23 Smartphone Apps that PR Professionals Can’t Live Without

by Ronnie Manning

At last count, I think there are around 45 billion applications available for our smartphones and tablets.  The first application that everyone probably downloaded was either Facebook, Angry Birds or Pandora (Facebook was mine and I even downloaded a virtual pet, which I forgot about, and sadly, the poor guy went to virtual pet heaven).  But as more business oriented applications are developed and become available, I was curious to know which apps my fellow PR professionals use on a daily basis and can’t live without.  (I should state that I have no affiliation with any of the apps listed, just looking to share some good info)

I received great responses with the most common answers being the most common apps that many of you are probably already using – Facebook, Twitter (TweetDeck, HootSuite), LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Mashable, Google, and Yelp – so I wanted to focus on the applications that fell outside of this common group, some of which were new to me and I have since begun to use.  Most of these applications are multi-platform with Android and iPhone, I have listed which are iPad only. Enjoy!

Location Based Services / Social Productivity Applications

• Around Me - AroundMe allows you to quickly find out information about your surroundings - find ATMs, drug stores, restaurants, coffee shops, etc.

• Ban.jo – Ban.jo is a social discovery service that harnesses social updates happening across multiple networks and delivers them into one integrated view.  

“I work a lot with local venues and restaurants and use the app to see who is physically near; as the app aggregates all of my social media profiles - collecting my friends geotags - and allowing me to see their proximity to mine. When needing to recruit bodies in the door - in real time - you can open up the app to see what friends are near you and invite them to the venue or event within the app by tweeting them, etc.” – Kinsey Shoefield

•  Foursquare – Foursquare is a location-based mobile platform that makes cities easier to use and more interesting to explore.  Clients and brands leverage the foursquare platform by utilizing a wide set of tools to obtain, engage, and retain customers and audiences.

• myBantu – myBantu provides highly personalized assistance in matching desirable travel, entertainment and lifestyle queries based on individual preferences and social network. 

• Plancast – Plancast lets you know about the events your friends and colleagues plan to attend as well as other events in your area.

News and Media Applications

• Flipboard (iPad) – The application turns your Facebook, Twitter and other social content into a digital magazine inspired by the beauty and ease of print media. 

• Pulse – Pulse News that takes your favorite websites and transforms them into a colorful and interactive mosaic.

• Taptu – Taptu lets you add your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the content from your favorite web sites and blogs via RSS and transforms them into visual streams. 

“Since discovering Taptu, I check it even before my emails each day.  I can create custom news streams for any topic and add any feeds or sites that I want to check daily.” Angela Neal

•  Zite (iPad) – Zite scans over half a million web domains to find specific reading material that would be of interest, according to your social network and online reading behavior.

Business and Productivity Applications

• Dropbox – Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring your photos, docs, and videos anywhere and share them easily via mobile/desktop. 

“The ability to instantly access, update, save and share files at the touch of a button is a godsend, especially at times when multiple collaborators are working on a single project or presentation.” Mike Lesczinski 

• Evernote - Evernote makes it easy to remember things big and small from your notable life using your computer, phone, and the web. 

“I use Evernote for dictating notes to myself (e.g., if hit with a brainstorm while walking the dog) as well as keeping permanent track of handwritten notes I take in Noteshelf and keyboard entry. Love that it syncs automatically and is available from every device.” Roger Friedensen  

• Harvest - Harvest lets PR professionals track time and send invoices from one integrated application.

• Instagram – Fast, photo sharing and editing.

• JotNot Pro -JotNot uses your smartphones camera to be a multi-page document scanner.  

“We like JotNot Pro for scanning and e-mailing items when we’re on the go. It’s fast and convenient and the resolution is good.” Marisa Vallbona 

• Noteshelf (iPad) - A handwriting app for the iPad that allows you to take notes and export.

• OfficeTime – For Billing on the Go - Office Time is an intuitive and full-featured time tracking application. 

“OfficeTime is great for PR folks who primarily bill by the hour, keeping good track of time and tying that work to specific projects and clients is essential.” Kevin Doel

• Springpad - Springpad makes it easy to save notes, products and places you want to remember – it automatically organizes and enhances what you’ve saved to help you be more productive.

• Square – Square gives businesses the ability to accept credit and debit card purchases anywhere, anytime. 

“Get the free tiny accessory that attaches to the microphone port on your phone and take charge cards with your phone. Nice for events and it’s free—-transaction fee applies but no monthly merchant fees.” Toni Antonetti 

• Teuxdeux – TeuxDeux is a simple and nicely designed to-do list.  

“Teuxdeux is my favorite to-do list app ever, which says a lot because Ive tried out a number of them. . Teuxdeux is by far the cleanest and most simple task management app I’ve used.” Stephanie Stadler 

• Toodledo - a task and note manager that helps organize your to-do list and notes, and make you more productive.

• WorldCard - WorldCard Mobile uses OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology to instantly transfer information from business cards to the your contact list.

• Wunderlist – an integrated task manager, your to-do lists sync automatically over the internet and you can even share your lists with friends and colleagues

Personal Applications

• White Noise - While traveling, use this app in hotel rooms that sometimes can be less soundproof than one would like.

It’s exciting to see the variety of available applications and how they help PR professionals on a daily basis, I look forward what the future brings.  If there are any applications that you use regularly and you would like to add, please feel free to leave in the comment section!

Thank you to all who provided input!

Keep Media and Analysts Engaged in Internet-Driven Cycles

Excellent artile by Richard Miller at PRNewsOnline on press and analyst use of social media and how to properly engage them as an audience.  I’ve included highlights of the article below, to read the full article please visit here.

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via PRNewsOnline - We recently conducted a survey and an analysis of the social networking channels, Facebook and LinkedIn, and the news aggregation options, Twitter and Delicious, to see how many press and analysts were using them, and to what extent. The results were pretty surprising.

It turns out that press and analysts are a lot like us. When they use social media sites, it is to connect on a personal level, not a business level. They want to find friends from high school, catch up with cousins and share photos of their family’s individual accomplishments. They don’t use these sites to stay on top of company news, engage with spokespeople or try to understand broader industry trends.

Even services like Twitter are used to disseminate news posted on traditional online news sites and is used simply to make sure news isn’t missed. It is not used to share original content though. Our research also showed an interesting trend in how PR sites like Vocus track and categorize news coverage as positive, negative and neutral. When you add social media sites to your coverage report, it spikes the neutral coverage your company receives because it only registers the words used in the tweet or post, it doesn’t track if the content the tweet directs you to is positive, negative or neutral. That is a huge flaw in the reporting system as most news that is worthy of tweeting about is either very positive or very negative.

So if we rule out social media as a way to engage with press and analysts, how do we engage in today’s internet-driven news cycle? You have to factor in that the press and analyst corps have been drastically reduced over the past several years and reporters no longer have the luxury of a single beat or a week-long deadline. They are writing for now. And when reporters are writing for now, it is our job at PR professionals to give them the tools they need to quickly decide if the story you are pitching is relevant to the broader market, will have an impact on how the customer conducts its business and is a sign that your client is moving forward in the market.

Now this is where social media comes into play. The most successful pitches are ones that include links to your client’s blogs, maps to rising trends that show up first in social media sites, and enable the reporter to find unbiased, credible sources that back up your client’s claims. We recently pitched a business reporter a story about one of client’s work on the administration’s Broadband Plan and Broadband Stimulus Package. Our goal was to show that our client was instrumental in helping the government create the definitions of broadband, and help its customers understand how to apply for grants and programs. It also was an opportunity to demonstrate that our client had a clear pulse on what was happening in the market place which made them a valuable resource to a reporter on a short deadline. We showed our clients deep knowledge on the subject in a variety of ways, including setting up its own news aggregation site to track industry news on the topic, we sponsored a blog on the topic by a well-known industry reporter and shared these blogs on LinkedIn, Twitter and with a weekly news recap sent out to subscribers. We were able to share this information via links with reporters and were quickly able to get interest in a feature story.

So how do you keep press and analyst engaged? While the tools have changed over the years, the key to quality engagement is the same as it always has been—provide good, quality information that is compelling and honest and make it easy for reporters to get the access they need to write.