Twitter Cures Disease and…and Cleans Ovens Too!!!

Admit it. At some point, in some form or another…Twitter pisses you off. I’ve been there and back.

The above headline openly mocks the effusive glee that drips from the metric ton of online chatter around this topic.

But you need to get over it. Learn to love not hate Twitter. Here’s how...

”What are you doing?” is just a prompt.
Many say they don't get on Twitter because they don’t care what people are doing. It tells me they haven’t parsed through Twitter posts. Even at 140 characters, that’s what they are -- tiny little blog posts.

Some of these posts are minutiae. Just consider Twitter a party. You’ll have several conversations at a social gathering. Some will be amazing. Some will make you realize why people cut themselves. But you’ll leave the party with some valuable information. And I’m not talking digits.

It’s the utility stupid.
Twitter will not cure disease or clean your oven. It does not posses medicinal qualities. But it is a handy utility. Allan Jenkins offers up some more Twitter pragmatism here.

Twitter takes time.
Social media does not offer instant results. Twitter gains value over time…if you participate.

Twitter is niche.
Not everyone is on Twitter. But more folks jump on daily. Your odds continue to increase that people of like mind and interest are on it.

Just consider the media, a few reporters and outlets are using Twitter in new and interesting ways.

Event coverage.
Twitter’s utility is clear during events. Twitter serves as a back channel for communication, regardless of where you’re at -- in the room or across the continent. Add Twitpic to the mix and you can even augment your posts by sending photos to your Twitter feed.

Charlotte's WCNC-TV is taking event coverage a step further. Its election coverage includes Twitter updates from each member of the news team. The TV station rolls them into one big feed on their site. With this in place, WCNC offers another level of coverage to viewers and, gasp, talk directly with them.

140 character pitches?
Andy Aldridge knows the art of the elevator speech. He was already following Jeff Elder on Twitter. So when Jeff asked for leads for his weekly column on Twitter, Andy replied on Twitter. Nearly all of the communication took place using Twitter, even fact checking of the final story that ran.

These are just a few examples of how Twitter can improve your media relations efforts. At a minimum you can learn more about reporters likes and dislikes. You could even build a stronger pitch by using Twitter to identify complementary sources for your story idea.

To be honest, it doesn’t matter to me if you use Twitter or not. I don’t get a toaster for every person I help sign up. But sooner or later, someone more important than me will wonder aloud if your key media/clients/target audiences are on Twitter. Wouldn’t you like to answer that question authoritatively? Even better, wouldn’t you like to be the first one to bring up the topic?

Inspired by Anil uploaded by heather
tags | public relations | PR | media relations | media | good pitch | bad pitch | bad pitch blog | Twitter | social media