TrustRadius Insights
HARO, or Help a Reporter Out, is widely used by professionals across various industries for its valuable features and benefits. Users turn …
Overview
What is Help a Reporter Out (HARO)?
Help a Reporter Out (HARO) is a service owned by Cision (via the merger with Vocus) for reaching out to journalists.
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What is Help a Reporter Out (HARO)?
Help a Reporter Out (HARO) is a service owned by Cision (via the merger with Vocus) for reaching out to journalists.
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- No setup fee
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- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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Alternatives Pricing
What is Muck Rack?
Muck Rack is a public relations offering from Sawhorse Media.
Product Details
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What is Help a Reporter Out (HARO)?
Help a Reporter Out (HARO) Technical Details
| Operating Systems | Unspecified |
|---|---|
| Mobile Application | No |
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Reviews and Ratings
(19)
Community Insights
TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!
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HARO, or Help a Reporter Out, is widely used by professionals across various industries for its valuable features and benefits. Users turn to HARO to find great sources and reach successful people who can provide intelligent comments for their stories. The platform is especially popular among journalists and writers who use it to discover PR opportunities and monitor trending media topics. With its email format and straightforward structure, HARO makes it easy for users to reply and generate excellent stories and media exposure opportunities. This simplicity has earned it high recommendations from many users who rely on HARO almost daily to spread the word about brands and startups. Startups specifically find value in using HARO as an alternative to investing in a PR agency, as it allows them to find media appearance opportunities and gain brand awareness and exposure. Freelance writers and editors also benefit significantly from HARO, as it helps them find qualified sources across various industries and obtain specific information for their assignments. Overall, HARO's versatility and efficiency make it an invaluable tool for professionals seeking media coverage opportunities, insightful comments, and targeted industry information. Whether you're in PR, journalism, research, or simply looking to enhance your brand's visibility, HARO provides a reliable platform that streamlines communication with relevant sources and amplifies exposure efforts.
Helpful in connecting journalists with renowned experts: Users have found the product helpful in connecting journalists with renowned experts, providing access to people who are looking for media coverage.
Pushes PR opportunities directly to the user's desktop: Reviewers appreciate that the product pushes public relations opportunities directly to their desktop multiple times a day, offering media opportunities for various industries and topics.
Easy way to contact reporters with relevant information: The product offers an easy way for users to contact reporters with relevant information. Several reviewers have mentioned that they appreciate this feature and find it convenient for their PR efforts. The product also provides insight into what reporters are interested in discussing and gives visibility into the process of story creation, helping users stay updated with industry conversations and establish relationships between their organization and reporters.
Outdated User Experience: A significant number of users have expressed dissatisfaction with the old-fashioned user experience and appearance of the product. They suggest that it needs to be updated to meet modern design standards, which would greatly enhance their overall satisfaction with the product.
Lack of Feedback from Journalists: Many users have mentioned experiencing a lack of feedback and responses from journalists when using the product's services. This has resulted in frustration for these users, as they value clear communication and engagement between themselves and reporters.
Overwhelming HARO Emails: Numerous users have reported feeling overwhelmed by the frequency of emails received through HARO, also known as Help a Reporter Out. These users suggest implementing a new strategy for organizing queries to ensure they can manage them more effectively, improving their overall experience with the platform.
Based on user reviews, here are the top recommendations for HARO:
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Set aside time each day to review HARO offerings. Users have found it valuable to dedicate regular time to review the opportunities provided by HARO.
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Subscribe to the daily emails and consider opting for an industry-specific HARO email. Many users recommend getting the daily emails as it helps them stay updated and also suggest using industry-specific emails for more relevant opportunities.
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Have a strategy in place for effective outreach to reporters. Users advise having a well-thought-out strategy when reaching out to reporters in order to maximize the chances of success.
Additionally, some users have recommended other strategies such as tightening up the media outlet list, doing research before sending samples, filtering results based on clients' needs, and splitting HAROs between two-three people to cover different editions. Overall, HARO is considered a valuable tool for public relations professionals looking for story opportunities and media coverage.
Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(1-5 of 5)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
July 28, 2021
Quickest way to get press
I use HARO not only to find PR opportunities for myself, my clients, and students, but also to monitor trending media topics and to gain media insight. It's by far the quickest and easiest way to get PR.
- Pushes PR opportunities right to your desktop several times a day
- Provides media opportunities for just about every industry and if you monitor it regularly, on just about every topic you can think of
- Provides an easy way to contact reporters with relevant information
- Media outlets are verified for you
- It would be great if there was a way of knowing if a reporter had read your email, so the user would have immediate feedback on the types of pitches that are successful, or not.
- Provides a steady stream of media opportunities
- I average about an 80% success rate for my pitches via HARO. Time very well spent. And since there is no cost, excellent ROI.
- Easy to set up push notifications
- Easy system for responding to relevant reporter queries via the provided email
- In order to get good results from HARO, you need to know best PR practices, and stick to exactly what reporters are asking for.
January 14, 2019
Excellent resource to connect experts to reporters
I use HARO daily. From checking to see what reporters and outlets are planning to work on, to connecting experts from my non-profit to reporters, Help a Reporter Out is perhaps the best way to stay ahead of the media cycle.
With its easy to use email format and straightforward structure to reply, the service is easy and results in excellent stories as well as great opportunities for our organization to gain media exposure by helping reporters when they need a specific quote.
I highly recommend signing up and tracking this service.
With its easy to use email format and straightforward structure to reply, the service is easy and results in excellent stories as well as great opportunities for our organization to gain media exposure by helping reporters when they need a specific quote.
I highly recommend signing up and tracking this service.
- Connects reporters to experts
- Allows organization to gain media exposure by helping reporters with specific requests and questions
- Updates regularly, with three daily emails
- Establishes relationships between members of your organization and reporters
- Make the emails easier to navigate and more friendly to different email servers
- Allow for forwarding and direct emails, even when someone hasn't signed up for the service
- Excellent media coverage
- Connections and relationships with new reporters and outlets
- Excellent way to stay ahead of the news cycle and be the first to comment
I honestly can't think of any other service similar to HARO that can compare to its excellent structure and success rate.
June 28, 2018
I landed an AP piece using HARO!
I use HARO almost every day looking for opportunities to spread the word about brands in my portfolio. One brand, SD Strong Distilling, is a true startup and working very hard to get the word out. With HARO I know I am contacting people who are looking for content that will be published quickly.
- Clear concise format
- Gives user tips for achieving the best results
- Love the 3 times per day..keeps my creative energy working.
- When someone responds to my inquiry, it would be helpful to have the original query from the reporter included. As I am working several brands at one time, this would help keep everything clear and concise.
- A hard thing to measure in terms of actual sales dollars, however, being able to provide fresh content is essential to any brand. When someone mentions they saw the published piece or it grows organically from social media, that is a win.
Goes hand in hand with this product. Easy cross-reference for users.
I often use HARO to find great sources for the stories I'm working on. Almost everyone at Authority Magazine uses it as well. HARO makes it really easy to reach successful people who can comment intelligently on a story we are working on. I would say that a good deal of the success of Authority comes from my experience with HARO.
- Helps journalists like me connect with renowned experts
- It helps people looking for media coverage to connect with journalists
- It helps to democratize the media - without HARO the media would only be accessed by people who have the keys to the gatekeepers
- I think it is really great. The user experience and appearance seems a bit old fashioned, but it works
- The ROI is incredible- it costs nothing and I have only gained both financially and professionally
Cision
Muckracker
The others are good, but they are very expensive.
Muckracker
The others are good, but they are very expensive.
We use Help a Reporter Out particularly in the Communications department as a tool to find media coverage opportunities separate from our standard pitching to local and national media. When I first started working here it was just an extra resource I would check daily to see if there was ever a need by a journalist for something that we could provide insight on if it was specific to our industry/business.
- It does a great job at staying in touch with users. You receive a daily email with categories that apply to you as well as a separate weekly emails with all categories of queries.
- The way they organize their emails makes it quick and easy to get right to the section that pertains to you. When you click the links they scroll down to the appropriate section for you.
- It's very user-friendly. A very simple layout which makes the process straight and to the point. No complex or complicated interface.
- I've noticed that some queries are incredibly vague to the point where they could or could not apply to me. I feel like they should implement more strict parameters on what the query has to include.
- Sometimes the outlet is marked anonymous which is not beneficial at all to those who are browsing queries. I think the outlet should be required as that is a pretty essential piece of information to consider.
- I think they email slightly too often. My inbox gets flooded with HARO emails and I'm not able to go through all of them because they get buried. Maybe explore a new strategy to organize the huge amount of queries that get submitted every day.
- It has allowed us to leverage certain media coverage opportunities that we wouldn't have had otherwise.
- It's free so its benefits definitely outweigh the cost. It's a great resource considering it costs nothing.
- Some of the coverage we have received using HARO has allowed us to build rapports with journalists we wouldn't have without making the connection through HARO.
These products I mentioned are a little different because they are used by more mainstream journalists which is a huge advantage. PR Newswire is email-based product similarly to HARO but Cision is a huge database of media contact information which is great if you want to take the initiative to find something on your own. HARO is great because it goes the extra step in connecting both parties based on a common idea. It's similar to PR Newswire but the fact that it's free makes it a great resource for anyone.