As an educator I have been grateful to companies in the public relations tech industry that offer students the opportunity to use their product, albeit in limited fashion, as part of their coursework.
I had always mentioned to these company reps at conferences and in response to the email marketing that they should offer up demos and student use options as a form of loss leader marketing. Give for free a limited use of their product to students, who upon graduation will ask their bosses and clients for budget to become full, paying customers.
Cision was one such company that really became a significant part of my Media Relations Writing course. In addition to writing a series of assignments and completing a media kit for a client, students had to develop a target media contact list. They were able to do this using Cision.
Just last year, Cision offered a certificate program. I encouraged students to seek this credential for their resumes since they had been taught the concepts in my class and had used Cision. Several took me up on it, and I was planning to institutionalize the Cision certificate as a graded assignment in my classes beginning this fall. But then Cision’s university program disappeared like a journalist suddenly going into PR.
From Cision to Muck Rack
Muck Rack to the rescue. Cision’s announcement came with about a month to go before fall classes started at my university. I scrambled to devise a way to do the media research aspect without this industry leading tool. Muck Rack came along like a PR pro helping a journalist on deadline.
Muck Rack started as a way to track and interact with journalists specifically on social media. It has expended into a full service media relations service for all aspects of that part of public relations–engaging journalists, monitoring news, and generating reports that go beyond clip counts to look at reach, engagement and response.
Recently, Muck Rack partnered with Business Wire, a news release distribution service that has evolved in its own right recently to include investor relations and analytics. The combination of the two service providers will help PR pros reach audiences via traditional and new media, including bloggers and podcasters.
Get certified
Meanwhile, Muck Rack has also added Muck Rack Academy. The new venture currently offers certificates in Fundamentals of Media Relations and Fundamentals of Social Media. Both are free and serve a sort of white paper purpose–offering and demonstrating expertise in order to gain clients.
The media relations certificate will replace the Cision certificate I was going to require in my class. As a good professor should, I took the course (and passed!) to ensure it is appropriate and useful for students. I think it certainly is. It can be done in less than two hours, is free, and the content is well presented and savvy. Students can enhance their resume and LinkedIn profile by noting this certificate. New pros or those who have taken on a media relations role at times without any PR degree might find this certificate practically very useful.
To my fellow college professors, I would recommend the Muck Rack for Educators program. You get access to the basic Muck Rack features and can add your students as “teammates,” assigning them to various media database activities as experiential learning. I responded to an email invitation from them, but you can reach out to a Muck Rack rep and ask about the program. Your students will benefit.
