Why don’t PR Teams use CRM tools to keep tabs on their influencer relations work?! Is Excel really that good?

It turns out the experts in cultivating relationships have in the main opted out of super-charging their skills with a little help from technology.

Does this sound familiar?

You:
“Where is that big list of mummy bloggers you made for client x again Sarah?…”

Sarah:
“I can’t remember….somewhere on the the P,Y,X drive. It’s on the newtwork somewhere. Who knows? The social stats will be out of date though so you’ll need to grab those again.”

Or even worse….

You:
“Where is that big list of mummy bloggers you made for x client again Sarah?…”

Jane:
“Sarah left the agency last week remember.”

You:
“Oh shit. Didn’t Sarah know all the mummy bloggers?! Guess we need to find that list of influencers that liked (didn’t like) brand x again”

What the fuck. All that research and insight gone.

Hundreds of hours poured into finding & connecting with influencers for every client you’ve ever worked with and nobody can pull an up-to-date list of bloggers in less than 2 mins. What went wrong?

What if you are new to the agency? How long does it take to get up to speed with which bloggers your agency has a relationship with for each brand you work on? The answer is generally far too long.

Over-servicing is rife in most PR agencies but this really is some monumental waste — mainly down to apathy & outdated workflows.

It’s time for the PR world to embrace a bit of automation. Computers aren’t here to take your jobs.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have more time for creative ideas and cultivating relationships?

More coverage for clients….and less admin for you. Simple really.

There are lots of great tools in this space:
http://www.buzzstream.com/
http://buzzsumo.com/solutions/influencers-and-outreach/ (you can save people into lists now)
https://www.prezly.com

What did I miss? Can anybody share recommendations of simple tools to manage your lists better?

Note:
This post was originally written on October 18, 2014. We’re just moving everything over to Medium because we like it.