My news radar has been tuned to “Twitter + PR” for awhile now, so I guess it is time that I shared my latest thoughts about the service.
Initially I was very skeptical about it. Twitter seemed like just one more distraction, one more information channel to feed and another social network to master. Do people really care what I am doing or thinking from moment to moment? And do we need more noise, I wondered?
Anyway, I have since reconsidered. What led to the turnabout?
I have to admit, peer pressure played a large role. When something gets a lot of buzz, you want to better understand it before dismissing it out of hand.
As a PR person, though, what clinched it for me was the cajoling of my sister-in-law’s brother Tony, a Web 2.0 entrepreneur who got coverage for his company on TechCrunch through Twitter.
When I asked him how he did this, he told me that it was really pretty simple.
Tony followed the TechCrunch writer on Twitter and at some point discovered that they had mutual leisure-time interests, which led to Tony reaching out, a dialog and eventual coverage.
As I said in one of my posts on multi-channel engagement:
…multiple channels mean many different ways to
engage. Collectively, the various communications and social media
channels surround people. They lend context and tone to
communications. The more channels you can master, and the more you
participate in the various channels, the more your communications can
be on target and in context.
Frequently, multiple channels can work
together … When done right,
your approach is not considered something to be
avoided, or even pitching, but becomes part of the conversation.
Twitter represents one such channel that is becoming increasingly important. And, as I also blogged previously, some are encouraging the use of Twitter as a preferred channel for delivering pitches.
This also led me to wonder about whether there is a directory of journalists on Twitter. I searched a bit and found this site called Media People Using Twitter, started by The Creative Team, a PR shop out of North Carolina. It is a Wiki, so people can ostensibly add to it.
Not a tremendous list, but those in tech PR should recognize some very respected tech journo names.
For those just getting started on Twitter, there are many resources out there. I found much of it not to be very helpful, including this video which is cute but very high level. This one page I found on PCMech.com (Twitter: The User Manual You Can’t Find) offers some excellent and easy-to-follow tips.
But there is no substitute for just jumping in, it is easy enough to get started. I have by no means mastered it but am working at becoming a more prolific Twitterer or Tweeter or whatever. If you want to follow me and keep me honest at this, please do so by clicking here.
