MuckRack.com, initially a Twitter tool and now a tool for many top social media sites, can be a valuable resource for writers who are looking for sources, want to know the news a day before it is reported, and those wanting to publicize their brand. The site collects, sifts through, and examines tweets and news from journalists around the globe.
Here are five ways you might benefit from Muck Rack:
- The “Newsroom” page on Muck Rack offers top stories journalists are working on and talking about that day. These stories are as the site proclaims like getting the newspaper a day early. For example on December 28, 2011, the “New York Times” sent a mass email to home delivery customers in error. One email sent out in error isn’t news but a mass email is another story and a story that made Muck Rack’s “Stories that Journalists are Talking About” section. On the left side of the “Newsroom” page are the most popular news publications and on the right is a “Now Trending” box. Further down on the right are clickable photos of journalists on Muck Rack and under that are the most active journalists.
- “Muck Rack Pro” is a feature in which topic searches, media lists, and news alerts are free to verified journalists. . The Muck Rack website includes a page describing their criteria for verified journalists. Public Relations folks and those in social media are charged a fee for “Muck Rack Pro”. Journalists who tweet or post about a company or product are easily found on Muck Rack by those in public relations or social media and they can then find ways to capitalize on the media coverage.
- Networking opportunities abound, which is especially valuable for freelance and technical writers. Although Muck Rack began modestly with around 150 journalists, times have changed and the site now lists substantially more, in the thousands, from Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Tumblr, Quora, Google+, and others.
- “Muck Rack Daily” is sent directly to your email address. This is a capsule of journalist’s tweets, posts, links, and articles from that day. Today’s trending topic is “The ups and downs in Iowa’s final stretch.” Journalists from The Des Moines Register, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlanta Journal, and others give links to their stories, but on Muck Rack you also get to hear what the journalists are tweeting about that story. In other words, we visit the ‘behind the story’ story which can be a good learning tool.
- “Journalist Directory” allows users to find links to famous journalists or news outlets like “ABC News” George Stephanopoulos. Here you find how many followers he has (by the way he has more than anyone at “ABC News”), the number of tweets, his title, bio, his beat, and other social media outlets in which he is a member. Journalist will find after studying the site that the beats they are most interested in should it be like Stephanopoulos’ political beat or even fashion, they can be put that information into a tracking tool and alerts sent to their Inbox when their interest is getting coverage.
Your turn! Have you used MuckRack.com or similar websites? Which features did you find most useful or what others would you recommend?
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
