This week, I wanted to shed some light on a new tool for PR pros which released in private beta this week: BuzzStream for PR and Social Media!

I’ve had some time to test out BuzzStream, and I’ve found it very useful for managing relationships with media contacts and bloggers and keeping track of online buzz surrounding my clients.

Basically, it’s simple – when you sign up, you add two buttons to your web browser’s toolbar. When we see something you need to “BuzzMark”, you just hit the button, a window pops up, you save the info to your BuzzStream dashboard, and ta-da!

BuzzStream fills out fields such as author name, article headline, media outlet, publication date and site metrics for you. You can then add tags to authors and media outlets, save a note and select from suggested contact fields like Twitter ID and email. (Note: My only complaint is that I had to go into my media database to pull some email address info as BuzzStream didn’t have suggestions for a few journo’s email addresses – maybe one day this will evolve.)

BuzzStream also tracks your ongoing Twitter conversations (if you put your contact’s Twitter handle in their info) and email conversations (as long as you BCC your custom BuzzStream email address when emailing). Basically with BuzzStream, it’s easy to keep track of everything! And as PR pros, we know sometimes that can be quite difficult…

Overall, I think it’s a really great tool and I’m having a lot of fun testing it out in beta! As of last night, there were still some openings to be among the first to try it out! Sign up here!