Media intelligence instruments like BuzzSumo and MuckRack assist PRs observe mentions, discover journalists, and join with the best media contacts.
However how have you learnt which one is greatest in your wants?
It’s my job to inform you the reply is in fact BuzzSumo, however Muck Rack is an extremely highly effective software – and each do issues a bit of in another way.
At this level you might be pondering: “How on earth is BuzzSumo in any approach an alternative choice to Muck Rack – doesn’t it simply do content material?”
Up till just lately you might need been proper, however we’ve simply launched three model new media relations instruments:
- Media Database
- Media Lists
- AI Pitches
And now we assist you at each stage of your PR journey: from content material concepts to protection.
Try our media outreach walk-through beneath to get a greater thought of how we assist your digital PR strategy.
BuzzSumo’s media outreach instruments provide an incredible various to Muck Rack
Now that we’ve acquired that cleared up, learn on to search out out the important thing methods by which BuzzSumo stands up as a worthy various to Muck Rack.
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Extra flexibility at a cheaper price
The very first thing everybody needs to know is, in fact, value.
You may entry our Muck Rack various providing – BuzzSumo’s Media Database – plus an entire host of different necessary instruments, for as little as $239/month on a PR & Comms plan annual subscription, or $299 for a month-to-month rolling subscription.
Try BuzzSumo pricing and plans here.
By comparability, MuckRack provide annual-only contracts and don’t publicly disclose their pricing.
Regardless of this, totally different sources estimate the software to value between $5,000 (Frank Strong at Sword and The Script) and $10,000 a yr (Prowly).
That works out at wherever between $417/month and $833/month.
And in keeping with the primary supply, this value could be for only one seat / licence.
BuzzSumo’s PR & Comms plan, by comparability, affords 5 seats / licences at a fraction of the price.
For in-house and company primarily based PRs, BuzzSumo’s decrease pricing and plans provide much more flexibility.
You can too take BuzzSumo for a check drive with fifty searches and near-complete entry to the entire platform, in our free 30-day trial.
MuckRack affords a free plan, however many instruments are gated by upgrades, and people who aren’t present restricted outcomes (ie. ten articles or much less, per search).
Extra historic protection
We perceive that to land PR wins in future, you want to have the ability to look to the previous for examples of success.
Relating to retrospective protection, Muck Rack stories:
“Any search you run in Muck Rack will default to together with the previous 25 months of protection from at present’s date (as that is the furthest again you’ll be able to pull).”
On BuzzSumo’s PR & Comms plan – which options the Media Database, Media Lists, and AI Pitches – we provide you with entry to 36 months of historic protection knowledge (three years), so you’ll be able to:
- Dive into developments in protection
- Report in your marketing campaign efficiency over time
- And analysis a journalist’s back-catalogue all through the years
BuzzSumo customers on the Suite and Enterprise plans get much more protection perception, with 5 years of knowledge.
Extra journalist engagement knowledge
Muck Rack has some nice engagement knowledge constructed into its database, however it’s lacking a key piece of the social puzzle.
Whereas Muck Rack tracks Fb and Pinterest engagement – and X (Previously Twitter) engagement as a part of its “Journalist shares” equation, it doesn’t have protection over Reddit – which is an more and more necessary platform for journalist exercise.
In truth, in keeping with our Content material Analyzer, there was a 35% uplift in journalist content material shared on Reddit since 2019.
The total PR bundle: From content material concepts to protection
From the Media Database, Media Lists, and Monitoring & Alerts, to Coverage Reports and AI Pitches, lots of our PR tools feature-match that of Muck Rack.
However BuzzSumo additionally incorporates content material and marketing campaign ideation instruments, which is one thing Muck Rack just isn’t so sturdy on.
Having content material efficiency instruments in your PR platform offers you the flexibility to create PR round solely essentially the most participating matters – and even personalize your marketing campaign to the journalists you’ll ultimately be pitching to.
It’s extra necessary now than it’s ever been to bake relevance into your marketing campaign from the start, since journalist’s cite relevance as the #1 factor they require from pitches, and rating your PR is more and more reliant on how related it’s to your journalist’s viewers.
Whereas Muck Rack’s article search is nice for locating mentions of key phrases in content material…
It doesn’t assist you assess the effectiveness of that content material – so in relation to creating your PR thought, it’s not as simple to know what’s going to catch a journalists consideration and land you protection.
BuzzSumo’s Content material Analyzer allows you to analyze headlines, publishers, and articles throughout many alternative metrics, together with:
- Fb likes, shares, feedback, and reactions
- X posts
- Reddit upvotes
- Pinterest pins
- Variety of backlinks
- Evergreen scores
- Whole engagement
- Whole engagement over time
- Whole backlinks
- Content material revealed over time
- Common engagement
- Common variety of backlinks
- Whole and common engagement by social community
- Common engagement by content material kind
- Common engagement by day revealed
- Common engagement by content material size
- Fb response breakdown
Which supplies you the intel you should create a profitable PR marketing campaign.
With this knowledge you’ll be able to:
- Discover matter concepts from essentially the most participating headlines
- Filter by journalist content material and get concepts from PR that has truly made the press
- See which matters evoke the strongest feelings, to tell your individual thought
- Justify your marketing campaign concepts – to administration or shoppers – with actual knowledge
- Base your marketing campaign concepts on a journalist’s most profitable content material
- Prioritize which journalists to pitch to, primarily based on how properly their content material performs
Muck Rack Dashboards do characteristic some engagement knowledge at a top-level however, as talked about, that is primarily based on fewer social sources and you can’t analyze articles individually, that means you’ll be able to’t assess a journalist’s archives.
Its Tendencies software additionally goes some option to showcasing content material efficiency however, once more, solely appears at progress from an combination perspective.
This software focuses solely on developments within the quantity of articles, whereas our equal software – the Content material Evaluation Report – compares quantity of articles vs. article engagement.
The addition of social engagement can throw up some fairly attention-grabbing insights – for instance, should you had been to only have a look at the pattern of AI articles written by journalists in Muck Rack, you’d see a line trending upwards…
Whereas in BuzzSumo you’d see particular progress in AI articles (blue bars) written by journalists, however a stark decline in whole engagement (gray line).
With the addition of social engagement knowledge in BuzzSumo, you’ll be able to see if developments are kicking off or tailing off, and alter your PR concepts accordingly.
In truth, you’ll be able to even repeat this evaluation for the publications you plan to pitch additional down the road.
Right here’s an evaluation of AI content material created by TechCrunch journalists, which displays that very same upward pattern in articles, however downward pattern in engagement.
From this knowledge, you’ll be able to infer that journalists at TechCrunch have gotten fatigued by the subject of AI – particularly if it’s not serving to them hit their engagement targets any longer.
BuzzSumo offers you the info to make the best choices in your PR from starting to finish, making it greater than only a Muck Rack various.
Without end up-to-date journalist knowledge
In our journalist database, we push by means of a mean of 350K updates to our Journalist Profiles each month – together with:
- X / Twitter bio data
- Contact particulars
- Matters
- Article URLs
- Engagement metrics
- Whole variety of articles
We additionally allow you to refine your journalist searches by recency, so you’ll be able to:
- Discover lively writers to pitch
- Observe journalist profession adjustments
- Monitor publishing cadences to estimate protection wait instances
- And extra
We hold issues recent, that can assist you base your PR choices on essentially the most related knowledge.
On the time of writing, Muck Rack don’t disclose the frequency of their profile updates.
For protection analysis and media outreach, having recent knowledge is essential for locating the best contacts and alternatives early.
Extra protection of domains and media shops
With content material tracked throughout 4.8 million domains / publishers, BuzzSumo casts a wider web than Muck Rack – which surfaces 600,000 sources by comparability.
This broader monitoring offers you a 360-degree view of your protection alternatives.
Listed below are 4 methods you’ll be able to assess publishers in BuzzSumo:
1. Search journalists by publication in BuzzSumo’s Media Database
2. Search a publication’s prime headlines within the Content material Analyzer
3. See a journalist’s publications by way of their database profile
See a journalist’s prime publications by way of the Content material Evaluation report
Extra journalist contact info
BuzzSumo supplies direct entry to the contact particulars of over 700,000 journalists and influencers.
By comparability, MuckRack has 300,000 verified journalists in its database.
Having a writers’ direct contact data helps you pitch related tales simply – there’s no must scrape the net or ask connections for introductions. As a substitute, spend extra time honing your pitch.
Wrapping up
For PRs and entrepreneurs who want versatile, reasonably priced media intelligence, BuzzSumo supplies higher worth.
Key benefits like social engagement knowledge, decrease pricing, more energizing info, and broader protection make it simpler to analysis opponents and instantly have interaction related journalists and influencers.
Like what you see? Seize your 30-day free trial here.