Meet Michelle Songy, the founder of Press Hook. A unique platform rethinking the way brands and media connect, Michelle launched the company after personally experiencing the disconnect between these two sides of the coin (despite how interconnected they really are). Today, journalists, brand reps and publicists can all reap the benefits of her smart technology. Learn more about Michelle's game-changing concept below, plus how comms pros can make the most of the Press Hook platform.
What attracted you to the marketing and comms industry and how did you get your start?
Prior to launching Press Hook, I was a founder of another tech startup and had worked with marketing/PR agencies. It wasn’t until we had to cut down our budget that I started to learn the process myself. I was also in charge of our company blog, so I was constantly looking for new trends in tech to write about. I got a glimpse of a journalist's life and thought, wow, they have a lot of work on their hands in sourcing content and connecting with business owners to get the information they need. Not everything you need is on a company’s website, and I realized companies with a nice press kit on their website had most everything I needed to write my blog post. It took a lot of learning and time to really understand the ins and out of the PR world, and I grew fascinated with so many opportunities to make certain processes more efficient between media and publicists. So I ended up starting a small PR agency of my own, focused on startups! When that wasn’t enough, in 2020 I realized we needed an all-in-one solution to connect us in one central hub.
What is the concept behind Press Hook?
Just like we use Cision/Muck Rack for finding journalist contacts, journalists didn’t have a system to source brands, products, publicist contacts and experts for their stories. I wanted to build a digital version of HARO and combine the best of existing PR technology with a marketplace of brands and media to connect and exchange pitches. We help make sure brands and publicists don’t miss an opportunity, and create digital press kits with 1,000’s of tags, which are our “angles'' to make the brand as newsworthy as possible.
How can brand communications and PR pros best utilize Press Hook?
By signing up! All you have to do is create a profile, and you will have a nice looking digital press kit for your clients (that you can update live anytime). Make sure to check the tags, those are important in making your clients show up in results and guides. Once you’re on Press Hook, journalists can easily discover and contact you directly about a story they’re working on. They can even request a sample of a product to review, so you have all the control to manage your clients media relations for them. Our goal by creating this collective of brands, is that we can bring publicists/marketers more press opportunities to the table, so more press coverage. You can also submit press releases to be distributed to our network, increasing the eyes on your news. From a community aspect, we have PR Pro Slack Channels, Clubhouse Chats on Thursdays, Monthly Q&A Roundtables with Journalists and more that you’ll have to join to see!
Any future goals and/or plans you’re working towards with the platform?
We want to be the all-in-one solution for journalists, publicists and businesses. So there are lots of new features to come, including real-time journalist feeds, placement analytics, direct messaging and a workplace for media publishers. Our goal is to make the newscycle stronger and more reliable through dynamic, innovative technology so journalism and public relations can work more efficiently and effectively in the modern, digital age.
