The Propel 100: The Most Influential Tech PR Professionals in the World 2021
The Propel 100 lists highlight influential PR people in many different fashions. As a team that prides itself in revolutionizing PR, we made it our mission to research and celebrate other PR pros that are successfully standing out in the field and leading the conversation today.
Welcome to the next Propel 100… tech edition! This quarter, we’re celebrating the influence of 100 PR pros that are making waves in both the tech PR and PR tech industry. Wait… What?
Yes. We’re further bridging the gap between tech and PR. While some individuals on this list may be influencers in the PR tech industry, building tools that aid the PR workflow, like Propel PRM, you’ll also find many influencers from the agency side of things.
The key ingredient that all these pros have in common? #PRMeasurement. Whether it be an agency CTO or a SaaS leader, these pros are changing public relations for the better, making data and measurement an integral part of the craft.
Our methodology
Beyond a starting point of candidates’ professional experience relating to tech and PR, we analyzed a series of quantitative metrics to build this list.
We look closely at metrics relating to Twitter presence when searching for any Propel 100 candidate. This includes:
- Audience – Total audience size and audience size specific to the PR industry (we determined the PR-specific audience by including users that stated they work in the PR industry within their bio).
- Relevance - Number of times that they tweet on topics that pertain to the PR industry.
- Engagement - Average engagement rate per post (i.e., likes, comments, retweets, quote retweets etc.).
We uniquely considered Linkedin metrics for this list, as “Information Technology and Services” proved the largest industry presence on this platform for 2020 and 2021. We considered:
- Audience – Total audience size and audience size specific to the PR industry (we determined the PR-specific audience by including users that stated they work in the PR industry within their bio).
- Relevance - Number of times that they post about topics that pertain to the PR industry.
- Engagement - Average engagement rate per post (i.e., likes, comments, shares etc.).
- Experience - Number of years of professional experience related to tech PR and/or PR tech.
For these influencers, we made sure to evaluate quantity and quality. This brings us to… qualitative analysis.
We guide our qualitative analysis by feedback we solicit from various industry experts about what exactly, beyond numbers, makes someone influential in the tech PR and/or PR tech space.
This includes people like Darryl Sparey, MD of HardNumbers and Propel Advisory Board Member. Sparey played an important role in helping us make sure that our Propel 100 lists continue to account for the qualities of influential members of the PR space.
"I know there have been issues raised with some recent ‘top influencer’ lists that other companies have compiled in the PR space,” Sparey said. “That's why I've been impressed with the rigorous approach that Propel has taken to try and compile this list. They've looked at the ‘real world’ achievements of many of the cohort here. They’ve interviewed a number of those on this list to bring their analysis beyond metrics that can be derived from social listening alone. I know they've made extra efforts to try and include a more diverse range of people on this list, and look at people who have genuine influence in the PR space. And I'm delighted that despite all of that effort and rigor, I still somehow managed to make the list."
Zeno Group’s Global Head of Analytics Michael Brito shared examples of qualities that are closely connected to “true influence” in the industry, which further expand on Sparey’s feedback.
“When I look at the tech PR landscape,” Brito said, “there are influencers who share a lot of content and have high follower counts. But true influence is more than just sharing other people's content and growing a community. It involves coming to the table with unique thoughts and ideas based on experience. It's thought leadership that can move an industry forward so that innovation can occur.”
And a major component of our research methodology is focused on diversity…
Diversity
As always, diversity is a guiding principle in arriving at this final list. ‘Diversity & Inclusion’ is one of four core company values at Propel and runs in its DNA, so we hope it is reflected well here.
So, variety is a huge consideration in compiling our Propel 100’s. This means ensuring that those on our final list come from many different backgrounds.
We had the opportunity to gain insight and resources from the Propel diversity and inclusion board that helped make this happen. This board currently includes PR award winners and entrepreneurs:
- Candice N. Mackel, Owner of Candice Nicole Public Relations and Public Relations Lead at We Are Rosie
- Dana Kaye, Founder of Kaye Publicity
- Tanisha Colon-Bibb, Founder of Rebelle Agency
- Zach Cutler, Co-Founder and CEO at Propel.
Insights from our list
What are the qualities of an influential tech PR person? Our list holds many insightful revelations about what it takes to be an influential member of the space today, based on the set of metrics we observed.
Followers
As you might expect, the average follower count for these PR pros is relatively high (5,041). However, the list includes quite a range. One of the larger follower bases from the list is over 80,000, for example.
Followers-to-Following Ratio
The average follower-to-following ratio is 8:1. If you remember the last Propel 100 list, this ratio is slightly greater. Previously, we highlighted influential PR agencies, which had an average ratio of 7:1.
Twitter Experience
These PR people have put in their social media time. The average years of Twitter experience among these individuals is 12 years. And the majority of those on the list had between 12 and 13 years of experience. Again, we found quite a range, so it’s never too late to begin building your online presence! The minimum is two years, and the maximum is 15.
Number of Tweets
This Propel 100 list brought another example of the need for quantity and quality when building a strong social media presence. The average number of tweets per user is 14,000. Shashi Bellamkonda, VP of Marketing at Leap, has the highest number of tweets with over 210,000 since joining in 2007.
Location
Nearly half of those on this list are based in the United States. Approximately 35 are based in the United Kingdom. From here, we included a handful of individuals from additional parts of Europe, from Australia, South Africa, Canada and more.
Bio
Social media bios are always a great first step in learning more about how people frame their online presence. The majority of those named in this Propel 100 include mentions of subjects related to their professional experience, using phrases like “PR measurement practitioner,” “B2B tech,” “measurement specialist,” etc.
The Propel 100
