Media relations on Twitter

To tweet or not to tweet with journos? This is the question…



People use Twitter no matter the age, profession, gender. The micro-blogging platform has brought both journalists and PR pros together, while offering the latter the opportunity to do media relations in real time. How come? Well, press releases, interviews, pitches and press conferences can be held on Twitter.


THE TWEET RELEASE

The tweet release is a short press release that only contains the lead - who, what, when, where, why.
Examples of such releases (below) were posted by Cristian Manafu, top blogger in Romania. He calls them “news in 140 characters” (I find the name quite appropriate:)):
• Microsoft organizes a series of workshops in March;
• The forum on Tourette has been lunched;
• Ericsson lunches a competition for students interested in developing applications.


THE TWINTERVIEW

A twinterview is an interview held on Twitter. The advantage of such approach is that journalists get the answers they need in real time (compared to an email interview for example). Moreover, it is time saving because journos do not have to commute to a certain venue (like in the case of face-to-face interviews). The real time issue also applies in case of the readers (followers) who read the ongoing interview.

Check out the first and the second twinterview in the UK.


THE TWITPITCH

Pitching stories on Twitter seems to be more efficient from journalists’ point of view (as Jeremy Porter wrote) because:
• It forces PR pros to go straight to the point because of the 140-character limit;
• It allows PR people to learn what a journalist is interested in writing about by following the journo on Twitter, thus eliminating “spam”.


THE TWEET CONFERENCE

Tweet conferences gather journos and company officials on Twitter and have similar advantages as twinterviewes.


I would say: TWEET. But be cautious, learn how to use Twitter, make sure you follow the right journos and send them appropriate (newsworthy, attractive etc) tweets.

You might be also interested in reading about @MicroPR :)

Online customer and media relations

Online media provides opportunities for managing relations with various stakeholders, from customers and the media (the most common perhaps) to suppliers and authorities.

Social media is a great way to keep in touch with clients. As Clare wrote, Facebook and Twitter offer chances for airlines (and not only) to hear from customers. They facilitate two-way communication (so much desired in theory but not so much applied in practice, until now) instead of one-way flow. Whereas newsletters were a widespread practice to keep clients updated on news and special offers without receiving any feedback, with tweets customers can now learn about news and sales while also expressing their views on the subject.

British Airways uses online media for both client and media relations. The airline has two Twitter accounts to communicate with customers (one for the US and one for the UK), with over 35,000 followers (not a very high number but still). I will however not describe BA’s social media efforts but rather focus on their online media relations, particularly in Romania. Sending press releases, handling media inquiries and managing interviews via e-mail are part of the day-to-day job of any PR professional. But online press conferences are not…

British Airways was the first airline (and company) in Romania to organize an online press conference. Such approaches are not so unusual now, but they used to be in 2007. I find the concept appropriate given the fact that the press conference was announcing the launch of the ba.com portal in Romania.



The conference

The BA online conference had the parts of any regular press meeting: welcome message, CEO speech and Q&A session. The venue was however virtual. Instead of registering at the welcome desk, journalists received a user name and a password in order to log onto the portal especially created for the event. It comes as no surprise that the media kit was available in electronic format.

The results

It generated important coverage, reading on both the launch of the ba.com website and the online conference itself. Journalists were enthusiastic about the idea and considered it was an original one. According to them the online conference was time saving. It was also a great opportunity for media representatives to participate at the event, as it would have been otherwise impossible because of the busy schedule.

As technology is evolving, stakeholders relations are changing too. We have learned few of the benefits online media brings in the relation with the customers and the media. By mixing some elements of social media and online media relations we get a new type of press conference. I will write about it in a future post. Clue: it is blue :)

Picture: Qsrmagazine