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Using Twitter to pitch the media

Guest post by: Bonnie Harris

Article Overview: Looking for another way to pitch the media your story? Here are some ways to utilize Twitter to catch a journalist's eye.

Using Twitter to pitch the media

A couple years ago I started to notice that certain writers and producers were much more comfortable engaging with me on Twitter than on the phone or via email. I’m still not sure why this is…perhaps they noticed my sarcastic sense of humor (which appears to be a requirement for a true journalist these days) or maybe they feel protected by 140 characters. (Face it, we PR’s do tend to go on and on…and on sometimes.)

Whatever the reason, we’ve been using Twitter as an effective pitching tool for the past year now. Despite the “real time” aspect to the tool, I’m warning you it’s not necessarily a fast method. However, if you invest some time you may find some huge payoffs down the road. Here are some simple steps to engaging media via Twitter.

This may seem obvious to a good PR but for the rest of you who like to send out pitches via spammy blasts it’s really important. DO YOUR RESEARCH and find the journalists on Twitter who are likely to write about the topics you pitch. There are some excellent lists: Muck Rack has a good list, or you can try the Journalistics blog (which you should read anyway) or check out JournalistTweets for the latest media convos. Wherever you find them, make sure you do your research.

Follow them. Read them. If you need to, make a separate column in TweetDeck and just read their posts for a while to see what they’re chatting about…and with whom. Follow the people they’re chatting with as well.

Once you have an idea of the types of things they talk about, engage. Don’t pitch them right away – build a relationship first. And don’t be sad if they don’t tweet you back. The media likes to “lurk” in Twitter. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been surprised by a DM from a journalist that I had no idea was reading my posts.

When it’s time… maybe you’ve just given them a few #FF or RT’s or maybe you’ve exchanged a few friendly tweets. Send them a tweet and ask if you can pitch them via email. Don’t send the pitch - just give them a quick idea of what it’s about. Something like: “I’ve got a pitch going right now on climate change…mind if I email it to you for a quick look?” You’d be surprised the reactions you get. I’ve often had the journalist tell me to pitch someone else…or even send it to the right person for me. (That’s golden!) Sometimes they say no, but tell me to keep in touch. Either way, if I take it slowly I can transfer that relationship to email and hopefully eventually to a story.

On the flip side, if you get a story or are working with a journalist or producer on something…follow them on Twitter and let them know you’ve done so. I just did a little piece with a local newsman here in Minneapolis. We had a funny little exchange on Twitter and now we’re connected.

The main thing is to take it slow. I’ve been following some network producers for nearly a year but I think it will be worth it in the end. And remember, don’t just value the journalist for the story they might do about you. Members of the media are contacts that you can use for the rest of your life. Just the engagement is worth it in the long run.

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Article Tags: pitching media on twitter, PR using social media, twitter journalists



Related Forum Posts
Re: Facebook or Twitter? - Thanks for the feedback guys! I personally started with Twitter and am now moving over to Facebook. I polled people on both my accounts and (not surprisingly) the Twitter people said Twitter and the Facebook people said Facebook! The actual order of my social media presence looks like this: 1) LinkedIn (with little success) 2) Twitter 3) YouTube 4) Facebook
Re: I thought social sites were a waste of time. How wrong I was - According to my point of view Social media sites play vital role in online promotion. You can interact with your customer and improve your services and even you can spread your business everywhere through social media sites. Now days people use social media sites to interact with their friends, family and everyone. Below are the famous Social media sites: 1. Facebook 2. Twitter 3. LinkedIn 4. Myspace 5. Google+
Re: Using Twitter To Double Your Traffic? - Great feedback guys! Trent, you've inspired me to do a post on conversion from Twitter traffic - It will be interesting to see how it compares to the other social media sites as well as direct or search engine traffic. David, the issue is that you can't control where the Twitter traffic comes from very often. If it's your own posts then you can but most of the bloggers get Twitter traffic from other people posting the blog posts or articles on Twitter which makes it difficult to track because it's not going to a specific landing page.
Re: Social Media Effectively? - Personally, I use social media to build my company brand in order to get awareness of the various franchises I work with. I am active on LinkedIn and Twitter (@DougSchadle), always posting information about the franchise opportunities I work with. I have started discussions and basically just try to get the word out there. Also, I turned one of my clients to social media as well. I work with Doctors Express, the first national urgent care franchise, expanding their franchise base. They are quickly spreading throughout the country and I told the founder to jump on to Twitter and LinkedIn as well. He just started a few weeks ago (Twitter handle @Doctors_Express) and tells me he is loving it. He is posting different medical issues he sees and is tweeting about Doctors Express. He is joining medical groups on LinkedIn and trying to connect to other doctors. So in short, I do think franchises can be very successful with social media, they just have to put in the time to do it.
Re: Twiiter an sales - Best way to use Twitter in my opinion is to use it to distribute content that helps your target market, not your sales pitch. The whole concept of social media is very simple, be social thats it !! Its not rocket science, interact with people and join the discussion, if you use social media with an outlook of how can I help people I guarentee you will get results, why ? Because the social networks are full of people ramming their services and opportunities down others throats all climbing over themselves to say their the best. Prove that your the best by caring about your prospects and you will win them over in time. A little strategy for you, please feel free to comment on this as i love to find out what others do as well, if you have a blog update it with info that your target market will find useful, this can be as simple as taking a video from Youtube but if you have got your own videos great, and putting it on your wall, then distribute that blog post to your Facebook wall, fan page or through twitter, maybe a little message like "hey Fb friends found this great video on how social media can help you boost sales" just a quick example here, then take that blog post and post it on relevant groups walls for all to see. Share cool stuff and your prospects will come to know like and trust you, we all know what happens after that!! Good luck


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