How I learnt to thrive in a digital marketing agency- The tools you need

I have now been in my position as Head of Creative Communications at Zazzle Media for a number of months now and it’s safe to say that I am on a continuous learning journey.

I pride myself on having a relentless appetite for learning, so transitioning from an in-house ‘traditional’ PR position to working within a digital agency has meant that I have had to learn a lot of new skills in a very short space of time.

Of course, all the fundamental elements of PR that I bring with me from my previous positions are completely transferrable to my current position at Zazzle Media. Let’s be honest, the most important tool a PR can have is their brain and ability to think on their feet.

However, since my appointment with Zazzle Media I have been introduced to a wealth of tools that, once I got to grips with them, have completely revolutionised the way in which myself and my team are working.

An example of some of the tools myself and my team have found to be invaluable are:

• All My Tweets - If we are struggling to find a contact on our media database; Gorkana, we use this tool to export a contacts Twitter feed, convert it to a HTML and then ta-dah we potentially have the email address of the journalist we were looking for.

• Buzzsumo - Well known but highly valuable for measurement purposes. Buzzsumo allows for analysis of how your content has performed on social platforms. With the rise of social sharing of news and information this is extremely useful, especially for client reporting purposes.

• Fresh Web Explorer - Alongside Google Alerts we use this to keep a close eye on mentions of our clients. This tool scours the web for any client mentions which means we are then able to contact them asking them to retrospectively add a link where needs be.

As a result of using the tools which are so readily available out there, our processes have been streamlined, efficiencies have been improved, costs have been cut and ultimately (and most importantly) better results have been seen for our clients.

The success of our campaigns has become much more measurable which makes it an awful lot easier for us to decipher which campaigns have really taken off and the reasons behind their success.

For a run down of the tools I have mentioned as well as other useful sites, check out theDigital Marketing Toolbox which has been compiled in-house by the people using the tools day in day out.

As you’ll know, the landscape of digital marketing is continuously evolving so if you have any tools that you know of that you think would benefit a growing PR team, we may even add them to the Digital Marketing Toolbox. Always keen to make the working life of the Zazzle PR team that little bit easier!