Advantages of SM (Cont.): Social Media = Increased Contacts

More Outlets to Reach Out

Complementing the advantage of the social media news cycle are the advantages that social media platforms and blogs provide as additional media outlets to pitch products and/or stories to. Public relations professionals have been able to reach out to blogs for at least five years, but every day gives birth to more blogs that are accepted as legitimate sources for news and commentary just as a newspaper would be. As such, public relations professionals must stay on top of new, legitimate blogs as resource to reach out just as they would with new print publications.

As reaching out to bloggers has become a commonplace practice for public relations professionals, contacting Tweeters (a person on/using Twitter) is the next big step for public relations professionals. While Tweeter could be anyone, public relations professionals can concentrate on print/web journalists, bloggers or savvy social media users that have a large following to reach out to with story or product ideas. If pitched successfully, a Tweeter with a large following can deliver a quick news tidbit, opinion and/or website link about a company or organization. Depending on the size of the Tweeters following, this information is directly delivered to consumers as quickly as hard breaking news can be.

My Take: A Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. user makes a conscious decision to follow someone on that service and as such they tend to accept their opinions at face value. So if the Tweeter recommends a website or product, their followers are more likely to, at least, check it out or look at it then if they went to a third party news source that offers less interaction between author and reader.

Even with the limit of 140 characters on Twitter, a well-placed Tweet can provide as much or better exposure then a commentary in a print publication. Pound-for-pound, Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms hold their own for product placement.