View all case studies Active Minds

About Active Minds

Active Minds is the nation’s leading nonprofit organization supporting mental health awareness and education for young adults. Active Minds has a presence on over 800 college, university, and high school campuses nationwide, and is powered by a robust Chapter Network, the nationally acclaimed Send Silence Packing® exhibit, and inspiring Active Minds Speakers. The organization is dedicated to ending the silence and changing the conversation about mental health for everyone.

In Their Own Words: Active Minds’ Favorite Muck Rack Features

Media Research and Lists

One of my favorite features within Muck Rack is the search functionality. I can type in “mental health” or “college students” to run a more broad search, or seek out something more niche to find journalists covering a specific topic.

I love being able to see a reporter’s contact preferences right within their Muck Rack profile. When you’re reaching out to a journalist for the first time, it’s really handy to know upfront how they prefer to be reached.

This past spring, we conducted one of our largest surveys to-date. We collected over 3,000 responses from young adults and students across the country and had some pretty big findings on how young adults were doing with their mental health during the pandemic.

I sent it out to journalists I was already familiar with, but also conducted research to find new journalists I probably never would have heard of without Muck Rack. The story ended up getting picked up all across the country in different outlets, including some large publications like The New York Times. It was great!

And it’s still getting picked up. Not only did the important information get out, but it helped us to foster strong media relationships we wouldn’t have without Muck Rack.

As a follow-up, we did a survey in the fall to check in with students and see how they were doing eight months into quarantine. We saw widespread success with that survey pitch as well, getting great pickup in different news outlets. One huge win for us was a piece we did with Scripps Media. When they saw our results, they decided to do a dedicated news story on Active Minds utilizing our data, and even interviewed our founder.

I’ve aggregated a wide variety of media lists within Muck Rack. Some are more largescale, such as anyone who has covered mental health within the last year. Those are great for big releases we need to get out there, like when we release our survey results.

I also have smaller, more targeted lists for morning shows, podcasts, publications with a teen focus, or reporters who have covered topics like Suicide Prevention Month or Mental Health Awareness Month.

Being able to combine lists right within Muck Rack is a huge timesaver too. Back when all of my media lists were in a spreadsheet, doing something like that was a huge pain, and the information was always out of date.

In-Platform Pitching

You never want to be one of those horror stories about a PR manager who sent out a mass email and addressed it to the wrong person. Muck Rack takes all of that fear and guesswork away.

With Muck Rack, everything is fully integrated together. It’s super easy to personalize emails, and it gives you the confidence that what you’re sending out to a reporter is correct and folks are likely to open it. You can even easily send a test email just to be sure.

I love being able to send out follow-up emails in bulk through Muck Rack. I start by splitting the journalists into two categories: those who have opened and clicked, and those who didn’t touch the email. Then I’ll tailor my outreach accordingly.

In that same vein, if you see that almost no one opened your email, you can ask yourself “why?” and try to adjust.

Muck Rack Alerts

I receive a Muck Rack Alert every day for any mentions of Active Minds. What I really like about Muck Rack Alerts, compared to another service like Google Alerts, is that it picks up a lot more relevant hits.

I previously only used Google Alerts until I realized how much more accurate Muck Rack Alerts are. They pick up a lot more television and radio hits too, which I really appreciate.

Fast Questions with Amanda Horn

1. In addition to results, what other benefits have you experienced from Muck Rack?

The biggest added benefit to Muck Rack is timesaving. Before Muck Rack, I was only on the job for a couple months, but I’d spend hours upon hours combing through websites and Google searches trying to find email addresses and phone numbers for reporters. It was a huge timesuck. With Muck Rack, I can spend more time personalizing my outreach and focusing on finding the best journalists, making my outreach much more efficient.

2. How would you describe your team’s experience and workflow on Muck Rack in three words?

Fast, efficient, easy

3. What would your job be like if you didn’t have Muck Rack?

Everything would be a lot harder! Muck Rack has truly made my job easier. You still have to make sure you are contacting the right people, but the database is so helpful, especially with COVID-19 and the resulting shutdowns. Normally, I’d be at in-person events, making connections and having face-to-face interactions with reporters. We can’t do that now, so having a service like Muck Rack where I can make those connections is super helpful.

4. What would you tell other companies considering using Muck Rack?

Do it! It’s a great investment for teams of any size, but especially useful for a small team like you might see at nonprofits and associations.

5. If you had to explain how your team works on Muck Rack to someone in a tweet, what would you say?

Muck Rack connects me with journalists & outlets that we previously did not have relationships with. We have been able to connect students & experts to journalists across different beats to tell their stories & share their expertise to new & wider audiences through the platform.