JMPR Communication

Archive for September, 2008

Before I kick off this post, let me preface this by saying that I am not the Chris Brogan of Twitter. I have right around 160 followers. But learning how to obtain this group of followers, most of whom are strategic, has been a fun project for me. I’d like to share how I have increased my followers from 60-160 in just about 3 weeks.

Sad Tweeting:
When I first started Tweeting, I really wasn’t sure what it was all about. I, like many Twitter newbies, tweeted things like (and including):

• IKEA is the devil. But damn my room is looking good; and
  
• My parents used to turn back the clocks and then lie to us about why it was still light outside and send us to bed. I get that now.

And then I wondered, why didn’t I have 200 followers? Why didn’t anyone care about every single detail of MY amusing life?

I quickly learned that when others shared every minute detail of their day, no matter how funny they were (with the exception of Heather Armstrong of Dooce), I didn’t really care either.

Happy Tweeting:
About a month ago, I completely changed the way I was Tweeting. Anyone who is a Twitter pundit already knows these tricks, but for those who are new, maybe you will find these tips helpful.

• Listen. Spend some time just watching what people say and how they say it. Who do you admire in the Twittesphere? What kinds of posts do you appreciate? What kinds do you wish would go away? Listen and learn.
• Decide what your Twitter persona will be. What kinds of messages do you want to deliver? Will you be political? A mommy twitterer? A social media pundit? Have direction and meaning and stick with it.
• Follow, follow, follow. Don’t follow just anyone. Only follow those who inspire you, are like-minded and in a relevant industry or have relevant interests. But ALWAYS follow. Individuals who don’t follow others look like spammers. And no one likes a spammer.
• Don’t be offended if those you are following don’t follow you back. Keep following more people. Over time, as you become more relevant yourself, many of those people will follow you in return. And many won’t. Who cares?
• Start Tweeting! Tweet interesting articles that you think your readers would appreciate. “Re-Tweet” interesting things your followers have talked about that day. Be relevant to your message and try to say something people could learn from.
• Don’t forget- you are a person, and sometimes your Tweets SHOULD be whimsical. It’s finding the mix of informative and entertaining that will help you hold onto an audience.

Finding People to Follow:
I found it overwhelming at first finding people to follow. The search function under “finding people” gave me a slew of “PR” professionals, but who was really an influencer? There are a few basic tricks I have learned about following, most of which are intuitive, and some of which require a bit of research.

• Follow http://www.twitter.com/grader. I promise you won’t start with a great score. But @grader has a suggestion tool for people they believe you should follow as well as the “Top Twitter Users” list. These are the real pundits of Twitter. Follow the folks on this list that are most relevant to your industry.
• Borrow followers from your most influential friends. Seriously. Always read a page before following them, though.
• If you’re a member of Linkedin, join the Tweeple or Twitter group. You can find many relevant contacts via this avenue, but it does take a bit of research.
• Join groups that are relevant to you. Last week a great new site launched called TwitterMoms. Yes, I am a PR practitioner, but I am also a mother. I took the opportunity to sign up for this new Twitter Group and look forward to the new connections I will make with this professional bunch of moms. I mention groups because I think we will start seeing an influx of Twitter groups for all kinds of interests in the future. Jump on when you see them! Connections are on their way!
• Finally, if you live somewhere wherein there is a local Tweetup group, attend. Twitter is fun, but it’s amazing how much impact these Twitter connections have when you can place screen names to faces.

I’d love to hear from YOU. What do you think about when creating a Tweet? How do you find followers?

Day after day I am seeing tweets on my Twitter account from journalists that say things like:

• PR Pro Tip: Do NOT pitch me on Facebook, or;
• Pitching me on Facebook is an invasion of my privacy, don’t do it!

Is Facebook Private?
I am not surprised that many journalists aren’t appreciating this. I am surprised that PR professionals are slipping business pitches into a space that IMHO is “invite only” and private.

From my perspective, Facebook is a semi-private domain on the Internet. I decide who my friends are and I also decide how I utilize the tool once I’m in. Many people use Facebook as a social service, planting gardens and posting pictures to share with their friends. In my case, I utilize Facebook to catch up with old friends, share my thoughts on issues that are important to me via FriendFeed/Twitter, post my resume, share my blog, etc. For me, my Facebooking is a combination of social and business usage, and as a result, I don’t want everyone to have access.

Measuring Interest
At this point, any of the PR pros who have sent a Facebook pitch are probably thinking: Yeah, but I can send a pitch to a reporter without being their friend via the “Message Me” function. Yes, on Facebook you can pitch Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal. But do you think he’ll appreciate it?

I went on Twitter to find out. Walt Mossberg has 902 followers. He is following zero people. NONE. I don’t think it’s a leap to guess that he likes sharing what he has written with the world, but might not be as interested to hear what PR pros have to say via a social media tool.

Even with bloggers, it’s much the same. Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, for example has 25,000+ followers but only follows 480+ people.

How to Achieve Results
I understand, it’s hard to get your message out to these very influential folks. So what are PR pros to do? Follow the rules. Of each individual journalist, and pay attention to follow out what those rules are. Paying attention will lead to results.

You Decide
But nothing is definitive. I believe as much as some journalists dislike Facebook pitches, there MUST be some out there that love them, right? I have created two new groups on Facebook to find out.

Dude, don’t pitch me on Facebook!

Dude, I love being pitched on Facebook!

Journalists, bloggers, writers of all kind, please help us PR pros out! Please click on one of the pages and register. What do you think? Should Facebook pitches stay, or go away?

What happened to relationships in public relations?

The process for pitching a client’s product or service offering used to look like this:

• PR professionals would scour editorial calendars and then actually read each possibly relevant publication.
• PR professionals would then familiarize themselves with each editor they might pitch, including recent articles.
• Then, and only then, would a PR person pick up the phone. The point of this exercise was to build a relationship with the relevant editor regarding their client’s product or service offering.

The goal of this process was to position your client as the number one subject matter expert for an editor. Public relations was about trust. Relationships. Results usually followed.

Today the process is has (sadly) become about speed, numbers. Many PR professionals have placed their focus on hitting as many media outlets as possible to get their message out using high-tech spamming tools offered by MediaMap and other PR services. In the defense of PR professionals, I know these tactics work with many trade publications, but they aren’t resonating with bloggers.

In my observation, there are a few things PR professionals are doing as a rule in pitching these days:

• Sending press releases- they are available on the wire.
• Sending a scripted pitch, not specific to the publication/blog, which is obvious to the recipient.
• Sending pitches that demonstrate a lack of familiarity with either the blog/publication, the editor or both.

Todd Defran of PR Squared addresses this issue in a recent post “Bloggers: Be Proactive in Educating PR Pros.” The rules, PR gang, are really simple:

• Be brief.
• Demonstrate in your pitch that you have read the blog before.
• Look to see if the blogger accepts PR pitches, and if they do, do they have specific rules and/or requests for the pitches they receive? If you follow those, your chances of being picked up will increase greatly.

Easy, right?

There are a few rules Todd doesn’t cover, that I also think carry great importance.

• Link everything. Bloggers print everything on the Internet at lightning speed, and your news has a better chance of being picked up if you can provide them with a link. This means you have to have your links ready to go in your press room.
• Be transparent. Bloggers can read through all of your PR spin BS. So don’t have any.
• Be available to the Blogger.

While we don’t pick up the phone and call editors as much these days, I do believe bloggers are asking us to take steps back and focus on relationships again. If the news is relevant, a Blogger will print it. If it’s not, they won’t. Read their news, focus on relevancy and keep your focus on being the subject matter expert just like you did in the “old days” and you’ll have results.