Cision and HARO are PR staples but here are a few, lesser-talked about PR resources I’ve been loving lately.

PodcastGuests.com

Simply put, PodcastGuests.com is HARO but for podcasts only. It’s one email a week with 5-10 podcasts looking for guests. Beware: Some of the podcasts are pretty new, so you may want to double-check them before pitching. Thankfully, the PodcastsGuests.com email lists how many episodes each podcast has, along with a description of the podcast and what kind of guest they are looking for. You can also pay to have a guest featured at the beginning of each email for a fee, but I haven’t done that and can’t vouch for it. In my opinion podcasts are the hardest to research and keep up with since it’s such a growing industry, but PodcastGuests.com is one of the better PR resources to keep you informed.

Twitter

Obviously you have heard of Twitter and it’s nothing new that Twitter is a great PR resource. But one specific way I use Twitter is to research contacts.

Cision is great for this, but how often are reporters updating their profiles? Anecdotally, I’ve found that many reporters don’t know what Cision is, let alone make sure to keep their Cision profiles up to date. But almost all of them have Twitter and research shows they are using it more and more for stories. Media members on Twitter almost always have up-to-date profiles listing their outlet, beat, how to pitch them, and previous outlets.

Cision can load super slowly sometimes, so if you need to look up a one-off reporter quickly Twitter may actually be the better option.

SmartBrief

I started paying attention to SmartBrief because my clients kept forwarding me the SmartBrief newsletters they were getting every day, and I realized they all were subscribed to the SmartBrief for their industry.

SmartBrief is a daily, industry-specific curated newsletters. If a client is in a niche industry, it’s a great way to stay on top of industry news that may not otherwise be on your radar. For example, I subscribe to the SmartBrief for contractors and the construction industry — not exactly the kind of news that I’ll find across my normal Twitter feed. They publish over 200 niche newsletters, and there’s something for every type of client.

SmartBrief also has an originals section which is  a great way for thought leaders to reach an audience in their niche.