Bulldog Media Group
Here at Synapse, we love hearing success stories from our users. Georgia O’Brien-Perry, Digital PR Manager at Bulldog Digital Media, was sceptical at first. After all, the PR industry is flooded with new tools promising to “shake things up”. But Synapse proved itself by helping her secure over 110 backlinks, including a viral campaign that scored 105 high-quality links.
We break down how she did it.
Want Results Like Georgia’s?
Her story highlights how Synapse’s ‘set it and forget it’ approach allows PR professionals to achieve impressive results. From landing viral campaigns to keeping outreach efficient, Synapse proves its value time. If you’re ready to streamline your PR outreach and achieve similar results, Synapse can help you do just that. Join now and start making your pitches count.
Q & A
What was your first impression of Synapse?
“I was honestly a little bit sceptical. There seems to be a constant stream of people ‘shaking up’ the PR industry lately and saying they have ‘solutions’, but so many are either prohibitively expensive, or just repackaging solutions that are already out there. However, once I logged on I realised it had a bit more potential than a lot of the other options out there. Synapse is clearly still in its infancy, but already it has proven a much better, genuinely valuable resource than other options, and I’m glad to have it in my toolkit!”
What success have you had with Synapse?
So some have been published without the pitches being accepted, but we’ve had great success overall, nabbing 110+ links, including a viral campaign that got 105 links alone. Viral Campaign: 105 links with an average of DR60, DA57 and 3.3m traffic for a niche property finance client. Sites include: MSN, Yahoo, Bury Times, Basingstoke Gazette, Wimbledon Guardian etc. For a boiler installation client, we’ve gained around 5 links across big sites like The Daily Express.
How did it feel using Synapse to pitch instead of email?
While there is an element of waiting around with Synapse, I quite like the fact that I can upload something and ‘set it and forget it’. Outreach takes up quite a lot of my time, especially if I need to adjust and resend out an old campaign with a new media list. Being able to pop content on Synapse means I constantly have potential opportunities available as long as my content is live on the marketplace. This saves me valuable time per link, which is important in the fast-moving sector of PR!
Propellernet
Initially unsure of exactly what Synapse could do for him and his team, Richard Paul, Creative Director (PR) at Propellernet, started using Synapse to see how our journalist request feature could help.
Building Nationwide Media Connections for Brighton-based PR Agency, Propellernet
What started as a brief trial, Richard quickly saw how journalist requests on Synapse could help him secure quick wins for clients and how the personable nature of the platform helps build better relationships.
Q & A
Q: What was your first impression of Synapse or your expectations of the platform?
To be honest, I didn’t know what to expect, as I signed up to respond to an existing request that a colleague had shared with me, but my first impressions were that Synapse was really easy and intuitive to use, navigate, and reach out to the journalist. It felt a lot more personal than email communication as I was essentially instant messaging a journalist about a story which was great!
Q: How do you and your colleagues use Synapse? Is it part of your team meetings, do you use it as an individual, etc?
Currently, we tend to use Synapse within client teams to monitor for relevant journalist requests, as well as posting stories on odd occasions. Largely, however, we use this for the journalist request element of the platform.
Q: What success have you had with Synapse? Can you tell us about the results i.e. number of pieces of coverage, and articles produced?
In terms of me personally, I’ve just had the one piece of coverage, but I think that speaks volumes in that the first time I used it, it resulted in coverage and a positive outcome. So a 100% success rate so far. It felt very easy to reach out, discuss the story/what my client could offer to the journalist, and from that, get the coverage we were aiming for.
Q: Would you recommend Synapse to a colleague and why?
I would recommend Synapse to a colleague, mainly for how it can add even more opportunities for gaining coverage and building relationships with journalists. As I say, it felt a lot more personal than email comms can feel, and the feedback was a lot more instant than it can be too. So I would definitely recommend it as another tool in a PR’s arsenal!
idhl Group
Global PR agency idhl Group started using Synapse in October 2023, an initiative that was spearheaded by Cherly Crossley, Head of PR.
Enabling efficient regional media coverage for idhl Group, a global PR agency
What started as a brief trial to see what journalists were using Synapse, quickly turned into a time-saving tool that helped Cherly build relationships with journalists and ultimately achieve national and regional coverage, without the need for multiple follow ups. Her honest feedback is below.
Q & A
Q: Cheryl, please tell us about your first impressions of Synapse, having used it for a few weeks now.
Synapse has a clear, logical layout that seems to have been ultimately designed to make it quick for releases to be shared and easy for press to find what they want. I love that it’s currently free too and it’s not just a short trial. There seems to be a decent number of journalists on there, but I would be keen to see this increase for some titles (outside of Reach and National World) for us to move the majority of our pitching to this in future.
Q: How did you find the process of uploading a pitch?
It’s very quick and easy. Takes less than five minutes 😊
Q: Have you had any pitch feedback from journalists on Synapse?
I’ve had a couple of pitches accepted and that’s helped kick-start conversations about what else they’d like in future which is really useful.
Q: Has Synapse helped you communicate with journalists more easily and avoid unnecessary back and forth?
For a few releases it has meant we’ve not felt the need to do big rounds of follow ups as if we can see someone plans to use it then there really is no need to send it over again!
Q: Have you had coverage via Synapse and what were the results?
We had coverage from Reach regionals and the Mirror with a piece we uploaded about how much it costs to use an air fryer, oven, microwave, etc. We had coverage for a few different pet stories on all the Newsquest sites too. We’re expecting a piece to go live on Newsquest sites soon too about how to care for knitwear.
Q: How did using Synapse feel compared to using email to correspond? Do you feel it has helped build the beginnings of relationships or strengthen existing relationships with journalists?
For existing relationships we’ve got, we’ve asked if they’d prefer to receive pitches this way and a couple have said yes. The fact we’re able to provide them stories in a format they welcome is helpful.
Q: Do you feel Synapse is something you’ll use in the future and what does it add to the PR/journalist dynamic, having used it and got some results?
Yes, I’d like to think so. As I said, for us to invest in it as a tool long-term we’d need it to essentially replace our current media database and it’s not there yet. I’ve chatted to a few PRs at other agencies about it and suggested they give it a go.
