#publicrelations and twitter

 

Prior to taking this course, I was tweeting about anything and anyone. I used my twitter solely as a means to communicate with my friends, as well as connect with bands, celebrities and other special interest groups. It occurred to me that one day I would have to *gasp* delete my twitter account once I was a working drone in the world of public relations. However, after having a sneak peek into the world of PR, I realize the words hashtag, retweets, DMs, and @ replies are all important terms. Yep, that’s right; our once beloved unproductive time-waster site has now become an important tool for communicators to engage more efficiently with their audiences. Talk about #irony.

The 140-character- micro-blog provides PR practitioners with many skills they need. Remember those horrific key messages we needed to write in 11 words or less? Well practice with twitter to push past the clutter and get straight to the point.

What twitter can do for PR practitioners:

• Media tracking: What is trending right now. You can either start a trend by hashtaging (#) a topic your tweet is associated with (#publicrelations #mohawkcollege #blog) or contribute to an ongoing conversation with thousands of people online
• Media monitoring: you can also monitor what is being said about your organization and respond to people’s tweets! This brings up the idea of transparency, which is important for all organizations to keep an open, honest relationship with their audience members.
• Live-tweeting: tweeting as you go! Hosting an event or conference with the media? You can tweet up-to-the-minute events to keep followers updated
• Provide product and service information, promote stories and web site/blogs 
• Crisis communication: IMPORTANT! In times of crises, PR practitioners need to get their message out fast and make sure many people hear it. Tweeting your responses and updates will be able to handle a crisis before it gets worse
• Share resources! There are so many valuable resources I’ve found from following PR people that have helped me with this course.
• Connect with reporters: journalists are turning more towards Twitter as a source for their news. Twitter offers PR people access to reporters who are looking for stories to cover. This is also a great opportunity to establish and maintain relationships with reporters so they know who you are.

So start tweeting! Twitter is free, easy to use (and if you still don’t get it, there are many tutorials online like this one).

It’s good to have a social media policy: understand that you are a spokesperson for either yourself or your company. Reputation management! Make sure you aren’t rude or hurtful, but still open and honest. Follow these social media Dos & Don’ts to make sure you are using Twitter to its fullest capacities.

Some valuable people worth following:

@PRnews

@ThePRcoach
@womeninPR1
@MohawkPR09
@5W_PR
@amandabatcage (just for fun...)

So start getting active with twitter because I can guarantee interviewers will ask you about your twitter accounts (I’ve been there) and it’s a great way to get your name out there.

Like what you've read? Learn more about me and my likes here