My first task today was meant to be looking at some Black Friday deals on some PRTech tools and deciding which ones are worth buying. But then I thought it’s worth sharing some of the deals I’m considering so you can snag them as well. Quick disclaimer as some of the links below are affiliate ones so I might get a small commission on them. For the AppSumo deals it’s actually good for you as well as you get a $10 discount and I get a $10 credit. Be sure to read to the end as I’ve kept the best PRTech tool to last!
BuzzSumo
It was spotting the BuzzSumo deal on Twitter this morning that gave me the idea for this blog post. If you’ve ever been on one of my content management or social media courses you’ll have seen me demonstrate BuzzSumo. It has lots of uses for PR professionals such as searching for content ideas to see what sort of content is being shared the most and what sites it is appearing on. The BuzzSumo Black Friday deal is a pretty good one as it’s 50% for a full year. That’s $594 instead $1,188. If you’re not sure about this one you can still sign up as it has a 30-day free trial so is risk free.
Publer
Publer is a social media publishing and scheduling tool that definitely make the list because it’s one that I use every day. I bought it ages ago when it was an AppSumo lifetime deal. It’s now back on for a few days as one of the Black Friday deals. There are so many similar tools it’s hard to differentiate them. The things I like about Publer are: 1) It has a nice, clean, simple user interface. 2) It has a decent amount of integrations such as a variety of link shortening and retargetting tools. 3) The developers are quite responsive and customer service is good. 4) The lifetime deal of $49 is fantastic value.
HappyScribe
HappyScribe is another transcription tool, so similar to Otter. What makes it different, and attractive, is its ability to not just do automated transcription but that it is designed specifically to transcribe video. This means not only does it transcribe audio but it will also generate the special files you need to do real subtitles, rather than just burnt into the video. Providing full transcripts of videos is great for SEO, but more importantly real subtitles make your videos accessible and comply with disability discrimination best practice and in some countries’ legislation. Transcripts also mean people who don’t like video or audio content because it is slower than reading can still access your content. It also works in 119 languages. Usually HappyScribe is ‘pay as you go’ at €12 per hour. The AppSumo deal is $69 for two hours a month for life so once you’ve transcribed five hours of video or audio you immediately start to save. What’s not to like?
Frase
I’m still not sure about Frase which describes itself as ‘AI for content’. It’s another deal that was on AppSumo previously and is now back for Black Friday. I passed on it last time as the results from testing it were mixed. The idea is it helps you to create search friendly content that audiences want to read. It’s a similar concept to AnswerThePublic (of which I’m a huge fan of). But Frase doesn’t really hit the mark at the moment. The first test I tried was great and found the right content. The second was beyond useless. Not only did it fail to find relevant content, but what it did find was 95% wrong. It also has a feature called ‘Answer Engine’ which is an AI chatbot to automatically answer questions based on your website content.
At the moment Frase doesn’t work that well. But its promise is good and at $79 for a lifetime deal it’s probably worth a gamble. If the developers work on improving it then it could eventually become a useful tool.
BigVu
BigVu is a video tool that I’ve used before and think is great, but I didn’t use regularly as I didn’t need it enough to pay a monthly subscription of $39 for one user. That’s why the AppSumo deal is amazing value as it’s $69 for a lifetime deal… for fiver users! I don’t actually need five users, but I only need to use it for a couple of months to start saving anyway. BigVu combines video recording with a teleprompter for scripts as well as various other features such as background removal (green screen). The BigVu app is a well established product that has been available on iOS and Android for ages, but what’s exciting (to me at least!) is there is now a desktop version that works in Chrome or Edge.
ShoogleBox
This one isn’t a Black Friday deal but is a PRTech tool that I’m using every day. It’s a great way to squirrel away all this interesting and important stuff you discover on your daily internet travels. Since I was introduced to it by Dom Burch I keep using it more and more and creating more boxes. Some of the boxes I use are ‘blog ideas’, ‘business development ideas’, ‘PRTech tools’, ‘food and recipes’, ‘trends’, ‘stuff Stuart wants’, ‘great case studies’, ‘how to and best practice’ and a wishful thinking one ‘if I ever go travelling again’.
AirMeet
I’ve left the most exciting to last. I’ve only had a quick play with AirMeet so far, but from what I’ve seen it looks like an awesome online meeting tool. The ‘digital tables’ feature is a pretty good way of dealing with the problem of replicating face-to-face networking at real life events. Another way of looking at them is as breakout rooms. It’s also easy to live stream the main ‘stage’ to YouTube or Facebook. It’s a fairly new platform so it is missing features and some of it needs to be improved, but there is a good roadmap for future development. Most importantly the company is founded by experienced people who know the space and already have funding so it should grow and continue to add new features.
UPDATE: A Brucie bonus
Thanks to Darryl Sparey I’ve got a Brucie bonus for you. Darryl spotted my tweet about my pick of PRTech Black Friday deals and request for any I’d missed and flagged it to his client Propel which responded swiftly with a 15 month for the price of 12 and 15% discount deal for its PR management software. I’ve not had a chance to play with Propel yet (it has been on my to-do list for ages and I’ll get round to it in the New Year). My two favourite things about it from what I already know are 1) It provides email open tracking from within Outlook. 2) It claims to be ‘lovable’. Lovable is important as one piece of advice I often give is to choose software you enjoy using. If you don’t dread opening it in the morning then you’ll usually get far more value out of it than you would from something that might be technically superior but you hate using.
We certainly can @DarrylSparey and @stuartbruce , 15 months for the price of 12 for anyone who comes on board today + a 15% discount #blackfridaysale
— Propel (@PropelPRM) November 27, 2020
