailed comparison article about Cision alternatives.

Pricing and contract length

While Prowly's pricing starts at $258 per month, Cision pricing is not readily available to the public because they don't have it anywhere on their website.

So, how much does Cision cost? We've done some digging and online discussion websites and forums say their prices start at around $10,000 per year. That's about twice as expensive as Prowly is for basic capabilities.

Another key difference that goes hand-in-hand with pricing is contract length.

👉🏼 Prowly allows for month-to-month plans, where you don't need to commit to anything long term.

👉🏼 Conversely, Cision makes it mandatory to purchase an annual subscription if you want to use their platform.

Free trial

When it comes to a lot of PR tools, you're essentially buying sight unseen. So many of them don't even allow you to see the inside of the tool before you purchase it, even if you sign up for your initial demo with a salesperson.

At Prowly, you can get a 7-day free trial to see what the app looks like, what capabilities it has, and try it out for yourself. More than enough to see whether the tool is right for your business needs.

Features and capabilities

While Prowly and Cision are both effective PR tools, there are certain differences between them.

👉 Prowly is easy to use, affordable, and focused on a data-driven approach for PR specialists who want to foster lasting relationships with journalists.

Plus the AI Assistant is now a game changer that takes digital PR to another level, from helping to create compelling press releases, through searching for contacts in the Media Database, to personalized pitching. Basically, everything small and medium sized PR agencies might need.

👉 Cision on the other hand, has a huge media database, complex tools, and more features geared towards large businesses and corporations.

CisionOne also offers AI driven features, but you can’t learn what that means exactly until you book a demo with their sales rep.

Free training and onboarding

Prowly gives all incoming users the opportunity to schedule a free, dedicated training session to help them quickly become proficient with the platform.

In contrast, Cision doesn't offer such free training or free onboarding support, leaving users to navigate the platform completely on their own if they don't want to pay big bucks for it.

How much does Cision PR Newswire cost?

Cision’s PR Newswire is a press release marketing agency acquired by Cision in 2016. In comparison to PRWeb (which is also owned by Cision and serves nearly the same purpose), it has many more functionalities. 

According to third-party online sources, its pricing structure is clearly defined by the needs of their clients.

Again, it’s a service dedicated mostly to large companies, who need to fullfil their PR duties by sending press releases and information via newswires.

👉🏼 One national press release (in the US) of under 400 words costs $805.

👉🏼 For each additional 100 words, you have to whip out another $245. There’s also more variations of what you can get, such as social distribution and to send it out to specific industry publications.

👉🏼 There’s also separate pricing for state and local outlets and regional and top markets, oscillating between $350 and $475 for press releases under 400 words.

Hold on though! You might look at these numbers and ask yourself: well, that’s not so bad, is it?

However, keep in mind that if you want to add an image, video, or audio—that’s another $325 bucks. Logo? Add $495 to your bill as well.

These prices can add up quickly and, let’s be quite honest, for branding and “first impression” purposes, you can’t send out a press release without a logo and additional multimedia nowadays.

If you can pitch instead of sending press releases via newswire, there's another solution.

Prowly lets you personalize and customize your press releases without charging you more. If you’re interested in reading up on more alternatives, check out this detailed breakdown of PRNewswire alternatives. 

PR Newswire alternatives

One of Cision's most popular features is their press release distribution software, designed to amplify stories by ensuring publication, boosting social media shares, and driving engagement from journalists and target audiences.

At Prowly, we believe in moving beyond the traditional "spray and pray" approach. With personalization on the rise, generic press releases often go unread. Prowly focuses on personalized outreach, ensuring your message reaches the right people with the impact it deserves.

Plus, we offer not only a more personalized option, but also a more affordable one—sending a press release through PR Newswire will cost you around $1500 more than preparing a pitch send out through Prowly.

However, if you were looking for something less pricey than Cision and want to give press release distribution a go, here are some paid alternatives you may want to check out:

• EIN Presswire (starting at $99.95/release): a tool for businesses of all sizes, where their distribution service gives users access to a worldwide media network, media monitoring, RSS feed, and some SEO capabilities.
• Globe Newswire (no pricing information): although it's difficult to speak about their pricing plans, Globe Newswire prides itself in being the best distribution network for corporate press releases, financial disclosures, investor notes etc.
• Newswire (starting at $349/release): offering both local and global distribution, Newswire also has media monitoring and a media database. While they're more expensive than competitors, they have a bit more by way of capabilities than other solutions.
• Presswire (starting at $250/release): this tool ensures maximum global visibility by providing press release distribution in regions such as North America, Europe, Asia, and more. They also offer translation services across multiple languages.
• 24-7 Press Release Newswire (starting at $29/release): tailor-made for small businesses, this solution provides press release distribution services, real-time news content, an RSS feed, and a news widget.
• PRWeb (starting at $105/release): similar to PRNewswire since they both come from Cision, however they were largely created with different target markets and clients in mind.
• PR.com (starting at $60/release): with a user-friendly platform, PR.com offers several different packages depending on your needs. Their paid options (there's a free one as well) include social media distribution, search-optimized images, and comprehensive reports.
• Business Wire (starting at $475/release): great if you want to spread your message overseas, since it's one of the best tools for international press release distribution.
• eReleases (starting at $399/release): reviews say that clients choose them for their ease-of-use and for having a clear pricing package with detailed descriptions.

Need more information? Check out this in-depth article about the Best Press Release Websites in 2025 (including free press release services).

What is PRWeb’s pricing like?

PRWeb is a press release marketing agency managed and owned by Cision. Both PRWeb and PRNewswire are owned by Cision, which is quite interesting since these companies are nearly the same, though both offer slightly different features to different target markets.

Think of it this way: PRWeb is one of the top alternatives for PRNewswire, but with different capabilities. However, there's certainly many different press release distribution websites.

Curious about PRWeb cost?

PRWeb is more affordable than Cision or PRNewswire and is focused on digital PR and SEO. It's still a press release distribution service, where you can create a press release from templates or from scratch. However, in comparison to other tools, it has limited capabilities.

Let's take a look at their four different pricing plans:

Basic ($110/press release)

• No limit on the number of media assets
• Their team will tag your content with relevant keywords
• You'll get it published in 48 hours

Standard ($230/press release)

• Everything you get in Basic
• Additional syndication to their PRNewswire websites

Advanced ($340/press release)

• Everything you'd get in Basic and Standard
• You can choose one of their media lists and get an email distributed there
• Plus, now turnaround time goes from 48 hours to 24 hours

Premium ($455/press release)

• The most robust plan, includes everything the others have
• For this price, you'll also get your press release distributed to a network of influential bloggers

PRWeb alternatives: what are they?

Though PRweb is a popular solution, it's worth exploring other highly popular platforms that can help you get your message out there faster and better.

#1 Prowly

• Press release distribution is one thing, but have you considered personalizing your pitch? Prowly encourages PR specialists to use the platform to create specially tailored content, instead of sending out a mass "spray and pray" email.
• With a detailed Media Database, full of contact information and audience analytics for outlets, personalizing has become easier and less time-consuming than ever before.

💸 Starts at $258 per month for an all-in-one PR solution.

#2 Newswire

• Newswire is a media tech company that assists clients in spreading their news widely through traditional press release distribution services.
• This platform also offers a media database, media pitching feature, media monitoring, and a media room.

💸 A single, domestic press release (for US only) starts at $349, but can go up to $899.

#3 Business Wire

• This company is known to have a wide reach internationally. Therefore, if your goal is to pitch to countries outside of the US and use press release distribution as a means of spreading your message, this would be an option.
• While they offer tools that can help show your stakeholders some ROI, they don't have a media database of their own (they do have a partnership with Muck Rack though).

💸 Their most affordable option starts at $475 per press release.

Conclusion 

While Prowly and Cision are both powerful PR tools, they serve distinct types of PR teams:

Prowly is specifically designed for small to medium-sized teams, such as in-house comms teams at growing brands or medium-sized companies, as well as agile agencies dealing with unpredictable projects and time constraints.

• Prowly’s intuitive, affordable platform offers an all-in-one solution tailored to the real-world needs of these teams, making PR tasks simpler and more effective.
• Its AI Assistant elevates digital PR by streamlining everything from press release creation to contact searches and pitching, empowering teams to work efficiently and focus on building strong media relationships.

Cision, in contrast, is built with larger organizations in mind.

• It’s particularly well suited for big corporations, stock-listed companies, and large PR agencies that require comprehensive media intelligence and need to manage complex communications. Such companies have duties related to distributing announcements via wire services, which SMEs don’t.
• Cision’s strengths lie in supporting clients with regulatory obligations, including the distribution of official announcements via wire services, making it a good fit for those with corporate and compliance needs.
• However, its advanced features, higher costs, and emphasis on large-scale operations make it a tool that better suits enterprise clients, while smaller and medium teams may find it to be much more than what they need.

To see how Prowly can help your PR efforts, try a free trial or book a demo today.

The post 2025 Cision Pricing: How Much Does Cision Cost? appeared first on Prowly.

That’s why brand protection has become a core PR function. It’s not just about managing reputation after a crisis, but preventing one in the first place. With the right tools and strategies, PR teams can monitor threats, spot misinformation early, and keep their brand narrative under control.

In this guide, you’ll find practical tips, real risks to watch for, and the tech that helps modern PR pros stay ahead of the damage.

What is brand protection?

Brand protection includes all actions a company takes toward preserving the integrity of its identity. This includes the name, logos, taglines, its tone and voice, the way people talk about it online, and how their audience feels about the brand in general.

You may think this mostly involves guarding trademarks, intellectual property rights, or even intellectual property infringement, but that's not entirely true.

Nowadays, complete brand protection includes things like:

• Real-time monitoring of your brand online, including mentions across news, online outlets, magazines, social media platforms, and forums
• Consistent messaging across all channels that the clients can see, such as websites, press releases, Amazon storefronts, NGO one-pagers, etc.
• Rapid crisis management to prevent excessive brand abuse and keep the narrative under control when something puts you in boiling waters
• Impersonation defense, especially from deepfakes, fake social media accounts, people spreading misinformation, and doing general consumer harm

If there's one sentence you should remember from this list, it is its key message: your public relations, legal, marketing, and customer service efforts should all be on board when it comes to your brand reputation.

🎯 Their ultimate goal? Continuous support to help you remain a trusted brand with honest consumer engagement. This is something that will multiply consumer trust for decades.

Why is brand protection important?

Many enjoy the fact that, thanks to social media accounts and the way media is done now, brands can grow faster. You know, overnight millionaires (and I'm all for it).

However, that kind of speed of light can also generate a lot of vulnerability due to misinformation, unauthorized use of a brand's materials, brand abuse, and counterfeit trade.

Without a strong brand protection program, even the most popular brands on the market can suffer significantly. That includes both financial and reputational damage.

Top risks when brand protection fails

If your brand protection efforts aren't really thought through, you're putting your business at risk in so many ways:

• Loss of customer trust – if your dear audience sees fake accounts, counterfeit products, and then peeks at your site only to discover misaligned messaging between all social media accounts, you're down several points already in their book.
• Legal action and revenue loss – if you've failed to make sure your intellectual property rights such as trademarks, domain names, and product images are secured, it can lead to really (and I mean really) expensive disputes, lawsuits, and dips in revenue. There are dozens of small companies that forgot about it and had to close their business in the long run.
• Damage from bad actors – think of things like digital brand abuse, illicit trade, and trademark infringement such as fake listings on online marketplaces. Couple that with threats on the dark web, and swift action is not optional but essential.
• Unauthorized use of brand assets – whether someone uses your logo without permission or sells your products without a license, this can not only hurt your sales but also confuse consumers. I know you may think that people will know explicitly which website is real and which is fake, but to be quite honest here, many people are not tech-savvy and will not know. Plus, impersonators can get really, really good at what they do.
• Cyber threats – things like phishing, ransomware attacks, and similar. Well-known brands have entire teams that deal with these sorts of events. But hey, before you say they have the budget for that kind of brand protection (which is true), you can always do everything you can to replicate their brand protection efforts yourself.

When brand protection fails: the Burger King example

On March 8 2021, Burger King's UK branch came out with a campaign intended to promote a new scholarship program for women, aimed at increasing the number of female chefs in the culinary industry. Sounds great, right? Yeah, well... their slogan said "Women belong in the kitchen".

This isn't a joke. So many people have perceived it sexist, especially given the context of International Women's Day. Brand protection experts must have had a field day with this one.

The engagement on that tweet has lead to widespread criticism, quickly outpacing any explanations anyone might have said.

Moving forward, Burger King UK eventually deleted the original tweet and issued an apology where they've acknowledged their error in not providing context upfront. However, the damage has already been done.

💡 P.S. In case you'd like to find out how PR pros manage crises beyond the general advice, this article spills the tips they don't usually talk about with others (with many more examples).

3 key brand protection strategies that work

Damage control is cool, but have you ever heard of building a smart, proactive brand protection system that decreases threats and increases trusts? Exactly.

Here are three most effective brand protection strategies:

#1: Put PR at the forefront

A strategic, well-organized public relations team does more than just build organic visibility. They help protect the brand from crises, misinformation, and brand abuse before it grows into something bigger they can handle. A strong PR strategy can help:

1. Establish a consistent brand online, including messaging, narrative, and mission
2. Build long-term relationships with key journalists and industry partners
3. Highlight positive press and diminish unfriendly noise, such as social media backlash
4. Take immediate action against brand abuse like spam comments, trolls, and threats
5. Monitor the industry in various ways, including using advanced tools for collecting mentions

💡 Beyond that, PR teams can also flag 🚩 potential unauthorized use of messaging, product visuals, or trademarks. This kind of alignment is crucial if you're in spaces like e-commerce, where bad actors can engage in illicit activities connected to selling counterfeit products.

By collaborating early and often with legal teams, they can help you to prevent brand abuse and protect your intellectual property.

#2: Respond quickly to digital brand abuse

Brand abuse doesn't discriminate, so it doesn't matter if you work for a small company, or for well known brands. Both are vulnerable to sudden crises.

Whether it's a poorly written social media post, a leaked memo, an email that was never supposed to be analyzed through the public eye, or the discovery of counterfeit goods on popular online marketplaces, you need to protect your brand reputation. While not all crisis management tips make it into textbooks, here's what PR pros actually do when things go left.

But, what can you do now to protect yourself from all of these?

1. Draft pre-written responses for different threat scenarios, like unauthorized use of assets, leaked sensitive information, patent infringement etc.
2. Choose the right platforms, channels, people, and keywords to monitor. That way, you have full visibility into where the issue that arises began in the first place.
3. Create clear, actionable steps for how to respond in a crisis in case it's not covered in the pre-written responses you provided. Make sure to state who is responsible for what.
4. Make sure top management has full visibility on your brand protection strategy. Make sure they understand their approval is needed, so that everything is ready for when you need to quickly respond. Early detection is cool, but what happens when it will take you several days to get a "yes" from all of your superiors?

#3: Monitor your brand anywhere and everywhere

Most brand protection solutions fall short because they haven't incorporated a good media monitoring strategy.

Prowly's Media Monitoring isn't only useful for tracking mentions from your pitching efforts. It can also aid you in a full, comprehensive brand protection strategy.

Let's take a look at some of the activities you should be doing:

#1 Monitoring multiple channels including online, print, and broadcast

That way, you can monitor your brand holistically everywhere.

The sources you should track include news outlets, magazines (both online and print), broadcast, Reddit, and other forums.

#2 Setting up automated alerts for important mentions

I'm sure you'd want to know when something happens, right away.

💡 If you're getting dozens of comments within an hour, Prowly will send you an email alerting you that something is going on. Same goes for other types of alerts, depending on your needs.

#3 Analyzing sentiment

Sentiment analysis is great, and we know that. What's even more useful is monitoring sentiment in different places.

For example, try setting up queries for different social media platforms and compare whether or not your brand is more liked on one platform versus the other.

💡 With Prowly, you can gather concrete data and filter it by engagement, sentiment analysis, number of mentions, share of voice, and many more.

Curious to see how Prowly helps brands stay ahead of digital brand abuse and protect their reputation? Start your free 7-day trial. No strings attached, no credit card needed.

Top brand protection solutions and tools

To make sure your brand reputation is where you want it to be, it's time to explore the tools that can give you control, clarity, and the power to act fast whenever you need to.

The best tools allow you and your team to collaborate closely, prevent digital brand abuse through effortless media monitoring, and enforce all the essential components of a good strategy in day-to-day life.

Here's a quick comparison of leading brand protection tools:

These platforms help brand owners and coworkers protect their business by finding mentions that can reveal unauthorized use of assets, track sentiment, and all the other components that go into brand reputation management.

Curious to learn more? Dive into a complete breakdown of the best reputation management software options out there. Or simply...

Why consistency in messaging matters?

Imagine some of your online platforms are filled with content for Gen Zers, talking about the environment, ethical practices, and consumerism.

Then, other digital platforms you manage are completely disconnected: there, you often run ads that say things like "the right time to buy is NOW" or "don't miss out on this event of a lifetime." See the divergence?

The way your (or your client’s) brand shows up in Instagram posts, press releases, chatbot responses, sales materials, and more is a series of touchpoints that together tell the world who you are. If they don't sound aligned, it takes away from your brand's credibility.

And fragmented brands harm consumer trust. Therefore, don't forget to include consistent messaging in your brand protection program.

Brand protection isn't easy, but it's worth it

Protecting your brand is hard, but if you don't do it, no one else will. The better, stronger, and more interesting your brand becomes, the more attractive it becomes to bad actors who want to tarnish what you've achieved.

They won't just target your logos or write some spam comments. Now, with artificial intelligence and machine learning, they can do some real damage. By ignoring brand protection solutions, you're not just risking a small dip in your revenue: you're risking your entire brand.

To end it all on a positive note, there are ways you can do your best to prevent it: media monitoring solutions, pre-written responses, internal frameworks on how to handle things when they come up. Prevention is better than reaction.

The post Why is Brand Protection Important in PR? Useful Tips and Strategies appeared first on Prowly.

After all, your reputation is your brand. Something along the lines of a collective whisper behind your back, the vibe check you kind of slightly missed, and the difference between becoming a success story or a cautionary tale for PR pros.

But brand reputation isn't simply a concern to obsess over. It's a measurable process that has an impact on revenue, customer trust, and long-term growth. And yet too many companies still focus on reactive strategies instead of thinking about it proactively.

What is brand reputation management?

Brand reputation management is the process of shaping and influencing the public's perception of a brand. It involves monitoring mentions, responding to feedback and criticism, and building trust to protect a brand's positive image with its audience.

What does brand reputation management include?

More than you'd think. A good reputation management strategy can't be fit into an envelope and left to collect dust. It requires regular updates, attention, and must be fully evangelized within the company.

Here are the basics:

1️⃣ Monitoring perception

You need to be fully aware of what people are saying about your brand.

Whether it's across social media platforms, in online discussion forums, or even in newspaper coverage, your brand reputation can change in an instant if even slight changes in your audience's perception go undetected.

This is why you need to track mentions and customer feedback like a hawk.

💡 If you need a tool to help you out with that, you can try Prowly for free and see how it can help you improve your brand reputation management.

2️⃣ Crisis prevention and response

When negative feedback rolls in (which is inevitable, no matter how great of a brand you represent), you need to address it in the best manner possible. That means no robotic answers, no generic replies.

Additionally, what you can do to alleviate stress in that moment is proactively think about a response strategy before a crisis starts brewing.

💡 Tip: Explore this article to learn more about how reactive PR compares to proactive PR—and how to put it into action.

3️⃣ Brand messaging

Do all of your communications align with your brand values and brand image? It's something to think about in terms of brand reputation strategy as well.

In order to keep it all authentic, you need to know what to say, when to say it and, most importantly, how.

4️⃣ Customer experience

Think about how you're trying to improve as a brand based on customer feedback. Are you taking people's opinions into consideration?

If you're not and your audience feels like they're simply talking to a wall, that's not really building trust and fostering relationships, is it?

Make sure you have a strategy on how to communicate to your audience that you're actively improving upon, respond to reviews and comments with care, and address customer concerns as soon as possible.

P.S. Here’s an article that might come in handy if you’re looking for a tool to measure the impact of your communication efforts.

5️⃣ Competitor benchmarking

Are you really a fan favorite or are you just the loudest in the room?

It's difficult to assess your own performance if you're not benchmarking yourself against your competitors and industry. Try measuring SoV and do a thorough sentiment analysis.

💡 You can read more about these two metrics in these articles:
➖ Share of Voice in PR: How to Calculate Your Brand SOV
➖ How to Use Sentiment Analysis in PR
➖ How to Measure Brand Sentiment in PR
➖ 20+ Top Sentiment Analysis Tools for PR Pros

Who is responsible for brand reputation management?

Well, it depends.

Not necessarily the answer you wanted to see, but brand reputation management is mostly a shared responsibility across multiple departments in the company, such as:

• PR & Communications: To manage media coverage and the public's perception.
• Marketing: To align messaging, brand positioning, and ads.
• Customer support: To respond accurately and swiftly to customer feedback.
• Legal & Compliance: To keep tabs on impersonation, misinformation, and defamation.
• Human Resources: To shape employer branding the right way.
• Leadership: To speak about the brand with confidence and integrity.

What's the difference between brand reputation management and reputation marketing?

P.S. Discover more reputation marketing tips to strengthen your strategy here.

How to measure brand reputation?

#1 Sentiment and customer perception

Knowing how many times your brand was mentioned in the media is as useful as knowing how many times your name was whispered at a party without knowing particularly why. That's why, for all brand-related things, you need to monitor sentiment.

This will help you move beyond counting on sheer volume and allow you to tap into the emotional opinion of the public.

• Why it matters: A spike in mentions isn't always a success, because it may signal a brewing crisis. What helps is to track sentiment alongside volume to get the full story. Not sure where to start? Read more on how to track and analyze brand mentions.
• How to measure: Prowly's media monitoring tools let you track real-time sentiment, create custom alerts, and get a clear picture of your brand reputation management strategy.

#2 Share of Voice vs. Share of Trust

While Share of Voice focuses on how often a brand is being talked about or mentioned relative to its competitors, Share of Trust measures the quality of those mentions and overall reputation, including the audience's emotional responses.

So, which one should you measure? Both!

💡 For example, a high SOV with low brand trust means there's a reputation risk involved. If you're evaluating both SoV and SoT, you'll always know what's up.

#3 What is a reputation score?

It's a number you can benchmark your performance against. There's no general consensus on what this should be—it's more just a metric for you and your brand. It can include:

• Net Promoter Score (NPS): Measures how satisfied and loyal your customers are.
• Brand sentiment: Analyzes the emotional perception and attitude of your audience towards your brand.
• Customer reviews: Track public feedback across platforms like Google, Trustpilot, and others.
• Employee perception: Shows how employees view their workplace experience.

By tracking these factors, brands can gain a more well-rounded picture of how they're actually perceived.

How to do reputation reporting the right way

What should you include in a reputation report?

When done right, a brand reputation report can turn raw data into powerful insights and give your leadership team the information they need to make strategic decisions.

Such a report should include:

• The impact of media coverage
• Sentiment trends over time
• Shifts in social media engagement
• A crisis risk assessment
• Competitive benchmarking

Keep in mind that you shouldn't just report the hard numbers. What you need to do is deliver a narrative your leadership team can trust, act on, and build a strategy around.

💡 Tip: When choosing a media monitoring service, make sure it’s tailored to local media — for example, the UK market.

Presenting reputation data to leadership

Focus on a story. A sharp, strategic narrative will explain not just what happened, but also why it matters and what to do next. Simply connect the dots for them so they can see the full picture.

Instead of saying "Sentiment dropped 12%," say, "Sentiment fell 12% following our product's recall, but our brand reputation response worked on turning things around, increasing customer trust by 23% within a month."

Additionally, don't say, "Media coverage is up." Say that, "Coverage jumped by 34%, but nearly half was negative, which flagged a potential risk to our strong brand reputation. To work against this, we..."

It's all about how you frame it. Show the cause, the effect, the opportunity, and what you did with it.

Best tools for reputation tracking

Too many software programs to choose from? Choosing the right one depends strictly on your needs, what team you are a part of, how large your brand is, and so on.

Dive into this in-depth analysis of the 13 most popular brand monitoring tools and how to choose the best one for you.

Crisis prevention: spotting risks early

Early warning signs of a reputation crisis

A one-off PR crisis might build up overnight, but a brand reputation crisis?

That doesn't just happen out of nowhere. They like to quietly simmer until something boils them over. The warning signs are usually there, but they're easy to dismiss.

Maybe your company is starting to get more negative brand mentions than usual?

Perhaps a customer complaint goes viral before your team even sees it? Or maybe an industry influencer calls you out and it starts a whole movement?

Keep in mind that these aren't just isolated incidents. Rather, they're signals, and by catching them early, it gives you an edge to respond with intention, not panic.

Reputation risk management framework

Whenever a crisis hits, the last thing you want is to choose a designated person to handle it. It should be when you roll out a previously thought-out reputation management strategy.

Think of it as your brand's emergency blueprint outlining who is responsible for what, how and when to communicate, and what it will take to take control of your story before someone else does.

Choosing the right person to be your spokesperson is key as well. Make sure they have a few statements ready, know how to respond with clarity instead of chaos, and understand the balance between being transparent and protecting the brand.

A good brand reputation management strategy answers these three questions:
1️⃣ Who is responsible for managing a crisis when it happens?
2️⃣ What is the official communication strategy?
3️⃣ How is our brand going to control the narrative?

To summarize? Don't wait until the house is on fire to find the extinguisher.

Real-time reputation monitoring

Checking your brand reputation once a week is something no one does anymore. Think of it as a luxury you just can't afford.

However, with online reputation management tools that help with real-time monitoring, you can easily detect early warning signs. Whether it's information about sentiment shifts, media mentions, or some social chatter, a good tool makes it easier to spot a potential issue before it turns into a full-blown PR crisis.

💡 With Prowly, you can set up an alert for a negative spike in mentions and get the information you need straight to your inbox. That way, you don't need to frantically check stats all the time; you can simply sit back and get an email once something comes up.

Brand protection: safeguarding your reputation

Building a strong brand reputation takes years. However, with today's social media platforms and fast-spreading information, it can all go down in an instant (unless you take all the safety precautions you can).

Preventing brand identity theft and misinformation

Anyone with Wi-Fi can start impersonating your brand on popular channels, so you need to protect your brand reputation as much as you can. Here are a few tips on what to do:

• Monitor online media for impersonations using tools like Prowly to catch fake accounts and any misleading content before it goes viral.
• Secure, verify, and authenticate official brand channels across all platforms.
• Establish an internal escalation process to identify and remove any impersonation attempts, and include your legal team if needed.
• Educate your audience on how to recognize fake accounts and products, and how to report suspicious content moving forward.

Legal and compliance considerations

While your public relations strategies may or may not include legal considerations, in many cases your brand's reputation is protected by law. It's an important thing to remember, especially in stressful situations where your brand is already in deep water.

• Trademark protection helps protect your brand name, logo, and brand assets from being used by others to impersonate you.
• Defamation monitoring ensures you're informed about false claims made about your brand.
• Proactive legal oversight can help in long-term brand reputation management by protecting your brand before issues arise.

Your positive brand reputation is managed through public relations strategies and legal protections, which keeps trouble at bay before it begins.

💡 Pro Tip: Some companies invest in reputation insurance, a specialized form of insurance coverage that helps businesses recover operationally and financially after their public image has been torn.

It includes coverage for costs incurred from public relations efforts, legal fees, and lost revenue. It's something worth considering, especially for brands that rely heavily on brand sentiment and perception.

P.S. If you want to learn all about brand protection along with useful tips and strategies, make sure to read this article.

How to integrate reputation management into marketing and PR?

Reputation-first brand messaging

If your marketing team promises a five-star experience but your customers are barely giving it a two, there's a huge disconnect there which may affect your brand reputation.

Reputation-first messaging means that both your marketing and PR teams are on the same page with what's true to the brand.

Over-promising in advertisements and making unrealistic promises devalues your brand in the long run. What will elevate it is making sure that your messaging reflects the actual customer experience.

This also means that your executives should be media-trained to represent the brand well, ensuring consistency and confidence when they speak about it. Remember that when your brand voice is built on authenticity and transparency, trust will follow naturally.

Investing in thought leadership and influencer partnerships

Strong brand reputation is built not only on what you say about yourself, but also reinforced by who says it about you. Thought leadership and influencer partnerships can help you out with credibility, especially when they come from people that your audience already trusts.

Start posting insightful comments and content from experts and respectable figures in your industry. Choose those who strongly align not only with your brand, but with your brand values as well.

Strengthening reputation with community engagement

So many professionals either forget about this or don't care to put effort into it. Building a strong community around your company is key to positive brand reputation.

Whether you're responding to comments on social media, participating in local events, uplifting local communities, or simply creating spaces for honest conversations online, all of these moments add up.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the kind of trust that sticks. People will remember even the smallest interactions and how you made them feel.

A good brand reputation management strategy is an asset

It should be part of your overall business strategy.

To make sure you'll never become a victim of online trolls or a simple misunderstanding blown out of proportion, you need to implement a practice where you monitor brand mentions, measure your standing, and protect your reputation.

Not sure where to start?

👉 Begin with an audit of your current reputation metrics, align your strategy with public relations and marketing efforts, and implement real-time monitoring.

The post Brand Reputation Management: How to Measure, Report, and Protect Your Brand appeared first on Prowly.

Collecting PR clippings is important if you want to stay up to date with the latest mentions you're interested in, track competitors, analyze your strategy, and report on progress to clients or stakeholders. And you will learn all that from this article.

What is PR clipping?

The method sounds more complex than it is, but it’s something you’ve probably done already plenty of times.

Definition of PR Clipping

PR clipping is a method of collecting mentions from media content. It often includes an analysis of public relations activities and the effectiveness of strategies in place. The process itself is often followed by creating a comprehensive media coverage report.

For example, your client is interested to see how a recent product announcement campaign performed.

By analyzing mentions, you can find out the audience such news reached, which social media platform had the most engagement, and whether all the activities around the campaign produced a good return on the investment.

5 reasons why press clippings are important

Take a look at why you should be collecting, tracking, and analyzing press clippings.

1️⃣ Media monitoring and analysis

The process plays a crucial role in monitoring the media, which allows brands to track how they're portrayed in all kinds of online media, print and broadcast media, including both online and offline sources. Without a PR clipping tool, it's nearly impossible to be able to catch all mentions of your brand and analyze them later.

Because of the expansion of the digital landscape, imagine going through online press clippings by hand – you'd probably have to hire a dedicated person (or a few people!) to do so.

It gets even worse with print media clippings or paywalled articles because you have to buy physical copies and subscriptions, and that ain't cheap. This especially concerns B2B PR, as more and more trade publications go behind paywalls.

With Prowly's Print Monitoring you can efficiently track press clippings without the hassle‚ it gives you access to full print articles AND lets you bypass online paywalls.

Instead of tracking mentions manually, you can do media monitoring with special tools and check the sentiment of your brand across various platforms, monitor your share of voice, see the estimated reach of your earned media, and so on.

2️⃣ Reputation management

To expand a bit more on the previous paragraph, careful evaluation of PR clippings across various media outlets is important for brand reputation management.

When you're focused on a specific platform, you might be missing out on your audience's sentiment in different places. With press clipping services, this becomes a click of a button rather than a tiresome task.

Media monitoring tools provide analysis such as sentiment, so you can see if there's an unusual spike in any kind of mentions or an increase in negative mentions (and if that happens, you know it's emergency showtime).

3️⃣ Competitor's media presence

How do you know if you're doing a great job if you're not monitoring what your competitors are doing? Monitoring your competitor’s press clips gives you insights into their strategy and performance. Yes, you can compare results to your own benchmarks, but knowing what's happening with your rivals is one of the most important benefits of collecting mentions.

What does it mean exactly?

👉 If a competitor has a really strong presence in niche outlets, and none in higher tier ones, maybe it's time to target those niche outlets as well or re-organize your strategy to prepare send-outs for other media your audience frequents.

4️⃣ Measuring PR ROI

Tracking press clippings allows you to measure your PR campaign's return on investment (PR ROI).

You sure don't need to be reminded of the media report definition, but it's important to recall how important measuring your strategy is. Whether you want to score a higher budget for the next campaign, or simply show off your work to stakeholders and clients, press clippings can help you do just that.

Advanced press clipping service companies have the technology to take a clipping and pull all the data about it.

Pro Tip: Additionally, if there is a group of clippings you're analyzing, it's a good idea to compare them to previous periods and show clear improvements, or simply assess them from a strategic standpoint aligned with the company goals.

5️⃣ Adaptation and strategy refinement

Are you reaching your goals effectively?

You can only see if there's room for improvement, or if your strategy is right where it's supposed to be by analyzing press clippings.

👉 The general consensus is to monitor them at least once a day, depending on the size of the brand you're working with.
👉 If things are rather stagnant, you can adjust your actions by analyzing statistics for each one of the press clippings.

Since advanced PR tools allow you to monitor mentions and analyze them in bulk, you no longer have to go one by one and do it all on your own.

And if you have more concerns regarding social listening techniques, you will learn all about building a strong social media monitoring strategy from this guide.

Press clipping purposes and benefits

This popular method offered by media monitoring services can help you increase brand awareness by analyzing each press clipping and adjusting your PR strategy accordingly.

With press clipping services offered by tools like Prowly, it's easy to stay in the know and make informed decisions on the fly.

Instantly identifying opportunities

Ever struggled to find exciting opportunities in the media?

With a media clipping service, you can quickly detect new trends and emerging talks across various channels. That way, you can either contribute or even initiate discussions that align with your brand's goals.

To put it in perspective, let's say you get an alert for a spike in mentions on Facebook.

Not all social media monitoring platforms are created equal, and some audiences are more sympathetic towards certain communities than others.

👉 If the buzz is already on Facebook, you can contribute to it there, and see if there's potential to create the same hype across different channels too.

Measuring campaign performance

First of all: 🚩 if a tool isn't able to give you PR-specific, industry-relevant numbers, then you might need to reconsider the online press clipping service you're using. 🚩

With a good press clipping tool, you'll be able to assess how your campaign is performing. After all, data-driven insights provide great results to keep doing what we're doing if it's working or shift our strategy when things are going south.

For example, Prowly's Media Monitoring can provide you with data-driven insights that you can analyze and use to build trust among stakeholders by providing them with timely and accurate updates on campaign performance.

The topic of data-driven PR is too important to simply glide through in this article. So, here's a comprehensive step-by-step guide on how to measure your PR campaigns instead.

Acting in real-time

The ability to respond in real-time is the key to success. PR clipping services empower specialists with technology that systematically gathers and analyzes mentions scattered across various sources.

Whether you aim to be one step ahead if there is an impending crisis, or you simply want to be up to date with all mentions, collecting PR clippings is a great method to do so.

More so, acting in real-time based on PR clippings is not only a crisis response mechanism – it also serves as a tool to craft strategic initiatives to increase brand awareness.

Using data insights to optimize PR campaign strategies

Analyzing press clippings helps in understanding the customer's perspective and the audience you're interacting with. By using data-driven insights, you can adjust PR strategies and see how to improve them in the short term, or in the long run.

Prowly's Media Monitoring tracks mentions of any brand, competitor, or keyword, compiling them all in a comprehensive report with different charts.

That way, it's easier to visually analyze data and make informed decisions moving forward.

Adjusting strategy based on competitor's actions

One of the biggest purposes of PR clipping services is to monitor your competitors.

Knowing who's up to what is a great benchmark to use in evaluating your strategy. As you look over press clipping examples of your key rivals, you can gain a competitive edge quickly, especially if you know how to track media mentions effectively.

Then, it's all about aligning what you have seen and analyzing it with alignment to the company's goals:
👉 Is it brand awareness in general?
👉 Or maybe continuous work on increasing positive sentiment in one particular platform?

Whatever it is, PR clipping services are wonderful at evaluating what's happening in different brands.

Reporting back to clients and stakeholders

There's no better way to show others your work than in a comprehensive press clippings report. To demonstrate your value, press clipping services should have an additional option to create easy-to-read PR reports, so that you can create a presentation for whoever is in charge in a few clicks.

PR Reports allow you to automatically add important PR clippings and generate a coverage report with your work.

Whether your goal is to show that your strategy is in alignment with organizational goals, or simply build trust and transparency with data-driven insights, a clear PR clipping report is the best way to do it.

For example, by combining a media monitoring tool with PR clippings, you can track your campaign during a new season of the TV series your company has just launched and monitor the earned buzz surrounding it simultaneously.

➕ Bonus: blocking domains to see only the relevant clippings

Constantly getting mentions from an outlet you couldn’t care less about?

Blocking irrelevant outlets and excluding them from your statistics during Media Monitoring can help you ease the process.

Once you block a domain, it will not show up in any of your search queries, data or statistics.

Then, the clippings feature lets you choose which mentions are important to you right from the search query results, having them within reach for quick access. Here's what it looks like in Prowly:

How to make a media clipping with Prowly?

Prowly is a comprehensive tool with a full workflow for PR professionals. With all the features available, it also provides you with a media monitoring service to assist you in collecting press clippings.

1. Choose an article, blog post, mention, or any other clipping you like
2. Add it to a report and automatically pull the data you want to show
3. Finish making your report to show off your work

How to do PR clipping?

Take a look at what the process looks like from beginning to end. Here is the media clipping example that we will use to demonstrate how the process works.

1. Choose from one of the media monitoring services

First, find a tool that allows you to do PR clippings. For example, Prowly provides a free trial so you can try it out and see how easy it is to collect mentions automatically in less time.

2. Create a relevant query

Choose what you want to track. It can be a person, brand, competitor, or keyword – options here are limitless. Additionally, you can create an alert and get it sent to your mailbox whenever there's a new mention or an unusual spike of clippings with a negative sentiment so you can react to an impending crisis quickly.

3. Collect and analyze PR clipping results

Access an easy-to-read dashboard with all of the results. You can break it down by country, language, domain rank, and in dozens of other ways. If the tool has the option to view data in different types of graphs (Prowly does!), it makes it easier to understand what's going on.

4. Build an automatic report

Automatically transfer the PR clippings you found into a coverage report, where you can add a solid summary of all the data and metrics.

Putting all of your campaign accomplishments into a data-filled report will surely impress any client or stakeholder.

However, it's also important to use the relevant PR metrics that show the real value of your work. For example, we suggest stopping the use of UVPM or AVE alone and instead trying out their alternatives, including Share of Voice, sentiment, or media mentions.

Frequently asked questions

Who is PR clipping important for?

A clippings manager tool is important for every PR specialist tasked with social listening. Whether you're a solo freelancer, an agency, or an in-house team, collecting PR clippings allows us to adjust strategies on how we communicate with our audience.

Which tools can help with PR clipping?

There are several tools available on the market:

• Google Alerts
• Prowly
• Brand24
• Mentionlytics

What is an example of a press clipping?

So, what is a press clipping? It's simply a part of an article, a feature, or a mention from anywhere in the media. It's most commonly used when you need to make a report or a presentation for clients or stakeholders.

You can see three PR clippings in the "Highlights" section on the screenshot below.

How can I get clippings from paywalled articles?

The costs for monitoring paid publications can stack up. If you purchase separate subscriptions, the price can reach $1200 per outlet. Some monitoring tools offer pricey paywall-bypassing add-ons. Others make it a part of their regular offering–like Prowly, whose Print Monitoring includes tracking paywalled media.

Wrapping up

Thanks to technology, we don't need to do PR clipping manually anymore, but the idea of collecting mentions stays and isn't going anywhere.

From being able to see the sentiment of your activities in the media, to tracking competitors and keeping up with what's going on with your audience. Press clipping is an indispensable industry method for anyone who works in public relations.

Start a free trial with Prowly and track press clippings of brands, competitors, or any keywords you’re interested in.

The post Press Clippings Decoded: A Practical Guide to Mastering PR Exposure appeared first on Prowly.

There's nothing better than having your website rank higher in search engine results, which directly leads to greater visibility for your campaign or cause. More people, more potential sales you can close, or simply more of your audience to see your message.

Because SEO is an industry of its own, it's sometimes difficult to grasp the difference between SEO backlinks and PR backlinks (scroll down to read more about it). While they're inherently similar, there are some fundamental differences in how they're obtained and what effect they can have on your strategy.

Mastering PR link building can give you a real edge. This article covers key strategies, benefits, and tracking methods. Want to start streamlining the process right away?

What is PR link building?

PR link building is a practice that helps earn high-quality backlinks to your website, resulting in increased website authority and higher search rankings. It involves other websites linking to your engaging content, such as infographics, quotes from experts, and fresh angles on specific topics.

It's an important part of any public relations strategy, built to drive organic traffic to your website, make your brand more discoverable, strengthen your SEO, and rank higher in Google search.

How to get high PR backlinks? Top 5 favorite ways journalists prefer

While we'll delve into this topic in detail later in the article, here's a short, informative summary with the key points you need to know:

1. Build relationships with journalists and outlets
2. Create quality newsworthy content
3. Secure quotes from experts and industry leaders
4. Conduct original research, i.e. surveys
5. Find previously unlinked mentions

In this article, you'll find key strategies for PR link building, its benefits, and how to track them. If you haven't already, you can sign up for Prowly's free 7-day trial to get a sense of how a PR tool can help you track and manage backlink-building activities.

The basics of PR link building

What do PR backlinks do?

They're meant to help you increase and sustain online visibility and presence among your target audience. Links from known media outlets and authoritative websites not only enhance your search engine ranking but also strengthen your brand's credibility. Once powerful websites link to your content, search engines interpret it as a positive signal and raise your position in search results.

That's a simple, concise definition. But what's the difference between SEO backlinks and PR backlinks? They both work toward the same goal but require different methods of acquisition.

SEO backlinks vs. PR backlinks

👉 SEO backlinks are usually obtained and maintained through activities such as guest blogging, link exchanges, directory submissions, and so on. Their aim isn't to cross over into the tactics of public relations but rather to boost search engine rankings.

👉 On the other hand, PR backlinks involve building relationships with journalists and outlets through media pitches, press releases, compelling content, expert quotes, and more. So, in a way, it's like doing SEO backlinks—but supercharged to also enhance brand reputation often with a focus on press links.

Key strategies for PR link building

Crafting newsworthy content for backlinks

Focus on original, out-of-the-box research, stories that make heads turn, and insights you won't read anywhere else. Whether you're going to spark a controversial debate or not, the goal here is to create newsworthy content as a link-building method.

So, you kind of have to go in with a goal—PR backlinks. Create shareable assets like infographics and guides—something people will quickly understand and want to share. This will increase your chances of earning even more valuable backlinks.

Most of all, be strategic when you do this. Always remember to keep the angle fresh, relevant, and newsworthy.

Focus on long-term relationships with journalists

Whenever we talk to PR specialists, they often mention how much of a hassle it is to ask a journalist to include a link in their article.

The truth is, more often than not, the author will remove those links on purpose. What you can do is politely ask them to add one, but even if you use all the link-building tactics up your sleeve, they may still choose not to.

That's why it's so important to focus on building a mutually beneficial relationship with journalists. If you give them something they need, they will be more likely to give you something you need in return.

Don't bother sending low-quality links and expect them to be included. Instead, provide relevant links that add value to the article, such as additional information on the topic or compelling data.

Provide quotes from noteworthy experts

If it adds value, credibility, and much-needed insights to the article, it's worth taking a shot and providing journalists with powerful quotes. With this angle, you're not pushing or selling something journalists don't want. Because they're focused on quality content, having a quote handy might catch their eye.

The quote itself needs to be sharp, to the point, and full of "meaty" information. A good PR agency or in-house team knows that having a line or two from a C-level executive or expert in the field can make or break an article or press release. In return, you can politely ask them to include press links to your page.

Data-driven content

This one requires more time and thought, but it's also nearly foolproof for delivering better results. High-authority sites that provide high-quality backlinks don’t want recycled content or information that’s already been seen elsewhere.

If you conduct a large-scale research project and identify compelling angles from your data, it will be much easier to attract both organic traffic and press links.

Think of powerful data, the kind that’s trending, relevant, and in demand based on the PR season.

Survey content 

Connected to the point above, survey-based content is a goldmine for PR link building, providing journalists and other authors with fresh data backed by real people’s responses. They will want to cite it. They will want to take that quote and use it in their content.

It’s powerful and valuable for their audience to have more than just a journalist’s opinion on the topic. People want "meaty" content, so you should give them just that.

The key here is to ask thought-provoking questions, gather a significant number of respondents, and highlight the most important takeaways. Rest assured, this strategy will capture the interest of high-authority sites.

Try a bit of newsjacking

Sometimes worthwhile, sometimes frowned upon, newsjacking can be a powerful PR link-building tactic that involves catching and riding the viral wave of current events or trending news.

Monitor the news, Google Trends, Twitter, or BuzzSumo to spot breaking stories and quickly develop a sharp angle that’s insightful enough for an outlet to want your input.

Content without substance won’t get you far with this method, so stay on your toes and bring something creative to the table.

When done right, it’s a secret weapon for securing high-authority links and driving organic traffic to your site.

Find mentions without backlinks

Don't let your link-building efforts go to waste—always reach out to the journalist to add a backlink if it's missing. Sometimes, it's simply human error that they haven't included it. Researching these unlinked mentions is actually one of the most overlooked link-building tactics.

By tracking backlinks, you can seize the opportunity to secure high-quality links and steadily increase your site authority. If you can get backlinks from authoritative sites, you're already winning.

Working with backlinks in practice

Wondering how to track backlinks effectively? Let's explore these two use cases where you'll learn how to find all the opportunities you might have missed!

Use case #1: Tracking backlinks

Head over to Prowly's Media Monitoring and easily track the quantity and quality of articles that contain relevant backlinks to your site.

Start off by creating a dashboard filled with articles that include backlinks and sort them by domain authority (all provided with high-quality data from Semrush).

Use case #2: Tracking hashtags

You can also do something similar for hashtags. Have you ever heard of #journorequest or #bloggerrequest? It’s a popular practice in the UK to set up email alerts whenever someone has a request related to travel or finance topics.

Additionally, you can use Audience Insights to find the most relevant outlets where you want to secure a high-domain authority backlink. Find out how to target journalists using Audience insights by reading this guide.

How to Track PR Backlinks

It's easier than you think. When it comes to SEO link building, specialists often use dedicated marketing tools. However, when you're working in PR, it doesn’t always make sense to subscribe to a tool that focuses solely on that.

While Prowly is a PR tool, it also helps you manage and track everything you need—including digital PR and link building.

To take it a step further, you can leverage the media database to identify and target journalists who might be interested in helping you secure backlinks.

How can you go about it? Here’s the deal:

#1 Leverage Semrush for precise audience targeting

Detailed insights from Semrush help you assess the audience of a particular outlet and its traffic.

That directly translates to super precise targeting and high relevancy. If you're working at a PR agency, chances are you're creating your own metrics and benchmarks based on past data. Those tiny, intricate findings from audience research can help you nail them down even faster.

#2 Use AI keyword search to find journalists and expand your media list

AI keyword search can also help you find the journalists you need for link-building PR and even explore relevant keywords. More suggestions mean more chances to find the people you need and expand your media list, even if you're in a niche field.

#3 Track your press links and email engagement with Prowly

Tracking your progress is also an important part of monitoring press links. It's crucial to know whether your recipient has opened your email, whether they've read it or not, or even how many times they've opened it. With Prowly, you can get those metrics all in one place.

#4 Monitor backlinks with Prowly’s media monitoring feature

Use the media monitoring feature to track backlinks by monitoring the quantity and quality of articles that are relevant to you. For example, to make it easier for you to analyze them, you can create a custom dashboard in Prowly to organize backlinks by domain authority (with data straight from Semrush) and by publication date.

#5 Showcase your results with comprehensive PR reports

Clients want to see what backlinks you've been able to secure, and you can do that with a comprehensive report. The PR Reports feature helps consolidate all relevant data, from outreach to backlink performance, into easy-to-digest reports.

Prowly serves as a solution that integrates tools needed for traditional public relations practices with those that dabble in SEO. As a PR specialist, you don't need to buy yet another tool to help you build and track high PR links.

Start your 7-day free trial today, no credit card needed, no questions asked.

Benefits of digital PR link building

Did you know that digital PR for link building goes beyond simple SEO? It builds authority, credibility, and, most of all, the visibility your brand needs. Here's how digital PR backlinks can help you:

Increasing SEO rankings and your website's domain authority

A link-building campaign can increase organic traffic to your website, which in itself gives more exposure to your brand or cause, increasing sales, and bringing overall success.

It also makes it easier for people to find you when they're searching for something on Google. That's because high-quality backlinks simply put you higher up in the search results.

Better online and brand reputation

Online visibility is key to achieving the results you want. Quality backlinks, such as links from authoritative websites, can help position your business as an expert or unbeatable contender in its respective field.

Yes, sometimes a PR agency can bring in better results than an SEO agency that's solely focused on getting you higher in search rankings, often without real value.

Wondering how you can improve your backlink tracking and analysis? With Prowly, you can do both through a customizable dashboard that shows you articles containing all your backlinks, even those in print or behind a paywall.

Think of it as a backlink tracker. You can always sort it by metrics like domain authority, using integrated Semrush data, to gain deeper insights that can help you draft your future strategies.

Conclusion

Building out press links is different from doing "that SEO thing." It's a powerful way to increase your brand's online visibility, credibility, reputation and long-term digital presence.

By adding several new actions to your PR strategy plan, you can start securing backlinks from high-authority sites and improve the positioning of your brand as an industry leader.

Whether you're doing it by securing phenomenal quotes from experts (that's where your connections will probably come into play), creating intriguing and head-turning content, or getting straight to the point with targeted media outreach, the right approach can only take your business to new heights.

Ready to get your link-building tactics together?

Start your free 7-day trial with Prowly today and see how simple it is to track backlinks, form long-term relationships with journalists, and increase your brand's reputation—all using a single tool.

The post What is PR Link Building? With Relevant Tips and Strategies in 2025 appeared first on Prowly.

One day, you’re grasping a new requirement and exhaling in relief; the next you find out that trend is already on its way out. What worked yesterday might be obsolete tomorrow and keeping up with everything is now just a part of the job.

That’s why we’ve broken down the five biggest PR trends shaping 2025. Curious? Let's dive in!

Top 5 PR Trends for 2025

1. Trend: AI-powered PR
2. Trend: Data-driven strategies
3. Trend: Hyper-personalization
4. Trend: Focusing on the niche
5. Trend: Strategic partnerships

Trend #1: AI-powered PR

In 2025, AI will no longer be excluded from anyone’s workflows.

It has already reshaped the industry and altered how professionals conduct research, analyze data, write press releases, and create content. While initially met with hesitation, AI has become a valuable partner, assisting in day-to-day tasks and providing insights that once required significant time and effort. 

This comes as no surprise, given that 74% of the PR professionals we surveyed said incorporating AI into their everyday PR work is the leading trend this year. Looking back on statistics we’ve gathered over the last two years, it’s safe to say that most of the industry has adjusted to this trend. With the numbers jumping from 19% in 2022 to 36% in 2023, and now skyrocketing to 74%.

The key benefit?

AI’s capacity to process large volumes of data. This can help you examine media coverage, social media patterns, and audience sentiment in real time.

💡 For example, Prowly has incorporated AI features that help draft press releases by having you answer custom questions based on what journalists would ask, ensuring all information is included and nothing is overlooked. Email pitches? Attention-worthy subject lines? You can now brainstorm it all with the help of AI.

While AI is powerful, it still requires human oversight.

Sure, it can assist with analyzing data and even in writing content for you, but it often lacks context, understanding, and emotional intelligence—things only a PR professional can provide. A lot of bad things can happen if, for example, you summarize data using AI and it disseminates inaccurate information, such as false reports about public figures. When that happens, trust is quickly broken, and your brand, company, and even you risk serious reputational damage.

That said, you can’t deny how much AI has increased efficiency and improved the ability to analyze large amounts of information quickly. Tasks that once required extensive manual effort, such as checking a press release multiple times for typos, grammar, and resonance, can now be completed in a fraction of the time. This automation allows you to focus on strategic initiatives and informed decision-making instead.

Practical applications

1️⃣ Research your audience

No, you won’t be able to just ask a question and get a credible answer. However, you can gather massive amounts of data and let AI process it for you. Additionally, you can ask it to analyze your data and make recommendations. Who knows—maybe you’ll come up with an idea you hadn’t thought of before?

2️⃣ Personalize your pitches

You can input all the recent work your target journalist has done and find a way to capture the recipient’s attention. You can also use tools like Prowly to ensure the email aligns with your press release, along with tailor-made subject lines designed to increase open rates.

3️⃣ Automate repetitive tasks

Creative work is your oyster, but do you dread checking grammar and punctuation? You’re not alone—but thankfully, AI can help. You don’t even need to train it to do the work for you. This, along with many other Sisyphean tasks, can be handled using AI.

"With the growing presence of AI tools in our industry, it's essential to adopt an AI Code of Conduct policy to set the standards and expectations for PR pros and clients alike. We have created an AI Policy discussing how we have adopted AI in our business, how we ethically use it, and where we would never use it. We also provide clients with this code of conduct so they know our policy, and what is expected of them, as well. We want to ensure that no answers to interview questions or pitches generated by AI will ever be sent to an editor... EVER!"

Jen Berson; Jeneration PR & Jeneration Academy

Trend #2: Data-driven strategies

Did you know that 37% of the people we surveyed said they will be basing their strategy on concrete data? While intuition—especially in our field—rarely fails, working in line with hard numbers is more than just a competitive advantage. Managers want to see it and clients are interested as well. With an oversaturated market and the current economic climate, no one wants to invest in predictions based purely on gut feelings.

Data-driven PR is the practice of using analytics, audience insights, previous campaign statistics, and other performance metrics to inform decisions that impact messaging, branding, and story angles. However, it goes well beyond that. Rather than relying on vanity metrics like impressions and reach, savvy PR professionals are taking a more strategic approach—evaluating their outcomes against revenue, lead generation, and customer retention.

Not showing tangible business impact? It’s hard to stay ahead if that’s the case. Don’t worry, though—you don’t need to completely forgo creative storytelling in favor of strategies that drive direct revenue, but it’s important to align your efforts with larger company objectives.

Practical applications

1️⃣ Integrate PR with a CRM

Use tools like HubSpot or Salesforce to analyze customer journeys and sales. While setting them up may require some assistance, the insights you can gain are invaluable. For example, imagine most customers from Instagram click the link but abandon their purchase in the cart, whereas TikTok users complete their transactions. Without a specialized tool, you wouldn’t be able to see that.

2️⃣ Analyze your audience’s behavior

Whether your brand is stronger on social media or entirely web-based, you can use tools like Google Analytics or Hotjar to analyze user behavior. Depending on your findings, you may be able to make concrete decisions about your strategy moving forward.

3️⃣ All metrics are not “your” metrics

Just because something is a PR metric doesn’t mean you should be using it. You should do your research and focus on KPIs that are actually applicable to what you’re doing and that align with your unique business goals and priorities.

"Analytics are becoming even more important. But your role shouldn’t focus on collecting the data, AI will do that, but how to correctly interpret and share it with your senior leadership to influence business decisions. It will be our job to understand the emotions behind the numbers."

Doug Downs; President of Stories and Strategies 

Trend #3: Hyper-Personalization

Once a novelty, now a necessity. Being precise in all communications is what drives results and 1 in 3 of our respondents agree. Consumers now have higher expectations, making generic campaigns simply ineffective. Yes, hyper-personalization takes more time, but it also translates to success.

However, keep in mind that hyper-personalization in PR is not just about segmenting audiences by demographics. It involves much more than that. Real-time data, behavioral insights, and predictive analytics can help you craft emails, pitches, and messages tailored to individual interests, beat preferences, and engagement patterns.

Unlike traditional personalization, where you simply insert a token for their name or the outlet they work for, hyper-personalization ensures that each touchpoint resonates on a deeper level. That means sending the right message at the right time, using the right format and channel.

This strategy is the secret weapon of the most successful PR specialists. Additionally, those with access to advanced tools have a clear advantage. These tools can analyze engagement patterns, sentiment trends, media coverage, and even track how many times your recipient clicks on the email you’ve sent.

It’s a shift, a fundamental one to be quite honest, as audiences become more selective and more brands fail to deliver personalized storylines and experiences. Beyond just reaching targets with this method, you’ll also build long-lasting relationships with journalists and your audience.

Practical applications

1️⃣ Customize outreach on a deeper level

Journalists receive hundreds of pitches daily. They’re tired of getting nonsense emails that aren’t even remotely relevant to their beat. To capture their interest, reference their recent work, interests, or social media activity to show that you’ve done your research. Tailor your message to fit their coverage style and audience. A hyper-personalized pitch is far more likely to get noticed and result in actual press hits.

2️⃣ Use social listening tools to find and target smaller, engaged communities

The most valuable opportunities aren’t always right in front of you. To find them, dig through niche forums, Slack groups, LinkedIn communities, and other conversations. Prowly’s Media Monitoring and Social Listening tools can help you track emerging discussions, identify key influencers, and get your message heard by the right people in a context that fosters trust and credibility.

3️⃣ Use AI to segment your audience 

However, don’t just ask AI to pull up information and do it for you. Gather larger datasets and categorize audiences based on behavior, engagement patterns, sentiment, and more. Analyzing this information can help you determine which content is most likely to perform well, on which platform it has the highest chance of success, and where your audience is most active.

Trend #4: Focusing on a niche

If I had a cent for every time someone in public relations told me about a story where their client harassed them for a mention in Tier 1 media, I’d be a multimillionaire by now. And while there’s absolutely nothing that can warm a heart more than seeing your brand mentioned in a fancy outlet, there are other ways to get it recognized—and leave an impact.

Think of it this way: marketers started utilizing micro-influencers to sell their products some time ago because they yield better results. That’s because they’re more authentic and speak to highly engaged audiences. Well, the same goes for niche outlets.

Unlike mainstream media, niche outlets have specialized audiences who are already deeply interested in your topic. You don’t need to convince them—they’re ready to hear you out. This means that any coverage secured is more likely to convert into meaningful actions, whether it’s brand awareness, new leads, or increased sales.

Additionally, journalists and editors at niche outlets are often more receptive to tailored pitches, as they’re constantly on the hunt for high-quality, relevant content rather than something generalized. In effect, niche outlets give you the opportunity to foster truly impactful relationships rather than just securing one-off placements.

Practical applications

1️⃣ Explore community-driven platforms

Sometimes, putting more energy into places like Reddit, Discord, or even LinkedIn can yield great results. Some brands have strong, community-led conversations there that you wouldn’t know about from things like customer feedback or social media comments. Bonus tip: check for sentiment while you’re at it. People on these platforms can be unhinged—both positively and negatively.

2️⃣ Identify niche-focused mediums

Even if your brand or product is ridiculously narrow in terms of the audience it can serve, you’ll probably find a community that follows it religiously anyway. Whether they have a podcast, newsletter, or Reddit thread, it’s smart to pitch stories directly or offer things like invitations to interviews, if possible.

3️⃣ Leverage micro-influencers

Involve them in campaign development and provide detailed yet flexible briefs to ensure their authenticity is on point—all while meeting brand objectives.

Trend #5: Strategic partnerships

If you’re looking for a place to allocate your budget, 48% of respondents in our PR Trends 2025 report said it will be strategic partnerships. The past actions of many professionals show that this move offers brands and in-house teams the opportunity to reach diverse audiences and strengthen their message more effectively.

Through collaboration with strategic partners, companies can adjust their messaging to resonate more deeply with their audience and broaden the impact of their PR initiatives. The key to making this trend work lies in identifying the right partners. This isn’t always an easy task, but with the right research and a soft trial-and-error approach, it can result in a successful strategy for the future.

Think of who your audience already trusts. Whether they’re influencers, industry experts, or adjacent brands that spark joy within your target community, choose those who have already made an impact or are about to. Then nurture those relationships to ensure long-term success. Respect their time and contributions and don’t treat it purely as a business transaction. They, too, want personalized experiences in their interactions with brands that work with them.

Strategic partnerships offer a way to strengthen PR strategies by bringing in new perspectives and testing different communication angles. Select them carefully, stay in touch, and you’ll start seeing success unfold before your eyes in no time.

Practical applications

1️⃣ Test for compatibility

Not every partner you’d like to work with will be the perfect fit. We’re all human, after all. To test the waters, invite them to low-risk initiatives like co-hosting webinars or contributing to a whitepaper before going all in and committing to larger campaigns.

2️⃣ Measure success using joint metrics

To strengthen the impact of an upward or downward trend, use joint metrics. Did both media impressions and reach increase after a specific action? Start by defining shared KPIs for partnership campaigns to ensure both sides gain the value they seek.

3️⃣ Create case studies

To attract similar collaborations in the future, create case studies or summaries of your work with a particular partner. Not only will this benefit you and help secure more budget in the future, but it will also show others that your work delivers results aligned with broader company goals.

Conclusion

From AI-powered workflows to hyper-personalized outreach, niche media strategies, and strategic partnerships, what’s going to be trending in 2025 will solidify the shifts we’ve observed over the past few years. However, meaningful relationships and strong audience connections are staying at the forefront and not going anywhere (at least in 2025!) 

To read more about what PR professionals are spending their money on, what practices they’re honing and which ones they’re leaving behind, you can download the full PR Trends 2025 Report for free.

The post 5 PR Trends to Jump On in 2025 (+ Tips and Tactics) appeared first on Prowly.