Could Twitter One Day Replace Email PR Pitches? Maybe

Over the last few months as I travel the country I have noticed that lots of people in PR that I meet are giving out their Twitter IDs in lieu of their email addresses. Many feature it front and center in their email signature. There's even a site that will generate a graphical version for you, which I have embedded above.

On a related note, more of my inbound and outbound communication these days is in the form of Twitter direct messages or, sometimes, public replies. The direct messages arrive through email, but I find myself often reviewing or responding to these in one of my preferred Twitter clients - either Tweetie or TwitterGadget.

At first I despised the bacn. Now, however, I embrace it. What's more, I have come to see the benefits of direct messages and its potential for PR. It has me wondering: can direct message pitches become an accepted practice that journalists can live with? There is upside for them.

For starters, just like with RSS, journalists are in complete control of the relationship. A PR pro can't direct message a reporter unless he/she is following. This means we have to earn our way on to a reporter's screen by providing valuable content, which many of us but not all of us do. Robert Scoble alluded to this in his recent note to PR pros. 

The key benefit here is that a journalist can always un-follow any PR professional who abuses the relationship. Still, with spam weaving its way into Twitter though replies, it threatens to put the whole kibosh on the plaform's potential for media relations (I am drawing a distinction here from direct to audience engagement via Twitter, which is very different).

Second, for the journalists and bloggers that do encourage PR pros to pitch them via Twitter they can streamline the process by keeping missives down to 140 characters. That's less than the three sentence format some are embracing. It ensures people make their point quickly. This makes it more mobile friendly too.

Now some pitches could be public tweets, others will have to be private direct messages depending on their nature. And of course Twitter will never replace email pitching entirely. 

Despite all the growth and hype, Twitter is still small. Pre-Oprah, Harris Interactive found that in the US, even among the ever-wired 18-34-year-olds, only 8% of those surveyed said they use Twitter. Other demographics break out down as follows: 35-44 (7%), 45-54 (4%) and 55+ (1%). Net, email is ubiquitous, Twitter aint. 

Nevertheless, more journalists are using Twitter. So this makes it increasingly attractive to PR professionals. It also makes it essential that we behave ourselves. A few bad eggs will kill this fast.

What's your view? PR pros, have you built relationships with reporters and/or enhanced them using Twitter? Journalists, I am sure you're worried about any such trend, particularly since many of you use Twitter for both personal and professional communications purposes. Weigh in with a comment below or reply to me on Twitter @steverubel. If there are interesting responses, I will round them up in a subsequent post.

Comments

[Scott Bourne]

Oh how I WISH that all the pitches I received would be 140 characters or less. That means I wouldn't have to weed through two paragraphs of useless self-promotional boilerplate language to find out if there's actual news I can use.

And it ALSO means my pet peeve "best in class" would probably NOT appear in the pitch.

I read 100 news releases around the time of the Photo Marketing Association trade show earlier this year. About 10% of them contained something I could use. Another 20% were so bad that to this day I have no idea what business the company was in let alone why it mattered relevant to PMA.

The old saying "Who, What, When, Where" is all I need to know if my audience is interested and that could (and in my case SHOULD) be delivered via Twitter. Thanks for starting this discussion.

[Alex Iskold]

Not sure about 140 characters for the whole thing, but 140 characters + link should probably be enough.

I've done my share of pitching and have been pitched to a lot, and I have to say that short pitches do by far better than long ones.

Traditional PR pitch is long, very detailed and lets face it, never read by anyone. On the other hand, something short, direct and to the point has a chance to get your attention.

[Bob Gilbreath]

You've nailed the key reasons why Twitter is replacing email: (1) we are bombarded with so much information that 140 characters is a "rule" that helps us all; and (2) there is a built-in anti-spam element.

Overall, it seems like there is a new formula for any type of outreach: Start with a Tweet which ends with a link - if your message is good enough, people will follow the link and learn more. If they like the link, they might agree to a meeting.

It actually is a system that works pretty well, and there are other information shortcuts like the number of followers, and recent tweets, which helps the pitch receiver make a decision of whether or not to trust/value the sender.

The challenge is that PR professionals (and everyone who is selling something) must master the art of composing a compelling 140 character message. The best at this are already used to putting a message in a form that each individual target prefers to see. Twitter takes a little practice but is doable. I personally like the fact that the 140 character limit means you have to be a real person, rather than rely on paragraphs of perfected copy. Meanwhile, the mass emailers and poor pitchers will get snuffed out even earlier.

[Tom Cummings]

Email still has, what, 1000x the userbase of twitter? I can't see it being supplanted for a long, long time. Of course, as more and more people start using twitter, you'll have the same issues as you do with email now: spam, poor pitches, filtering through the mess, organizing contacts, etc, etc.

What I love about twitter is that the 140 character limit forces you to quickly get to the point. Maybe the most realistic hope is that we see that simple practice carry over to other mediums.

[WebTechMan]

Steve,

I liked a lot of your ideas we talked about when I met you in DC.Thanks for creating a great discussion point about email.I have made a few posts on my blog & twitter about Social Media replacing email. I have been following Luis Suarez (IBM) and his Kill email before email kills you campaign ever since his presentation at EU Web 2.0 Expo. I am committed to social media and use email less. #emailless

Thanks for Sharing,Daniel

[George Dearing]

Not to be the dissenter, but as I said on Friendfeed, by the time most PR folks get comfortable with the nuances of Twitpitches -- we'll most likely be talking about something else.

[Jeremy Toeman]

Twitter will only replace email for a small amount of people for a small amount of time. The "email inbox is full" argument doesn't hold up, as the same will become true of the "twitter inbox". Further, as a 1-to-1 messaging tool, it's really terrible. Lastly, it doesn't behoove *anyone* involved, neither the PR rep, the company whose products are being repped, nor the journalist, to restrict communications to an arbitrary length.

[Stuart Foster]

I definitely think that the chance exists. However, I see 140 character pitches as more of an intro rather then a straight pitch. I suppose you could pitch someone via Twitter if you had a pre-existing relationship, but otherwise I feel like the message would be to incomplete to inspire any real action.

[contact]

I do think that Twitter will replace emails, but in a longer period of time. The advantages you've stated will be harder to recognize by many people, let's call them, "conservators".

[vojtech]

I use twitter a little differently. Instead of pitching using twitter, I use it to make my email pitches a little more personal and sometimes respond via email to a tweet that a journalist posted. It has worked for me and I got some very positive responses to pitches that reference a tweet.

Journalists that I spoke with about pitching using twitter did not like the idea too much. They prefer to keep email to pitches and twitter free of pitches. As with everything it is a matter of preference and it is our job to know what each journalist prefers. There is no one rule for all.

[Mika Yehezkeli]

Elaborating on my short response (@yehezkeli) from yesterday:

I do think there is a big change in progress. The email/twitter approach to journalists debate is more of a symptom of that but it's not the main event.

If you haven't engaged the journalist, the result will be the same. If it's via email, then you are ignored after the fact. If the journalist won't follow you, you lose your chance to be ignored.

I think the bigger change is that targeting journalists, analysts, and bloggers will combine into "influencer relations".

IR is already taken. What should we call this? IR2? CR? 3R?

[Kim]

if you can't sell your story, idea or pitch in 140 it might not be newsworthy anyway. i can't wait for the day that this is how all PR's pitch in a story, if we can grab someone's attention there is always email to send quotes and any additional information required.

i see the death of the "press release" in the not too distant future

[Lee Aase]

I believe Twitter already is playing a big role for some journalist interactions. Using Twitter to send a link to a password-protected blog post can be brief enough to get attention but yet offer details. And yes, Twitter puts journalists in charge of the relationship because abusers will be un-followed.

[Peter Himler]

Steve,

You acknowledge:

"....journalists are in complete control of the relationship. A PR pro can't direct message a reporter unless he/she is following. This means we have to earn our way on to a reporter's screen by providing valuable content, which many of us but not all of us do."

This may be the single biggest hurdle for making Twitter the preferred channel for engaging journalists. Sure, Scoble and Arrington will agree to follow the PR teams from Google or Apple, but the vast majority of other PR pros -- even those with valuable content -- will remain walled-out from gaining a dialogue with these A-listers.

On the other hand, by retweeting or linking to a journalist's postings, PR pros can begin to make a name for themselves and eventually worm their way onto the journalist's radar. Stroking goes a long way.

[Paul]

I have to agree with this sentiment. While Twitter is growing quickly it will likely be replaced by something else before it can be considered a replacement for email.

[moxie]

Trouble is we PR folk will never find one perfect platform to communicate our client news because every journalist is different. We have to know the preferred communication format, ideal time of day and perfect story angle for each writer. I'll throw a tweet to one person, pick up the phone with someone else and send a lengthy email to another. It's whatever gets the job done.

[Carmen Hughes]

Interesting and timely debate.

Our take on the debate: we don't want to see PR pitches flooding into Twitter like the spammers are starting to roll in with their get rich in 140 characters spiel. Also, unless it is a big breaking news item or pending news conference, we don't think the 140 characters will supplant the traditional route of sending a tailored email to a select reporter.

We did a blog post on this here.http://www.ignitepr.com/blog/2009/05/05/public-relations-don’t-litter-twitter/