“The biggest reason, especially for anyone looking to increase PR, is that Twitter gives you an easily broadcast, unique URL to an audience primed to receive messages of that very kind.
Greetings Friends,
Which social networking site you should be a part of and why?
Tia** breaks it down and shows you how Twitter can be an effective tool to promote and sell your domain, product, business, launch, event, self for a job, book or idea.
Your blog, Twitter, Facebook, your static site, LinkedIn….they all seem to play their part in internet marketing today. It can be tempting, and can sometimes be good, to streamline and only use one or two. It's “good time management” after all. Use these services for very long and you quickly find they all have a unique role. The most common question about Twitter I get is “why does it matter what I'm doing right now?”re: the question Twitter asks you answer).
The biggest reason, especially for anyone looking to increase PR, is that Twitter gives you an easily broadcast, unique URL to an audience primed to receive messages of that very kind.
Think of tweets as dandelion seeds on the wind. The audience, or lawn, receiving the seeds knows that you only have a few characters to say what you will. They stream through and glean the ones that catch their eye…which means, your picture, and your words in those short 140 characters matter. The Tweetiverse is spam savvy…they can tell in the quickest glance who is just spamming and who is sharing something worthwhile. A little effort goes a long way.
—————————————————————————————————————————–
For those with more time today…. Here's an excerpt from Penelope Trunk's blog, The Brazen Careerist:
Pete Blackshaw, from Consumergeneratedmedia.com, says, “PR is not the owner of the story. There are still some PR people who are great at convincing the mainstream media to pick up their client's story. But today, the story, if it goes anywhere, will grow through consumers, online.”
The good news is that finally, there's a social media tool that people expect to see pitches on. No longer do PR types have to annoy bloggers to the point that bloggers create blacklists. Now publicity mavens have a spot of their own, and, big news, the bloggers love trolling Twitter for good pitches.
Here's how it works: The online influencers are on Twitter. They send traffic to blogs and Facebook and StumbleUpon. And those people email their friends, in community-wide missives, and that's how something becomes viral.
The only catch is that PR folks need to get good at pitching in 140 characters.
And sure you can do it without Twitter. But in this situation, Twitter is hard to beat.
“Brands will adopt Twitter for everything from media/influencer outreach to consumer service to crisis communities. But more than any push channel, Twitter will give consumers – advocates and critics —unprecedented access to corporate personnel, and vice versa,” says Scott Monty, author of the Social Media Marketing Blog.
But even the best viral campaigns are not as effective as real conversations. Companies will participate in the conversation instead of paying people to control it. “The consumers who love the company and help vet the storyline will also be keen to help the company succeed –promoting that storyline in … guided content,” according to Todd Defren, who blogs at pr-squared.com.
This is happening now. We're in a recession. So it makes sense that instead of paying expensive PR agencies to work their magic on outdated media gatekeepers you save the money. Instead, train passionate employees and customers to have authentic conversations about the brand.
Here is a great example:
When bombs went off in Mumbai last November, American Express immediately went through their databases to find any customers who might be there. American Express called each customer to see if they needed cash, housing or help getting a way out of the city.
I didn't find this out from the news. The gatekeepers of the media world wouldn't print this. They'd think it was too much like PR.
I heard it from my mom, who works at AmEx. And it didn't feel like PR at all: She was genuinely proud to work for a company that would do that so she wanted people to know.
And I'm telling you because I don't care if something sounds like PR or not. I care if I got a chill when I heard the story. And I did.”
Your quality tweet, with link included, becomes a pointer to the meat of your message: your blog. And your blog should point to your site, where you can be hired. Social media enhances relational marketing; it won't replace your blog or website. It's a valuable tool for helping you get your content seen but handle it with care. Be real and be you. Respect the audience and their ability to process information with incredible speed. People are not numbers and I wouldn't recommend setting an extreme goal of say, “5000” friends or followers because you'll get out of it what you put into it. If you see numbers without stories, you'll get numbers (as in spyder hits) without hires.
Will you be the next “Alice in Twitterland” ??
**Tia, TheBlogsultant.com
on Twitter: RedGypsie